#And brutally killing indigenous people worldwide

[beardedmrbean]

While much of the West remains focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, a barbaric assault on Africans is taking place, yet this is hardly noticed. There is an active strategy by certain politicians and the mainstream media to cover it up.

A struggle today for Africa launched by Islamic terrorists is something Western elites wish to ignore, even as thousands of innocents are being brutally murdered, raped, burned alive, and taken captive. It is mostly a war waged against black Christians by African Islamists—and therefore an awfully sensitive subject. The recent Christmas attack against Christians in Nigeria claimed the lives of almost 200 people, yet it was mostly ignored in the mainstream press.

Some took notice when this centuries-old religious conflict flared in 1989, as Sudan's jihad slaughtered 2.5 million Christians and enslaved perhaps 200,000 more. It ended only in 2005, when the U.S. helped broker a peace deal; in 2011, the south succeeded and become South Sudan, the world's newest nation. More recently, Islamist attacks have spread where Islamic and Christian societies intersect: Mozambique, Niger, and Mali. In Darfur, there is a bit of a twist: Arab jihadists are slaughtering and enslaving Black people who converted to Islam long ago, but refuse to adopt Arab culture and language and who, in addition to being thought of as racially inferior, are not considered real Muslims.

Since the mainstream media is mostly absent, people in the West do not know that these African communities are continuously facing attacks that look very like the widely seen Hamas raids. Yet any decent reporter can easily see the pattern—Islamic jihadists throughout Africa, driven by the near-identical supremacist ideology, storm our villages, slaughter our people with guns and knives, rape our women, and take dozens into captivity.

When African children and women are killed in their sleep, teenage girls sexually trafficked across the Mediterranean, and young boys kidnapped for use as child soldiers, there is no global response. Terrorism is planned, funded, and executed by terrorists and their global networks. Why are there no reports analyzing funders and planners of terrorist murder in Nigeria, of genocidal assaults in Africa?

Can it be because we are Black, and the world just doesn't care about us? Or is it that jihad is just too taboo a topic for the Western press and the human rights community? As the U.S. and Europe look away, we Black Africans die. How is this not a sin?

The U.S. confused the entire world with a narrative that blames climate change for religious conflicts in Africa. According to the State Department, climate change has been depleting water supplies in the Lake Chad region. A scramble for water resources sets nomadic cattle herders (who just happen to be Muslims) against the Indigenous subsistence farmers (who just happen to be mostly Christians), attacking them and banishing them from their ancestral lands. The stark but more inconvenient truth is that Muslim terrorists, waging an Islamic "holy war," are overrunning Christian villages throughout the Lake Chad area and north-central regions of Nigeria. The U.S. Department of State insists on tagging the violence as a farmers versus herders conflict, which, according to a 2023 travel advisory bulletin, "can flare up ... in rural areas." Though Nigeria is the place where 89 percent of the Christians killed for their faith worldwide in 2023 were murdered, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from the U.S. list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious oppression, and has never put it back on.

This false narrative is used to obscure the unnerving truth about the nature of the conflict that, if acknowledged, would demand a serious effort by the U.S. to protect our vulnerable Christian African villages from people who want to slaughter and enslave us because of our identity. Our "climate" has changed when armed terrorists surround our villages. But the continued cloaking of Islamic terrorism in a weather narrative has exacerbated the killings and expanded the slaughtering fields of women and children in north-central Nigeria and the Sahel—the horizontal strip across north Africa which culturally divides Arabized Africa from the Indigenous, traditional cultures of the south.

The truth is plain and simple—terrorists take up arms. They kill and take Indigenous people captive. They annex and grab their lands. They call it jihad. Period.

The global community, especially the United States, seems to lack the will to address these genocidal onslaughts. Western inaction spells doom for Africans who are being overrun by jihadists.

What happened to the sleeping citizens in Nigeria's Plateau State, murdered in their hundreds during Christmas Eve 2023, is no different than what happened to Jewish families in their kibbutzim on Oct. 7. Yet no one takes notice. No one hears the cries of the survivors.

The world's silence about the plight of Africans must end.

Stephen S. Enada is executive president of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON).

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[acerathia]

we all know the bds movement and this list:

and Disney is on one of the pressure targets, rather than a boycott target. Still, the bds movement has already announced (April 27, 2023) the boycott of Marvel's apartheid Israel superhero movie, which is supposed to premier February 2024. This is the content of their letter:

Palestinians call for widespread boycotts of Marvel’s 2024 film, Captain America: New World Order, unless it drops Sabra/Ruth Bat-Seraph, its “superhero” that personifies the apartheid state of Israel. The character’s backstory includes working for the Israeli government and occupation forces. By reviving this racist character in any form, Marvel is promoting Israel’s brutal oppression of Palestinians. We encourage creative, peaceful protests to challenge Marvel Studios’ – and its owner Disney’s – complicity in anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people. Principled filmgoers would have boycotted a movie featuring a superhero that represented the South African apartheid regime. Likewise, we urge conscientious audiences worldwide to join us in boycotting Captain America: New World Order, and standing up for freedom, justice and equality.

It's rather disgusting and grosteque that this move has been approved to even be shown in theaters. Still, it's no surprise, as Disney cares more about money than about the actual lives of human beings. Additionally, the character 'Sabra' shares a name with the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982 in Lebanon, where Israel has killed Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians. A horrific event in history, yet they seem to not take the suffering of thousands of people seriously.

Do not stop boycotting!! Until Free Palestine can be spelled backwards!

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[vakarians-babe]

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It's really important that more people talk about what is going on and has been going on in India regarding Sikh activists and even just. Normal people. It was announced on February 15th that Deep Sidhu had died following a suspicious car crash, where his passenger survived (though news outlets vary on how seriously they say they were hurt and what their identity is, it seems that it was his girlfriend). This comes after he was arrested for being outspoken on the issue of the Farmers Protest and held in jail for several months last year. This was because his activism was deemed illegal, as the Sikh Press Association states.

While we don't know for sure what happened, we do know that this comes in a long line of suspicious actions against Sikh activists and humans' rights violations, as documented by Ensaaf here. Spreading awareness of what's been happening and continues to happen is crucial. Since the 1984 Sikh Massacre, it seems as though things have only been getting worse. Despite Sikhi being the fifth-largest faith worldwide, the Indian government still blames Sikh people and activists for a large number of issues, and often refuses to acknowledge the damage done by the 1984 killings.

Although the Farm Bills were repealed in November, this is no guarantee that they will stay repealed. Elections are approaching and for many, the repeal is a sign only that the protests were becoming too inconvenient. The government has still not met its 2016 goal of 'doubling farmers' income' by 2022, nor has it agreed to guarantee minimum support prices (MSPs) to ensure that corporations cannot control the prices of foodstuffs, a major concern since the bills took away regulations for the selling of produce to corporations. Things have been at a crisis point for a long time, as was made very clear by the widespread brutality against protesters from September of 2020 through the repeal bill's passing in November of 2021. Estimates state that around 750 protesters died or were killed, some from heart attacks and exposure, some from suicide, some from suspicious accidents, and some in episodes of violence and police brutality.

Punjab, a state where approximately 70% of the population is involved in/supported by agriculture, is also a Sikh majority state. Following the violent partition in 1947, the state was again reorganized in 1966, leading to more disputes. Primarily, though, it is important to note that it was the center of the so-called 'Green Revolution,' which did away with indigenous crop varieties in favor of monocultures and cash crops that are prone to failure and require chemical assistance to grow, which has been linked to increased cancer rates. Debt levels in Punjab are also approximately 2.5 times the national average, and all these issues have been linked to increasing suicide rates in the state.

Sikh advocacy played a crucial role in the protests, and many Sikh activists like Deep Sidhu were responsible for the global recognition the protests received. The principles of Sikhi are ones of protection and social justice. And it is no coincidence that Sikhs have been targeted as a religious/social minority since 1947. The protests may be over in the public eye, but this does not end for the farmers of Punjab. It does not end for politically active Sikhs. It does not end for the Sikh community at large as we are called to protect those in need. Consider the way that Modi's government threatened to jail workers of Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp if they did not give up information on accounts related to the protests. Consider the way that internet service was cut to throttle communication during the protests in January of 2021. Sikhs have been silenced, shoved aside, disappeared, and detained. Do not look away.

[fatehbaz]

At least 272 environmental defenders were killed between 2001 and 2019, according to the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, a network of Philippine environmental organizations. More than half of them were protesting mines, like the three young farmers in Masbate province on the island of Luzon, who were killed in October 2017 after they were red-tagged. The three farmers had opposed the Masbate Gold Project, the country’s top gold producer, according to Kalikasan.

A third of those killed were Indigenous, like the Lumad leaders from the island of Mindanao in 2015. The Lumad have long been displaced by the encroachment of mining companies on their homes. [E.C.] vividly remembers the events of September 1, 2015, when armed men came to their Indigenous community in Sitio Han-ayan, Diatagon, and gathered roughly 200 men, women, and children in a local basketball court. Then, in front of them, the gunmen shot community leaders Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo -- [E.C.’s] uncle. [...] “It felt like our world had collapsed.”

After the September killings, about 3,000 Lumad evacuated their ancestral lands and moved to the town of Lianga, over 25 kilometres away.

“We are basically living with half of our body already six feet under.”

Since Duterte came into power in 2016, extrajudicial killings, including those of land defenders, have skyrocketed. Environmental watchdog Global Witness declared the Philippines the deadliest country for land and environmental defenders in 2018, when 30 people were killed. Last year [2019], over half of the 212 reported killings worldwide occurred in just two countries: Colombia, with 64 activists killed, and the Philippines, with 43. [...]

A number of activists and experts say some of the extrajudicial killings and forced displacement are byproducts of Canadian mining in the Philippines. In most cases, the Canadian government offers little recourse for those harmed. The activists point out that because the Philippines is rich in natural resources, and law enforcement violently punishes people resisting development, the country is attractive for companies that want to mine with few regulations. [...]

“The mining industry is Canada’s flagship industry overseas,” said Catherine Coumans, a research coordinator with MiningWatch Canada. [...]

Australian-Canadian company OceanaGold, owner of one of the largest gold-copper mines in the world out of the Philippines, said [...] “[w]e do not have firsthand knowledge of what is happening at other mine sites across the Philippines [...].”

One of the Philippines' worst ever environmental disasters took place in March 1996 at a Canadian mining site in Marinduque, an island in the southwest. [...] The waste flooded nearby villages and the Boac River, which was full of fish and shrimp. Hundreds of people were displaced, including 400 families who lived in Barangay Hinapulan, a village that was buried in 6 feet of muddy water. [...] According to a 2019 two-part series by independent media outlet VERA Files, the Boac river is still biologically dead and local residents in Marinduque [...] continue to suffer from skin irritation, fatigue, and body aches as a result of heavy metals -- like lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, copper, and chromium -- flowing through their blood.

Things are getting worse.

This is not surprising, given Duterte’s ongoing brutal drug war that has resulted in the deaths of about 27,000 Filipinos through alleged extrajudicial killings at the hands of police. [...]

Canada is turning a blind eye. [...]

In the Philippines, most activists and Indigenous peoples continue to defend their communities and the environment largely on their own.

-----

Anya Zoledziowski and Natashya Gutierrez. “Land Defenders Are Killed in the Philippines for Protesting Canadian Mining.” Vice World News. 1 October 2020.

[elfwreck]

I believe the deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward are frequently put on the "killed by atheists" side of the scale by Christians who want to think atheists suck so they don't have to look at their own community. That's somewhere from 10-45 million depending on how you count.

(continued) although if christians want to include death by starvation from great leap forward they should also include the genocide of the native americans and the irish potato famine which were orchestrated by christians. I don't remember those numbers

Okay, that makes sense.

I mean. I think it's a deeply flawed approach - if we start counting "people who died as the result of ideological policies that had religious connections" that's, um... every war ever and the entire history of colonialism.

But at least it gives me some explanation why someone would think "atheists have killed millions!!!"

But.

Genghis Khan's regime is estimated to have killed 40 to 80 million people.

Estimates are that 12 million Indigenous people died from the colonialist expansion in the United States between 1492 and 1900. So that's "killed by Christians."

Irish potato famine is about 1 million.

Shall we count the three-quarters of a million people who died of AIDS in the US due to Christian-managed policies that prevented developing medical treatments?

There have been about 40 million HIV deaths worldwide... how many of those should we count as being based on Christian refusal to provide medical support that any other disease would get?

The idea that atheists are more brutal and destructive than people of (other) religions is not held up by the historical evidence.

[writingwithcolor]

In my setting, 90% of the world is uninhabited wilderness due to monsters, and inhabited lands must be cleansed and then inhabited(with most political units being large city states or republics). My setting is also entering a colonial era of exploration, but I'm wondering how to portray colonization when any colonizers would naturally settle and build on unoccupied land, and wouldn't take over entire continents and dominate indigenous peoples, and I'm wondering if that might be separating

(2/2) colonialism from it’s realistic brutal history, as even if colonizers tried to take over natives and exploit them for resources, they simply wouldn’t be able to conquer/subjugate them and their entire land, which makes me wonder how I should portray colonization/worldwide expansion at all(especially since trying to represent future developments like Afro-American culture or poc with European religions/names divorced from their violent original history seems like whitewashing colonialism)

Monsters and Fantasy Colonization

It is whitewashing colonialism, but perhaps not for the reason you think. And that reason is that colonizers thought the lands they colonized were uninhabitable untamed wilderness due to “monsters”: Indigenous peoples.

A major goal of colonialism was to hunt and kill and enslave and generally “cleanse” the “monsters” in order to make room for white Europeans. It’s one of the reasons the concept of race was invented: to classify not white-Europeans as less human, therefore more monstrous, therefore perfectly fine to hunt and kill and enslave.  

You legitimately cannot make this scenario not hurtful the way it is. If they really are monsters and lack sentience, then you codify the concept that colonizers are justified in taking over everything to “civilize” the “wilderness” (hint: colonized lands were never “untamed wilderness” and were actually very carefully curated, constantly-managed ecosystems. Yes this is anywhere humans lived). If you give them even a little bit of sentience, then you have 100% recreated Earth colonialism. And all animals have some degree of sentience, working under their own rules for how they behave.

Attack on Titan as example

A really, really good example of how subtle but how insidiously evil this “the only safe place is this small area” attitude can be is Attack on Titan. If you’re unfamiliar, Attack on Titan has people live in walled cities because outside of the walls are full of “monsters”, the Titans, who eat people. A major goal of the cities’ government is to kill as many of these “monsters” as possible, to make sure humans can expand back out and stop living in walled cities. This is even after it’s revealed Titans have human forms.

Now toss in the knowledge that the author is a Nazi sympathizer and the “monsters” stop being monsters and start being Jewish (as the series progresses, all people who have the ability to shift into Titans are marked with star patches on arm bands. I should not need to explain why this is bad).

Dehumanization and Eugenics

The concept you can’t co-exist with monsters is a very… colonizer thing. It’s rooted in various xenophobic attitudes that colonizing nations around the globe have perpetuated to justify their goals of taking over everything. There’s a reason that one of the steps for genocide is dehumanization: colonization leads to genocide. So by setting up this world as “out there is nothing but monsters, we can’t go there unless we destroy things and make this safe”, you’re living up to centuries of colonizer attitudes that have been passed down through culture as “necessary”. When it’s not.

The fact you use the word “cleanse” is very much a dogwhistle for Nazi (/generally eugenic) ideals. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but when you start using such clinical, dehumanizing, genocidal words… marginalized people especially are going to draw parallels to various supremacists who have used that word in the past. A “population cleanse” is eugenics, full stop.

Co-existing with the monsters

You have the option to make it so they learn to live with the monsters and treat the monsters as part of the world, a necessary part of the world, and have rules in place to protect everyone the majority of the time. Maybe always have a fire roaring at camp so they know to stay away. Maybe leave out offerings so the monsters don’t feel the need to hunt you and learn it’s better to leave you alone because you help. Clear paths that make it easier for everyone to navigate the world. Hunt only what you need, making sure to leave plenty to go around, both plant and animal.

You don’t have to see outsiders as monsters. They can just exist, under their own rules, and all of those rules can coexist. Because monsters or not, they are part of the planet’s biodiversity, and just for that sole reason, they deserve respect.

~Mod Lesya

More on this Story’s Parallels to Colonization 

I need to ask this question - are these colonizers the protagonists, or in any way portrayed as the “good guys”? Because in that case, I’m sitting here wondering why the word “colonial” needs to preface the idea of “era of exploration” at all.

As Mod Lesya so thoughtfully and thoroughly explained above, the current scenario is very hurtful. The very idea of “uninhabited wilderness” existing is rooted in the idea that if some place doesn’t have the “humans” aka colonizers living there, then it’s unoccupied and free real estate. This is frankly untrue if anything is living there, even if said inhabitants are seemingly monstrous. That place is not wilderness and is not uninhabited, it is already occupied and the territory of others and humans are the guests at best and intruders at worst. That should give you perspective that this is not people just taking over free land that no one else is using, this is people taking over with force a land that the natives were already living on, and it’s hard to see this as anything other than an aggressive takeover with dehumanization and genocide.

Plot and Characterization 

If these humans want or need to explore the world and spread out due to sympathetic reasons (aka they are supposed to be the good guys), then take out colonialism. People can leave their homes and go to different continents and make a place for themselves without colonialism. Let them be immigrants, let them be travelling merchants, let them be ambitious explorers, whatever you want them to be, as long as they respect the natives. Let your humans remember that they do not have any inherent right to what the land has to offer. If they’re going out to the world, they should learn that they have no right to take over and “fix things” to their tastes, and instead must learn how to be part of what is already there.

-Mod Rune

[horsesarecreatures]

Choctaw Indian Pony -

“Researching the history of the Choctaw horse (pronounced CHOCK-taw)—also known as the Choctaw Indian Pony—is like tracing the delicate lines of a once colorful thread woven throughout a time-worn and fading tapestry. I was transfixed, awed, enchanted and, at times, deeply saddened as the fabric of this endangered breed’s story unraveled before me, most of it left out of our school history curriculums…The Choctaw horse is a Colonial Spanish horse, though you will rarely hear them referred to by this name. Easily confused with the wild horses the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees, they are often called “mustangs,” a term frequently and indiscriminately conferred on any feral horse of any genetic background. Today, only a very small number of feral horses (mustangs) bear the true Spanish type and breeding. Overall, Colonial Spanish horses of all bloodlines number about 3,000, while the total number of pure Choctaw horses is only about 250 animals.  The surviving Colonial Spanish Choctaw horses, however, are proven to be direct descendants of horses brought to the New World in the 1500s by the Spanish Conquistadors. Dr. Phillip Sponenberg, Professor of Pathology and Genetics at Virginia Tech University has devoted much of the last thirty years to ensuring the genetic integrity of the breed’s survival. “Colonial Spanish Horses are of great historic importance and are one of only a very few genetically unique horse breeds worldwide. Choctaw horses are one of a handful of distinct Native American tribal strains of Colonial Spanish Horse that are surviving by a thin thread,” he explains. The mythology of the Choctaw horse is complex, romantic and heart-rending.

While it may seem strange to envision Native Americans without horses, it wasn’t until the 1600s that indigenous Americans living in the deep South first encountered the animals. Hernando de soto and his invading Spaniards, searching for the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola (rumored to be overflowing with gold and riches) were the first to ride horses into Mississippi. The local Choctaw people dubbed the mysterious animals “spirit dogs.”  The seemingly friendly Spaniards soon proved otherwise. In the ensuing struggles, the brave and noble Choctaw managed to retain their rightful land and avoid enslavement—and they acquired a few of the Spaniards “spirit dogs,” as well.

In addition to horses, the Spanish also introduced cattle, goats, sheep and hogs to the native population. The Choctaw soon became adept at raising livestock, and the “spirit dogs” quickly became an integral part of the Choctaw culture. The characteristics and traits of the small and sturdy horses facilitated their deep integration into tribal life. They were athletic and possessed great endurance, with sound legs and tough hooves. Despite their smaller stature of 13.2-14.3 hands, the horses were able to carry a 200 plus pound man in 50 and 100 mile races. The equines quiet, people-oriented dispositions endeared them to the Choctaw and the animals soon became indispensable in hunting and farming.

Interestingly, the Choctaw women were considered “keepers of the horse,” according to screenwriter John Fusco whose movie Hidalgo was the story of Frank Hopkins and his Indian pinto pony.

‘The men did the hunting and it was their wives’ task to track and locate the kill on horseback, with little more than a broken twig here and there to mark the trail. On her sunset-and cornsilk-colored pony the Choctaw Woman would ride into a tangled maze of indigo bush and brambles, follow the trail without breaking gait, and locate the gift deer. Even five moons pregnant it didn’t matter; her Choctaw pony was born gaited, like riding a cloud. With her knife she’d dress the deer and sling the heavy meat up across the packsaddle. Laying some tobacco in gratitude, she’d remount and start for home.’

For three hundred years the Choctaw lived peaceably as accomplished agriculturalists and by the 1800s had developed a lucrative trade network with the areas that would later become Texas and Oklahoma, a feat which traveling on horseback had made possible. The high quality of their livestock, horses in particular, had become legendary, written about in travels journals of the era, including those of Lewis and Clark.

The Choctaw continued to prosper as a nation until Andrew Jackson signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in September of 1830, proclaimed in February 1831, designating Oklahoma ‘Indian Territory.’ Thousands of Choctaw were forced at gunpoint to leave their beloved homeland in what was termed the ‘Relocation.’

Leaving their ancestral farms and forests to make way for Anglo plantation owners, they marched on foot (often barefoot) along what would come to be known as the Trail of Tears. Their loyal horses, with small bells tinkling like wind chimes fastened to their manes, carried children, the old and infirm through extremely cold weather and blizzards.

It is thought that as many as 4,000-5,000 of the 16,000 native people forced to relocate perished along the route. The tribe would prove resilient in the new territory until the Civil War and then, finally, Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907, when their nation would cease to exist as a separate entity. Tragically, their beloved horses did not fare as well.

The US Government sanctioned the extermination of the Indian horses in an effort to more easily force the Indians onto reservations. Because the Native American’s horses were of spiritual significance in the tribal culture (as was the land), confiscating them was a strategy to break the tribe’s spirit. But the fleet-footed ponies proved hard to catch. And unbeknownst to the cavalry, a handful of families in isolated pockets on the reservations sought to preserve the ancestral bloodlines, guarding and breeding their prized horses.

By the turn of the century, the handful of Choctaw  horses remaining sported long Spanish manes and came in a variety of colors: line-backed dun, varnish roan, blacks and bays and leopards among them. They were intelligent and possessed uncanny cow sense, a constitution that could survive on scrub grass, and a “butter smooth” ride. But by 1950 most of the Choctaw elders had passed on—and along with them the esoteric wisdom and zeal for preserving the rare pedigreed ponies that had accompanied them through times both good and bad.

Then another challenge arose: the US. Government imposed the Tick Eradication Program, ordering every wild pony in Oklahoma to be shot. A twist of fate in the form of a young cowboy named Gilbert H. Jones would turn the tables in the breed’s favor. G. H. Jones had a life-long passion for pure Spanish mustangs (now called Spanish Colonial Horses). He left New Mexico because his horses were being slaughtered by neighbors for their meat, and he had only one remaining stallion.    

Moving into the Kiamichi Mountains in southeastern Oklahoma, he obtained grazing permits from a local timber company and with the help of a friend, Robert Brislawn, began the process of rebuilding a pure Colonial Spanish Horse herd.

Jones happened upon some Choctaw elders who respected the young white man’s dedication and helped him acquire several Choctaw mares and an additional stallion—an impressive buckskin and white pinto named “Rooster.” Rooster’s ancestry could be traced directly back to the Trail of Tears. Jones’ restoration of a small herd of Choctaw horses had begun.

Savvy and industrious, Jones had become aware of Frank T. Hopkins. Hopkins and his Indian pony Hidalgo (the inspiration for the 2004 motion picture) had demonstrated the breed’s merits through long endurance races, and Jones aimed to do the same. Between long trail rides and brutal endurance events, Rooster’s bloodlines eventually became legendary.

By the 1980’s, Jones’s herd numbered close to one hundred pure horses. Jones continued to work tirelessly to preserve the Choctaw Indian Pony well into his elderly years. He died in 2000 at the age of 93, passing down his research and conservation work to Bryant and Darlene Rickman, who still breed and preserve Jones’ horses on his original land.

Dr. Phillip Sponenberg works closely with the Rickmans, contributing his advanced genetic research, as well as serving as Technical Advisor for the ALBC (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy). Dr. Sponenberg also serves as an Advisor to Red Road Farm and the Choctaw Indian Conservation Program, founded by the writer and filmmaker who made the Disney movie Hidalgo: John Fusco.” - Cowgirl Magazine

[plannedparenthood]

COVID-19: No, We're Not All in This Together

The pandemic, the protests, and why racism endures as a public health crisis

By: Ylonda Gault

My daddy used to say: When America gets the sniffles, Black people catch pneumonia. My dad didn't invent the saying but he used it to explain everything from the war on drugs to the 1990s national recession. Even as a child I knew what he meant. In other words, the country's history of institutional racism and unjust policies make every part of Black life — including economic growth, fair housing, health care access and more — exponentially harder than it is for others. Today, as worldwide protests against police brutality continue and COVID-19 ravages the Black community, we see clearly that old sayings are so often repeated because they bear truth.  

The pandemic, a danger for all, is lethal for Black people, who’ve died at a rate of  61.6 per 100,000 people, compared with 26.2 for whites. Yet, this peril is not new. We’ve been brutalized for generations. The murders of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and George Floyd, to name but a few, are only an extension of plantation overseer violence and Klan lynchings that have been hallmarks of our 400-year existence in America. In recent weeks, the streets have erupted because structural racism is — and has long been —the public health crisis that no masks, sanitizer, or social distancing can remedy. 

With widespread mandated sheltering and business shutdowns, the serious and potentially deadly infection — caused by a virus for which there is no known cure, vaccine or treatment  — has meant lost income or job loss for some and, for others, a huge inconvenience. But research shows that Black people are much more likely not only to get infected with COVID-19 — but to die from the disease because racism undergirds our health care systems, workplace policies, and the environment.  — Indigenous and Latino communities are also more vulnerable. 

That’s not because we are, as a race, doing something to cause infection. We’re not to blame. Nor is it because we’re unhealthy as a group, or because of something in our biology.

Why are Black communities hit hardest? 

Institutional racism is the pre-existing condition that has left Black communities far more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others. While many think the racist barriers to Black people's rights and freedom came to a close with the end to enslavement, they have not only persisted — but grown more entrenched. From Jim Crow segregation, voting and housing discrimination, to heavy-handed policing, generation after generation of targeted bigotry has led to a lack of equity in health care, housing, education, and opportunity. For example, for Black people who work in the service sector; their jobs put them at greater risk of getting COVID-19 — as does the environment. These circumstances are not the result of bad luck or poor choices; they’re created by a long legacy of racist policies that have put Black people in harm's way and made our communities more at risk from the virus that causes COVID-19 than white people 

Of course, chief among the risk factors is the barrier to health care access. Black people who work in low-wage jobs usually lack insurance, leading to delayed or bypassed essential health care services — because of the cost. We’re also more likely to live farther away from medical care and face language barriers. And Black people and other folks of color are distrustful of health care professionals because of historical mistreatment. The U.S medical establishment has a history of exploiting Black folks, Latinos, and Indigenous people by performing medical experiments on them without consent, and even stealing their dead bodies from the grave for research and profit.  

Barriers to preventive health care — again, a primary outcome of structural racism in the U.S. — mean Black and Latinx communities also have higher rates of health issues like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. People with chronic health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes were hospitalized six times more often than otherwise healthy individuals infected with the coronavirus during the first four months of the pandemic, and they died 12 times more often, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The public health disaster facing Black communities is the result of hundreds of years of U.S. policies that bolster white supremacy and marginalize Black people. But the pandemic is just a single symptom of the nation's public health disaster. What is being played out over the past few weeks, as people take to the streets to protest a national pattern of violent over-policing, is another. 

Why protest during a pandemic?

Just as structural racism created fertile ground for COVID-19 to take root in the Black community, it has also helped plant the groundswell of pro-Black organizing across the country in the wake of George Floyd's murder May 25. Black people, for whom racial profiling and stop-and-frisk policies are a way of life, don't need a viral video to prove their realities; police have killed roughly 1,000 people a year since 2015, according to The Washington Post's real time police shooting data base. While many outside the Black community see the recent spate of killings at the hands of police as random and unrelated — "a few bad apples," so to speak — the pandemic and police brutality are two crises inextricably linked. Both are killing us. And both seem to be unrelenting.

It’s Shakespearean that as he lay dying — a white police officer nonchalantly kneeling on his throat, Floyd can be heard in a plaintive whisper: "I can't breathe."

Black America has long been suffocated by racist and dehumanizing policies. Certainly protests have erupted in the past, in response to the brutal murders of Black people by the police — notably, the 2014 murders of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in St. Louis. But none have gripped the national and global attention of what is happening now. The volume and breadth of outrage is magnified — at least, in part — because the added dimension of COVID-19 deaths has created a perfect storm. 

Unlike Ferguson demonstrations, for example, when protesters of late carry placards that read "Stop Killing Us," the statement has implications far broader than police violence. And the simple phrase, Black Lives Matter, hits different now, too. There will always be detractors and deniers who reflexively counter that “all lives matter.” But there’s a new resonance to the BLM phrase, and wider acceptance among white Americans of what it means to "matter" — and with it, a deeper awareness of the unjust conditions that disproportionately keep the rest of the world from understanding all the ways that Black lives matter.

[tiefworks]

#OCtober 2021 - Week 2: Who Killed The World?

↳ Day 1: Logo

For our second week of October, we have Who Killed the World?, which focuses on a post-apocalyptic setting where various developed nations made a final attempt to save humanity from collapse, creating a dystopian and cruel society that reaffirms the uselessness of the average human.

More goodies and trivia below!

WKTW is part of a timeline/universe that implies developed nations across the globe banded together through a universal amendment called the Last Ditch Act to save humanity after climate change reaches supposed irreversibility and a global pandemic caused by pollution inhalation and mutated viruses starts wiping out large swaths of peoples.

In an undisclosed future year, ignoring warnings by scientists of the dangers of pollution and climate change and overpopulation, humanity suddenly faces extinction at the twofold hands of irreversible climate destruction and a strain of anthrax-like virus informally dubbed "Mother's Wrath". With overpopulation, the virus spreads easily between groups, wiping out thousands, and is exacerbated by poor air quality and pollution/smoke/etc. At first resistant to the idea, world leaders in developed countries, egged on by the brewing coup being plotted by scientists, eventually decide to create the Last Ditch Act as a highly extreme way to save humanity in the long run.

The Act shepherds healthy individuals into crowded 'cities' known as Citadels, destroying suburbs and rural communities in order to push populations into constricted, observable living spaces. Reproduction without a license is banned. Curfews are mandatory. Anyone non-compliant people or nations are met with sanctioned murder. The Act's tagline, No Cost For Salvation, becomes a motto for the creation of brutal police-states within these numbered Citadels, as upheld by the sub-governments of each.

WKTW takes place some ~75 odd years after the Act was initiated. Human population has shrunk exponentially, barely a billion worldwide and consistently dropping due to the low birthrate. New addendums to the Act have been introduced since its inception, such as disallowing anyone to live alone. STEM fields are given tremendous bonuses - anyone who chooses to major in science is given monetary incentives to go to college, whereas all other subjects must pay steep fines. "Little luxuries", where still present (like coffee shops), have skyrocketed prices. "Self-kill advocacy" is rampant - coffee may be $20, but cigarettes are 50 cents, with taglines like "Save the planet! Kill yourself!". Arts are shunned and disrespected. The curfew, and all other non-compliance is now handled by robot drones that roam the streets and use venom to subdue and kill criminals. And romance as a concept has died off, as reproduction is still banned without a license and marriage is illegal. Even getting caught having sex without a license is considered grounds for execution. And in order to re-compensate the declining births, "ex-vivites" are made in labs - ex-vivo babies literally grown in synthetic robot wombs to replenish the workforce when they are of age, known pejoratively as Aberrations by the general populace. And the virus is still rampant, though now considered "treatable" with rounds of medication - which only exceptional individuals may gain access to that.

WKTW poses the question of not only who bears the true responsibility for planetary destruction, but also who is forced the bear the results the most. Despite the known fact that 100 companies produce 71% of global emissions, WKTW shows the result of regular people being forced to answer for the destruction of the environment by these larger forces, with overlaid themes of eco-fascism taken to its most extreme. The callous disregard for art, culture, and (particularly indigenous) human life in exchange for uplifting STEM fields is a sordid example of how belittled liberal arts fields are in modern culture and the rampant racism and disregard for how indigenous peoples lived in harmony with the ecosystem for years. Lastly, the emphasis on the salvation of 'developed' nations feeds back into a loop of racism and "strengthening those in power" with the implication undeveloped countries were destroyed for 'noncompliance'.

[levyfiles]

Only 9 years of Anger but it’s been 30+ years of trauma.

I’m a Canadian multiracial woman who grew up in a community that was not as diverse as it is now. Since I was a little girl, I’ve encountered several instances of baffling behaviour toward me that only in hindsight did I come to understand it was because of my colour. The jokes about watermelon, dumb edgy nonblack kids who think I’ll think they’re cool if they drop the n-word around me. Some fool who everyone thought was funny in high school lead a rendition of Hero by Enrique Iglesias and replaced the word hero for “negro” as he played guitar at a Christian school camp retreat to zero consequence. I was nicknamed Aunt Jemima by older boys because I wouldn’t date them. All this stuff was background noise because my number one awareness of being a Canadian was that despite all this, I would never be treated as bad as an indigenous person would be treated in this country. So I laughed off the jokes, ignored the jabs, ignored the n-word, played the “cool black person” who let things slide because that was how you survived. I made it to my 20’s being passive and moderate, and at some juncture I realised my friend circle was occupied by people who used my colour and my race as a punchline. It was like something snapped in me after college; I stopped being passive, I wanted to learn how to be myself and be proud of my heritage instead of acting like I was some ambassador for every white person in authority who wanted me to nod and say “no no I’m okay with your opinion, so please hire me.”

In 2011, I broadened my friend group to people who had had similar experiences but hadn’t backed down, people who had a community to back them up so they didn’t cower at the idea of facing their own trauma. That’s when I started to make friends online who came from different and diverse perspectives. Starting that year I began reading first-hand accounts of police brutality cases and their large numbers. I heard about black sex workers in the states being harassed and disappearing when they complained. I heard about the way young black men are taught to keep their hands visible because even a parking ticket could get you killed. I was angry and heartbroken but I noticed that despite the fact that I was furious and cross-posting everything I learned on twitter and every other blog space I occupied, barely anyone who wasn’t black wanted to interact with it. It was like I was touting some kind of religion, asking people to believe that people in and out of this country had a disease called racism. 

The few people who used their public platform to talk about it were dismissed as crazy. After Trayvon Martin, my heart just stayed broken, and then the "mysterious suicide" of Sandra Bland and the mug shot they took with her body propped up in the police station when she had already been murdered fully wrecked me because so few people cared. There was always some excuse as to why these people deserved to be murdered; as if suddenly people got amnesia about the ideal of the justice system and due process. As if people should really be all right with a young teen being shot in the street was all right because there was no one else there to see it happen or why.  Soon followed a rash of different cases, and almost everyone close to me who wasn't black had some opinion about it whether that's telling us not to get too angry, to protest the way MLK jr said we should when his very own words talked about anger and pain and the way it spills out of people who only want to exist. He said unrest doesn’t develop out of thin air and that it’s the language of the unheard. I watched Colin Kaepernick get publicly ridiculed and watched white creators whisper a little about it if they weren’t against it. There was a shyness in the energy about the content I read or watched and I had somehow accepted that that would always be the case with people working with platforms online. I watched Tumblr delete a whole tag about BLM because people decided it was starting arguments. I watched white content creators make jokes about Tamir Rice, about Kaepernick until they stopped getting laughs.

It's now been 9 years later and even though 2011 was the first I had ever sat and listened to the truth about these cases and I had been furious and hurt since then, it was not the beginning of the problem and my making noise about it and trying to make people understand at the time fell on a lot of ears that didn’t want to listen. People who were experiencing the pain first-hand were screaming louder and louder until Hollywood got a nice chokehold on it and posted a print of Chris Pine with tears in his eyes and called that the face of the civil rights movement.

So now I find that I’m experiencing a strong sense of deja vu watching people younger than me, or my white peers finally get it. I see posts about it everywhere, white creators and white celebrities posting support and empathy. It feels like a sharp awakening of the world and the chance that there’s hope for all the people who have been yelling and screaming for justice long before I ever became aware of the score. 

It also feels terrifying. 

Because sometimes white creators don’t take stock of their audience. They see them often as a monolith of people who support and engage with their content, so they’ll post a handy instagram quote, or an edit with links to donate; they’ll post their own call to action. Now the activism is something it never was before, it’s “Cool”. BLM is trending; it’s a quick view count and an absolutely easy and performative way to say “Sorry” for all the times in the past these white creators said the n-word, all the times in the past they dismissed diversity because it was inconvenient to them, and all the times they ignored the casual racism in their own content and the transformative content of their audience. So their white kid audience, who are happy to follow them blindly to the next trend, don’t fully understand the impact of what’s happening now. They’re making their edits, they’re changing their twitter handles to ACAB and BLM, they’re performing just fine. It should be a good thing, right?

Then why are there white kids out on the street saying they’re protesting. Saying they are here to make change but they’re caught with baseball bats breaking windows, instigating confrontations and running away for black people to deal with it. Why are they out there living their favourite purge fantasy so they can go home satisfied and safe while people are being tear-gassed and trampled by police? Why do they go home and make their mood boards and their t-shirts and their etsy sales for cool “protest looks”. The tired tiktoks that are just recreated audio of black creators being spooned off so a white face can be the one saying the very thing black creators are brave enough to put on social media at the risk of getting hurt!

Don’t get me wrong. This is all necessary in the growing pains of a worldwide movement. It’s the #stopkony2012 of 2020 because even back then when the performance was on, no one was actually doing the reading. Internationally the whole internet went ham on a cause that had already been dealt with by its own victims.

What I’m basically saying here is that fighting for human rights isn’t a game; this isn’t a cool new thing you can jump in on because the chaos keeps you hidden. Take this seriously; bring this energy to the polls, and KEEP this energy for the future even when the trending page isn’t interested in giving you money for your cause, even when your friends get bored and decide that they want to move on to the next cool thing to perform activism for. Be real. Continue to practice empathy for those whose stories you ignored up until now. Non-Black content creators, your new awareness of something happening is not an absolution of your willful ignorance in the past. Do your reading; educate yourself. Because while you may be just discovering the outrage and the hurt of witnessing a black person being murdered and the pulling teeth aggravation that comes with zero justice, people have been dealing with this far longer than you or I.

[rockofeye]

Are we still hanging in there? Are we taking deep breaths, drinking water, and not spending every minute doom scrolling and refreshing vote counts? It seems like there might be some hope of regime change, but we can't know that for certain until every vote is counted. It's not over.

We are seeing clearly what many folks have been seeing and saying for years: the United States is so invested in white supremacy that half the population that voted has clearly voted for fascism, for the continued oppression, imprisonment, and murder of Black and Brown folks, for the destruction of Indigenous communities, for the denial of abortion access and contraception rights, for the imprisonment of children and the forced sterilization of immigrant and refugee women, for denial of basic social supports in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, for police brutality and extrajudicial killings, and for the general debasement of anyone who is not a middle class white man or woman. More people have voted for this than voted for this in 2016. It has gotten worse.

Let this radicalize you. If you have not already been putting in energy to address the growth of fascism and all its harbingers of doom, let this be the moment when your eyes are peeled open and it becomes clear that our lives are only saved when we seek to save the lives of others. If you thought this election was a fluke, now is the time to really look at the fact that our families, neighbors, coworkers, and friends may be fascist sympathizers and are perfectly fine the floor being wiped with the rest of us. No matter the outcome, there is evil in our midst.

If Biden wins, it is an opportunity to continue to demand systemic change. There is a moment to catch our collective breath because Biden is not welcoming American Nazis for meet and greets, but he is an Imperialist and must be held accountable to the responsibilities of the office.

If the current regime remains, it is past time to break the cogs of the social machine and refuse to comply with the chess moves of a fascist state. It is not that we will watch the state fail under fascism, but we that we must push it off the cliff. It will be hard. It will suck. Not all of us will make it to the finish line, but we must make every attempt to carry our siblings with us.

But, for the moment, we breath. We remain watchful and we demand that every vote cast is accounted for. We look for how we can support the challenges coming for local races (the Graham-Harrison race is likely going to court, and Harrison will need monetary support), and we do not let the process be sidelined. We remain faithful people, which means we engage in whatever spiritual practice we have and entreat our ancestors, our spirits, or whomever we address in prayer to protect us and those more vulnerable than us and to give us the strength and resolve to do what must be done. This is when we (re)learn that prayer is a verb.

This weekend as I head into a socially distanced ceremony broadcast to those who seek the healing it can bring, I will be praying for us; those who seek an equitable future where the yoke of white supremacy has been broken. May those prayers be welcomed and may the justice of those spirits who see far longer and deeper than us be made manifest by our actions.

[kny111]

Due to the recent protests against police brutality and its continued occurrence in our communities, I’ve been revisiting the military, prison and police industrial complex  (the big three currently securing white supremacist establishment since slave patrolling days) under the context of abolishing them and what their merits are. I found this website ‘8 To Abolition’ simplifying and centering around this conversation and getting to some of the main points the abolition movement has been attempting, clarifying the goals for those who don’t understand. In the next following blog posts as a part of teaching myself and relaying the info to others as well on the specifics of how to decolonize and what it means, this is a start to that:

While communities across the country mourn the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Jamel Floyd, and so many more Black victims of police murder, Campaign Zero released its 8 Can’t Wait campaign, offering a set of eight reforms they claim would reduce police killings by 72%. As police and prison abolitionists, we believe that this campaign is dangerous and irresponsible, offering a slate of reforms that have already been tried and failed, that mislead a public newly invigorated to the possibilities of police and prison abolition, and that do not reflect the needs of criminalized communities.

We honor the work of abolitionists who have come before us, and those who organize now. A better world is possible. We refuse to allow the blatant co-optation of decades of abolitionist organizing toward reformist ends that erases the work of Black feminist theorists. As the abolitionist organization Critical Resistance recently noted, 8 Can’t Wait will merely “improve policing’s war on us.” Additionally, many abolitionists have already debunked the 8 Can’t Wait campaign’s claims, assumptions, and faulty science.

Abolition can’t wait.

At its root, policing is a system designed to uphold oppression. One thousand people are killed by police every year, and Black people are murdered at three times the rate of white people. Up to fifty percent of people murdered by the police have disabilities. Up to 40% of police officers have perpetrated intimate partner violence, and sexual violence is the second most common form of police brutality, primarily targeting Black women and especially those who are sex workers and drug users. Many of these incidents of police violence are undocumented by studies and only uplifted through grassroots movements. Black people who are women, trans, gender non-conforming, sex working, and queer are often criminalized for actions they take to survive gendered violence, as we have seen in the cases of Tracy McCarter, Chrystul Kizer, Alisha Walker, GiGi Thomas, Marissa Alexander, Bresha Meadows, Cyntoia Brown, and many others. We reject the notion of a “perfect survivor”; we do not believe anyone deserves to be caged, nor do we prescribe to the state’s notions of “innocence” and culpability. We recognize that the system of policing is heavily intertwined with the military industrial complex, both here and abroad. In abolishing policing, we seek to abolish imperialist forms of police, such as militaries responsible for generations of violence against Black and brown people worldwide.

As abolitionists, we recognize that reforms that do not reduce the power of the police–including those proposed by 8 Can’t Wait–simply create new opportunities to surveil, police, and incarcerate Black, brown, indigenous, poor, disabled, trans, gender oppressed, queer, migrant people, and those who work in street economies. We believe in a world where there are zero police murders because there are zero police, not because police are better trained or better regulated—indeed, history has shown that ending police violence through more training or regulations is impossible.

We also recognize that all police and prisons will not disappear tomorrow. Instead, we believe in the strategic importance of non-reformist reforms, or measures that reduce the scale, scope, power, authority, and legitimacy of criminalizing institutions. We also recognize carceral agents’ constant attempts to co-opt and rebrand abolition through the language of harm reduction, as we are currently witnessing with the #8CantWait campaign. We envision abolition as not only a matter of tearing down criminalizing systems such as police and prisons that shorten the lives of Black, brown, and poor people, but also a matter of building up life-sustaining systems that reduce, prevent, and better address harm. We seek a reparations model, wherein our communities that have been harmed by policing and mass criminalization for centuries are given their due from every corporation and institution that has profited from policing.

To build an abolitionist world that prioritizes the lives of Black people, we have drawn upon decades of abolitionists’ work to compile this list of demands targeted toward city and municipal powers. Honoring the long history of abolitionist struggle, we join in their efforts to divest from the prison industrial complex, invest in our communities, and create the conditions for our ultimate vision: a world without police, where no one is held in a cage, and all people thrive and be well.

[persephonesdaughters]

Dear Persephone’s Daughters readers, contributors, and community,

It is with outrage, grief, and solidarity that we join the voices of those worldwide condemning the heinous, racist acts of police brutality that directly resulted in the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th, 2020.

As a literary and arts journal with staff members and readers from all over the world, and a home base in Minnesota as our Editor-in-Chief’s place of residence, we grieve for the pain not only of our reeling community in the Twin Cities, but also for all those worldwide who have lost loved ones to police brutality.

Our mission is to uplift the voices of those pursuing peace after trauma, and to provide community and calm through healing art and storytelling. We envision, one day, a world free from violence. Not only from domestic and sexual violence and child abuse, of which many of our readers and contributors have survived, but also from racism, police brutality, systemic oppression, and the sharply entrenched inequities upon which the United States is historically built.

As artists and writers, we hold both the power to bring healing, and the power to illustrate and narrate the violent acts which deny, disrupt, and prolong it. As artists and writers giving voice to other artists and writers, we refuse to remain silent in the wake of abject, intentional terror.

In 2016, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, we brought you the Post-Election Mini Issue, a compilation of voices expressing their pain and anger at the election of a racist, ableist, misogynistic, xenophobic and homophobic individual to one of the highest offices in the United States. Make no mistake - racism is alive and well in America in 2020 because America is an inherently racist project. Racist systems and racist individuals are killing Black men, Black women, and Black transgender folks at epidemic proportions, all with the direct support of this nation’s president.

We implore you to join us in action, however that action may look. Through protest, through provision of bailout funds, through distribution of food and basic necessities to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities, to a commitment to hire and value BIPOC leadership, to challenge and actively work to dismantle, everyday, the systems that benefit white communities at the expense of BIPOC communities. Silence in the face of this terror is in itself a violent act. We encourage you to do all of the above, in addition to donating to the following racial justice funds:

The George Floyd Memorial Fund supports George Floyd’s family with funeral and burial expenses, mental health counseling, lodging and travel for court proceedings, and basic necessities in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Minnesota Freedom Fund, a community-based nonprofit that pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for individuals arrested. Note: MFF has received a significant influx of donations and is requesting that donations be given to orgs such as Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block, detailed below.

Black Visions Collective, a Black, transgender, and queer-led organization committed to long-term success and transformation in Minnesota’s Black communities.

Reclaim the Block, a coalition that advocates for and invests in community-led safety initiatives in Minneapolis neighborhoods such as violence prevention, housing, and responses to opioid and mental health crises.

Campaign Zero, an organization that utilizes policy solutions to end police brutality through limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability.

Northstar Health Collective, a radical healthcare initiative providing health care services and other resources to marginalized communities; currently, they are on the frontlines, safeguarding the health of protestors.

National Bail Fund Network, a compiled list of bail funds across America. Donate to your local bail fund to support protestors in your area!

For those looking to learn more about the racist bedrock of policing, here are some educational resources to get started with:

Transform Harm, a resource hub about ending oppressive violence.

#BecauseWe’veRead, a reading list on policing and police/prison abolition.

A World Without Police, an organization that has compiled a study guide on the police.

@thegreatunlearn on Instagram & Patreon, a series of resources and critical discourse created by Rachel Cargle to aid in unlearning, including self-paced syllabi on racial justice.

In previous communications to our readers, we had stated that all proceeds from the print version of Issue 6 would be donated to the Northwest Network of Bi, Trans, Lesbian, and Gay Survivors of Abuse. We will now be splitting all proceeds and donating 25% to the Northwest Network and the remaining 75% to Black Visions Collective.

Please join us.

In solidarity,

Persephone’s Daughters

Meggie Royer, Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Bhargavi Goel, Prose Reader & Editor

Mikey Jakubowski, Poetry Editor & Film Judge

Taylor Pevey, Prose Reader & Newsletter Staff

Uma Dwivedi, Prose Editor

Elena Torry-Schrag, Poetry Reader

Siam Hatzaw, Poetry & Prose Editor

Delaney Dunn, Prose Reader

Jessica Mazzeo, Art Evaluator & Social Media Team Member

Elijah Noble El, Persephone’s Daughters Film Division Co-Founder

Avleen K Mokha, Poetry & Prose Editor

Eleanor Hough, Poetry Editor

Sarah Shaughnessy, Prose Editor & Poetry Reader

Kim Kaletsky, Prose Reader

Catherine Luo, Art Evaluator

Tanvi Deshmukh, Poetry Editor & Art Evaluator

Rachel Hultquist, Prose Editor

Lakshmi Mitra, Poetry Editor

[jageunyeoujari]

The “American Indian” theme spread throughout Parasite is intentionally placed in the story by the filmmaker. Bong said in an interview that “for the son and the mother they’re just fancy decorations — very surface-level decorations.” Basically, Natives aren’t an actual group of people to the Park family but exist as more of American folklore that can be recreated with plastic imitations purchased off Amazon. Bong also stated that the use of stereotypical Native pieces that have been imported from the United States is symbolic, further explaining the Park family’s ignorance as they reduce the long and complicated history of all the different Native American communities to something trendy, a sad reality for many elements from underrepresented cultures that have been featured on a mannequin in a fast-fashion display window. The common stereotype of the “American Indian” is based on what has been seen in movies, like the classics belonging to the Western genre. These cartoonish figures that saturated movie theaters in the 1940s and beyond are complete with a war bonnet, loincloth, and a peace pipe or flute. Though clever in the execution, this element only works if the audience, from any cultural background including Korean or American, are educated on the historical oppression and legal genocide that has occurred in the United States. When looking at the United States specifically, it is evident that the general population isn’t taught about Native American history beyond the whitewashed history books that are still actively distributed to classrooms across this country. The common stereotype of the “American Indian” is based on what has been seen in movies, like the classics belonging to the Western genre. These cartoonish figures that saturated movie theaters in the 1940s and beyond are complete with a war bonnet, loincloth, and a peace pipe or flute. Most of these plots have the Native characters as the antagonist, the enemy, who invade and kill families including women and children. Instead of being seen as diverse, we are reduced to a scary villain or a make-believe trope—furthering the narrative that Native Americans are unable to exist in humanity. The United States was founded on land that was already occupied and the original residents were a diverse tapestry of people, varying in cultures and traditions with their own languages, rituals, and beliefs. The ancestors of those same people exist today and make up more than 570 tribes, each one having their own individual customs and culture that is different from their neighboring cousins. Not only was our land stolen but our ancestors were forced into assimilation through sinister techniques which have left many languages at risk of extinction in the next decade. What remains of each and every tribe’s rituals today is an element left behind by our resilient ancestors. We thank them for their tenacity and mourn those who are less represented or totally forgotten due to acts of colonization. This is an abbreviated summary of the complicated history Bong is referring to in his interviews but the brutality against Native Americans is far from over. According to a study published in 2018, 62% of Americans that live outside of Indian Country (the land in or around a recognized reservation or jurisdiction) reported being unacquainted with Native Americans. Since we make up about 1% of the population, this is somewhat understandable on one level but definitely not excusable in the modern age in which we live. Plus, despite our small numbers Native youth have the highest rate of suicide among all ethnic groups in the United States and the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited crisis is hurting all Native communities, including the 71% of urban Indians who dwell within various metropolises. Even with new investigations and studies that are evidence in documenting the reality of being a Native American in this country, two-thirds of United States citizens think Natives do not receive any extreme racial discrimination or mistreatment. Numbers and statistics can only say so much for a diverse group of individual cultures that struggle to survive every day. PParasite and its dense criticism of class inequality open up tremendously when the facts behind the use of Da-song’s arrows and tomahawks are understood. The American imported toys and their appearance become nuanced, disgusting, and proof that money cannot buy the respect that knowledge and understanding can bring. This still leaves a very big question unanswered: Do worldwide viewers know enough about Native American history to fully understand Bong’s critique? My assumption to the answer is no, which is yet another sad reality on many different levels. Hopefully the use of the Native imagery that exists in Da-song’s hypothetical toy box will open up this discussion worldwide, giving a platform to the Native writers, thinkers, filmmakers, and other artists that are continually pushing for better representation in the media.

How the Movie ‘Parasite’ Confronts Native Stereotypes

i would also say that ‘parasite’ exposes how prestige is tied to all things american and association with american products/culture is considered social capital in skorea but when this is extended to Native Americans, this gets entangled w fetishism & racism & commodification. ‘Parasite’ also critiques the hypocrisy of skorean society for despising japanese colonialism but replicating similar racial dynamics for other racial/ethnic groups in modern times. the park family are further shown to be empty-headed, vain, & only concerned w aligning themselves w power/social capital when they praise jpn products/culture, just more indication how they don’t even care for other Koreans let alone any other group.   

[grimelords]

Best Of 2018

Best Comedy Podcast: Teacher’s Lounge: Teacher's Lounge continues through 2018 being one of my favourite things in the world. I don't think anything else has ever made me laugh harder or more. It is pure insanity each and every week and endlessly relistenable. The first two seasons are out from behind the paywall so please do yourself a favour and listen.

Best Non-Comedy Podcast: The Dream: A really really good and interestingly personal investigation into pyramid schemes and how they shape and reflect the entirety of the American experience, from the poorest parts of the nation to the White House - like a pyramid I suppose.

Best Movie: Museum or Roma: Feels like an odd coincidence that the two best films I saw this year were both Mexican dramas. Roma is incredible, and everything I have to say about it has probably already been said elsewhere and better. Museum however seems to have flown under the radar entirely. I saw it at MIFF and it hasn't gotten a release here otherwise, which is maddening because I am desperate to see it again and have been thinking about it almost non stop since I saw it six months ago. I've been thinking about it and about how we as individuals interact with history and especially indigenous history, national identity and culture. For a movie specifically about a Mexican museum heist feels very universal, which I suppose great movies are.

Best TV Show: Nirvanna The Band The Show: This is the most groundbreaking and hilarious TV show I've seen in a long time and it hasn't really taken off like I thought it would outside of one or two clips going around. An incredible mix of improvised hidden camera comedy and great writing it looks and feels like no other show. If you're in Australia the whole thing is on SBS on Demand so please watch it.

Best Game: Hollow Knight: 2018 was a really really good year for games but nothing sucked me in more than Hollow Knight. This game is amazingly made. It's punishingly hard but never frustrating, labyrinthinely designed but you never feel totally lost. It's a complete world on its own that'll give you back just as much as you put into it.

Best Nonfiction Book: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou: A fantastic dissection of the complete story of Theranos - the silicon valley startup that promised to revolutionise blood testing but never actually produced a product that worked despite a $1 Billion valuation and its deranged CEO Elizabeth Holmes. You really have to read it to believe just how much blind faith and money people will invest in you as long as you have their confidence.

Best Fiction Book: The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner: I'm going to be real with you; not only is The Mars Room the best 2018 fiction book I read last year, it is also the only 2018 fiction book I read last year. So it won by default. BUT, I also loved it. Rachel Kushner is one of my favourite current authors and while I definitely didn't love this as much as The Flamethrowers or Telex From Cuba it is still an incredible book. It exists on a much smaller scale than her other novels, it's about a smaller cast and a smaller timeline which allowed her to really focus down on the minute details of the lives detailed. It's also an extremely brutal read in parts, so just be forewarned going in.

Best Albums

Gwenifer Raymond - You Never Were Much Of A Dancer

This album gives me hope for the future of solo acoustic guitar music. As traditional as it is forward looking it sparked an absolute obsession in me and I cannot stop listening to it over and over again.

Jungle - For Ever

Jungle are one of the best live bands I've ever seen and I've been so eagerly awaiting their second album since 2014 and they didn't disappoint. A total maturation and evolution of their sound, every song is perfectly constructed and flawlessly performed. I just love it.

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

I cannot believe just how beautiful this incredibly purposefully abrasive music can get.

Against All Logic - 2012-2017

It feels like Nicolas Jaar's power is limitless. He can do absolutely anything he wants and has total control. Some of the best dance music I've ever heard while also sometimes feeling like a phenomenal dj set you heard over a half-tuned radio.

Kamasi Washington - Heaven And Earth

Honestly thank god for Kamasi Washington. Thanks for getting me into jazz in the first place and thankyou for making the only popular jazz in 2018 that isn't pretending to be from some other time. There's nothing throwback or vintage about it - it's right here right now music on a massive scale.

Pusha T - Daytona

What I love about Pusha T is where other rappers drug dealing braggadocio can normally be dismissed as just that, Pusha T always feels like he's putting a hand on your shoulder and assuring you that he moves drugs in industrial quantities and will have you killed for even slightly inconveniencing him. He's terrifying. I'm still furious this album is 20 minutes long and the idea that this apparently isn't the long awaited masterwork King Push scares the hell out of me because how much better could he get?

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!

I love this album more every time I listen to it. It's got such a diversity of styles within its framework that it sometimes feels like 13 different writers for the same band which I absolutely love.

Beach House - 7

I am constantly impressed with the way Beach House can continually find something fresh and beautiful in their limited palette. At this point they've absolutely mastered it and the complete control shows.

City Calm Down - Echoes In Blue 

City Calm Down are so good and I'm furious I haven't seen them live yet. This album is a masterpiece front to back and it feels like it definitely didn't get the reception it deserved. It doesn't even have a damn wiki article. Please listen to this album and also write a wiki article for it.

Justice - Woman Worldwide

This feels like Justice's masterwork in a sense - effortlessly bringing their three pretty disparate albums into one immense party. A live album without the crowd noise, it feels like a private arena show.

Overall a very good year. Also I haven't finished writing up my December playlist yet because I've been busy (no I haven't) so look out for that in the next little while.​