A Turkey Called Brotherhood

(yet another hat tip to Renee @ Womanist Musings)

This is pretty obnoxious.

Basic rundown: A pair of schools have a Thanksgiving tradition of dressing one kindergarten class up as indians and one as pilgrims. They have a parade and then go have a party together. This year, a parent who is actually native, protested this event, calling out the lie that children are being forced to believe, the lie of the peaceful coming together of white settlers with native tribes. She also protested the racist stereotypes being perpetuated by the "indian"costumes.

The thing that chaps my ass is all of these white people trying to claim that this is not offensive at ALL! That these are just CHILDREN! Enjoying a holiday TRADITION! I am so glad that these privileged asswipes can conveiniently forget that by TEACHING these children this tradition, they are continuing the myth of a benevolent white man vs the gentle savage. I really wish they would blow it right out of their asses. As the member of the group that benefits from the oppression of the other, YOU DON'T GET TO SAY WHAT IS OFFENSIVE TO THEM! This is Don't Be An Asshole 101 folks.

These white people wringing their hands about telling children the truth of their history reminds me somewhat of this clip:

I normally don't like South Park all that much, but every once in a while, they have a really good point. That IS how it actually happened. This idea that white people calmly showed brown people their "better ways" in the spirit of brotherhood and Christian Godliness is blatantly false, besides being obnoxious and racist as fuck.


And if we are really going to clutch our pearls and gasp about "THE CHILDREN," consider this: what about those native children, who learn their history from the perspective of people who think that it is okay to ignore the massive damage done to their people? They learn that their history doesn't matter, only the history of the white man matters. Renee says it very well:

It is further disgusting that children are being taught this falsehood as a method of maintaining white hegemony through the physical performance of revisionist history. The indoctrination of children with revisionist history is part of the way that racism passes from one generation to another.

Of course to a child this seems like a harmless tradition, they have no knowledge of history. They count on us as adults to be their guides and tell them the truth. This is an abdication of our responsibility to educate them.

Native culture has repeatedly been appropriated. We see it show up in the form of mascots for sporting teams as a normalized display. People seem to feel that it is their right to cheapen and demean the culture of another, while telling the oppressed community that they are being too sensitive.(go read her post Teaching The Young To Disrespect Indigenous Culture. I'll wait here)

The myth of the peaceful thanksgiving is regularly offered up in order to forget that the real beginning of this country was violent, painful and bloody. What happened to the native population of this hemisphere when Europeans came here was GENOCIDE. Nothing less.

We continue this heroification of the white people who came here and supposedly built this amazing civilization out of nothing, ignoring the rape, enslavement, murder, cannibalism and early germ warfare that made all of this possible.

These lands were not "discovered" by Europeans. You cannot "discover" a place where people are already living! Many of these colonies would not have survived if not for the work already done by tribes living there previously, if not for stealing from the tribes who were still there, if not for enslaving members of these tribes, if not for living off of the decomposing bodies of natives who were killed by epidemics spread from early European explorers, if not for slaughtering whole cultures.

Whole cultures, languages, ways of life are GONE, destroyed by this idea that God gave White people dominion over the Earth.

I will be using this day to teach my children about the cultures that were here already, about what happened to them, about what their lives are like now. I do not accept this white-washing of my history.

As a kid, I always wanted to do a Weddnesday Addams when confronted with this season:

Granted, a good deal of what occurs leading up to her soliloquy is offensive as hell, which is not surprising considering it is intended to show a white privileged man's perspective of the Thanksgiving myth.

In the end, I believe we have an obligation to be honest about our history. There is no excuse for ignorance, and no excuse for degrading displays of faux "brotherhood." These myths are dangerous, despite what some may think. They allow those of us who are granted white privilege to pat ourselves on the back and escape our responsibility to end oppressions that we benefit from. They create an environment where understanding of current effects that can be traced back to these event is impossible, because without honesty in regards to our history, we have no realistic idea of the true roots of injustice. These myths create an attitude that we white western people can still charge into whatever country we want and do whatever we please because we forget that we aren't the saviors of the goddamn world. They allow us to be blind to the personhood of others, and to the actual effect we have on the world. They allow us to continue to marginalize and oppress others simply for not being one of us.

"Post Racism" my shiny white behind

There has been some buzz lately that the election of an African American to the highest office in the land means the end of racism in America.

...

...

...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

oh yeah, that's a good one. No seriously.

You see, in the REAL world where progressives function, we know this is not the case. One man does not a glass ceiling shatter. We have seen things like this stated before, like when Geraldine Ferraro was on the Mondale ticket, or even more recently, with the Clinton and Palin insanity this last election.

Every time something vaguely progressive happens, it is treated as though this one thing means all oppressions are now officially "out of style," it just isn't cool or with it to be a misogynist, racist fuckneck anymore.

That doesn't stop rising,
racially motivated crimes. (Second and third graders chanting "Assassinate Obama!" for fucks sake?)

To think that it does is to apply a gloss over the realities that people live with, like the likelyhood of being murdered for not fitting gender norms particulary if one is a person of color.

Don't be fooled.

Power systems survive by duping the less powerful into thinking that one small inch forward is equivalent to a major achievement. Its a pat on the head to silence those of us who want to live our lives without oppression informing every move we make.

In the immortal words of Melissa McEwan, promise to keep working my teaspoon, even when my arms are tired.

Fifth Sacred thing

I never realized how much I enjoy watching scenery pass by while I’m traveling. That is what I have always loved about train and car trips. That was what made the trip from Philadelphia to State College worth it. I caught myself watching the greenery by the tracks on the way to work this morning. I felt like I was seeing a hidden pattern in the green, like the code to life was hidden in the plants, the secret pattern that holds the universe together. I get so oddly rambly and introspective in the early morning. :-p

I also just noticed that I still have a tendency to try and rationalize away my perception of the world. I see things in a certain way and I find it odd only because I so rarely see or hear this way of seeing expressed by anyone else. When I do its put into these terms that make it so distant for anybody that is skeptical of the viewpoint that generates them it gets dismissed as “new age” and “floaty spiritual” stuff. It is too close to the vision and not close enough to the language of those who have yet to see it.

Is the idea of One-ness scary? Would it mean that people have to think about the state of the world and the way we are treating it? I know that the spouse has felt this and has seen it. Zie told me. Yet zie also seems to both dull certain perceptions and heightens others by using substances during these experiences. It seems as though zie is heightening hir awareness of this but dulling hir motivation to do anything with this feeling. I have also found that as much as it can enhance the perceptions and the feeling of connectedness, it’s harder to remember that feeling, and to access it later when sober. The ability to access this feeling at any time, or all times, is vitally important. I feel it is the way we should feel at all times. It would motivate people to care about the world around them and to make actions that are good for all instinctual. Oh Lord, I’m expecting everyone to behave as empaths. This is different though. This is empathy for the world that we are part of, not separate from. This is empathy for us.

Maybe this driving need people have to ignore the planet, to separate themselves from nature and the world, to act as though the world is something for them to use instead of a vast system that they are a part of, is born from some sort of inner hatred of self. I could draw lines between the system that the Abrahamic religions have become with the concepts of original sin, and man being naturally both a sinner simply from the act of existing and at the same time lord of the earth, but I hate playing the blame game. Suffice it to say that several factors over the development of Western civilizations have led to this remove from the world around us. We create little environments that have structured, controlled variables; walls, cooled or heated air, cooled or heated water, drains to pull away the natural processes of the human body, prepackaged foods, and refrigeration that allows us to eat whatever we want whenever we want regardless of whether it is the appropriate time of year for it or not. We have made actions that damage or compromise the cleanliness of these created environments socially unacceptable at best and illegal at worst. For example, smoking indoors. To smoke inside a house, even if it’s your own, is considered disgusting, rude and destructive. Many cities across the US have also made it illegal to smoke inside of any public building, restaurants and bars included.

These bans are a perfect example of this remove from nature and how we view our artificial environments as more important than the greater environment in which we all reside. It is still legal to have an industry that pollutes ground water and sends carcinogens flying into the atmosphere. On an even smaller scale, its perfectly legal, expected even, that people should smoke outside. This way of thinking shows the underlying hypocrisy of what is valued. Subconsciously, we believe as a culture that polluting the world that we all depend on is okay, but God forbid we pollute our little universes that we have created, because that is more real, more important than the outside world.

We can control these little environments we have created, but we can’t control the world around us. This is a terrifying thought, if you only feel safe in a completely predictable environment. I find it boring in the extreme. Yes, living as I did was hard. Yes, having access to indoor plumbing has improved my health and demeanor. Yes having access to all of these things has made working towards some of my goals much easier. However, I know what it is like to give up that control, to live with the unpredictability of the world and people around me with no walls to enclose it and to have control of nothing but my own actions. I know what it is like to survive without all of these little comforts we allow ourselves. I can see these things as they are now, comforts, and in some cases blessings. They are also tools to be used, not systems to be dependent on. They are not things that should be expected or taken for granted.

Honestly, if it were up to me (which it isn’t, but a girl can dream :-)), I would have everyone as a part of their education spend at the very least two months living with nothing but the most basic of supplies and the knowledge of how to make it from day to day. Train people in what it takes to make it through the day without running water, and controlled climates, electricity, or cooking gas; without refrigeration, artificial or out of season foods, or mindless ways to waste time in the name of entertainment. Let people learn to live from the land and with other people. Destroy the remove. I would make them stay there until they understand that they should value their luxuries as what they are, and value the Earth more, because that is what actually sustains them. Also to value the people around them, to learn that any group of people can be a community and that if people work together, they are much stronger than trying to strike out on their own.

Its time to wake up, people. We are part of the Earth, not separate from it or above it. We do not own it; we cannot buy it, sell it, or steal it. Saying you own the land is like saying that you own your mother’s uterus, and I certainly don’t see anyone staring a war over that. So in essence, all of these disputes over land, they are the global equivalent of sibling rivalry, children fighting over which one of them Mom loves the best. I also am sick of hearing the arguments that since the issues with the environment aren’t as bad as the rabid hippie environmentalists say, that we can continue on our headlong rush to use as much as possible while removing ourselves from the world. That reminds me of the parents who beat their child and rationalize it by saying that it’s not as bad as the beatings that they received as children. I’m going to say this once, but I’m going to say it loud to make sure I’m understood: JUST BECAUSE IT COULD BE A LOT WORSE DOES NOT MEAN IT IS GOOD! Just because you have a cold instead of the flu, it doesn't mean that you don't feel like shit, and it doesn't mean that you aren't sick. Yes, it could be worse, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take steps to make it better.