Sunday, January 3, 2010

Memo to Lewis and Clark "Re-enActors": Genocidalists Are Not To Be Recreated, Just Killed Off

All that follows is from here. You can also click on the original report's heading, just below. Thanks as always to Brenda Norrell for all her great work.

Quotes of the Decade: Lewis and Clark and Genocide


Quotes from 'Lewis and Clark Genocide Re-enactors Told to Turn Around'

On the banks of the Missouri, Lakota, Ponca and Kiowa told of the genocide that Lewis and Clark heralded

By Brenda Norrell
UN OBSERVER & International Report

Photo: Deb White Plume, Lakota, delivers a symbolic blanket of small pox to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Photo Brenda Norrell

CHAMBERLAIN, S.D.(2004) The American lie of Lewis and Clark unraveled as Lakota, Ponca and Kiowa told re-enactors to turn back downriver or face the consequences.

“What they wrote down was a blueprint for the genocide of my people. You are re-enacting something ugly, evil and hateful,” Carter Camp, Ponca, told the Discovery Expedition camped on the Missouri River.

“You are re-enacting the coming of death to our people,” Camp told the expedition, while seated in a circle with Indian elders and Lewis and Clark re-enactors, on the banks of the Missouri River.

“You are re-enacting genocide.” Deb White Plume of Pine Ridge gave the expedition a symbolic blanket of small pox.

Floyd Hand, among four bands of Lakota here, told the expedition, “We are the descendants of Red Cloud and Crazy Horse.” “I did not come here in peace.” Hand said they would not smoke the pipe today and if the expedition continues up the Missouri River, the families of the expedition members would suffer the spiritual consequences of small pox. Referring to the tribal governments who welcomed the expedition, Hand said those tribal governments reflect the same type thinking as the re-enactors and are not the voice of the grassroots people. “The tribal governments are not a voice for us. They are imitating us, like you are imitating Lewis and Clark.”

“We want you to turn around and go home,” Alex White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, told the expedition. White Plume said Lakota are here on this land for a reason. “We were put here by the spirits.” He said the Lakota never lost their language or ceremonies and now they are making these requests: Lakota want their territory back, their treaties to be honored and to be able to continue their healing ways.

White Plume said many Indian people have become assimilated and colonized.

“We pray for our own colonized people. We say they are in a prison in the white man’s world.

”The state of South Dakota is the most racist state and South Dakota condones this kind of behavior. We want you to know, it has to end here.”

Russell Means said Lewis and Clark, like the myth of Columbus, are apart of the great American lie. And there are many parts to the great American lie. “Even the casino Indians are not rich, that is another falsehood. They don’t ever see cash,” Means said, adding that the money goes to investors and also to the state, which is illegal. Means said Indians can’t even start a business on tribal land without waiting an average of eight years, and then it is only if the paperwork isn’t lost. “What you are perpetuating is part of the big lie,” Means told the re-enactors. Means said Indians have 40 percent of the nation’s natural resources on their lands, yet they are kept in concentration camps called reservations and not allowed to participate. “This is our river,” Means said of the Missouri River running past. He pointed out the water is being used by farmers, cities and power plants without the permission of Indian people.

“They don’t honor anything. This is an insult to our integrity.” Read article: http://www.unobserver.com/printen.php?id=1957


EPILOGUE: Scott Mandrell, who portrayed Meriwether Lewis, did listen this fateful day. Mandrell left the Expedition because of what he was told and formed lasting friendships with those who spoke that day. Four years later, on the Longest Walk northern route in Illinois, Mandrell described this powerful, life changing experience on Earthcycles radio. The Transformation of Scott Mandrell:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/05/transformation-of-scott-mandrell.html

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 8:18 PM

"The Patriarchal Punch" and The Liberal Lack of Imagination: on society, story-telling, and speaking out



[image is from here]

This post follows up where the last one left off. The link to the last one, for those who want the beginning of this exchange between myself and two people over at the blog, sexgenderbody, is here. The two other people involved in this exchange are named Arvan and letseatcake. For a time I thought these might be one and the same. It gets clearer they are not. Or it was clear all along and I simply didn't realise it. Likely the latter. I could joke here: those liberals, they all sound alike. But I won't. ;) Seriously, the distinction each contributor makes are increasingly clear, also in terms of each of their stories. I rarely find people who are liberal who are willing to engage with me to this degree. I'm not sure I'll engage further, but I was willing to take these next steps into the precarious land of liberal lack of imagination.

Here we go. Put on your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

Thank you for such a lengthy and well thought reply


Julian,

Thank you for such a lengthy and well thought reply.  I can definitely respect the time and effort you place in your writing both here and at your own site.  It is clear that you have a passion and that you want to make a difference in people's lives and I applaud that as well.  I often tweet posts from your site. 

I disagree with your assumptions though.  I do not agree that porn is rape.  Rape is rape.  Forcing a person to have sex against that individual's will is rape.  I know plenty of porn performers and none of them are being raped.  I have heard the argument about those people having been duped and brainwashed and no longer free to choose.  That statement presumes to know the minds of other people. 

How do you know that a man watching porn is ashamed?  How do you know that he is choosing porn over intimacy.  How can you prove those things?  How can you know the minds of another person or an entire swath or people?

We're not even talking about real people here, just hypothetical 'men' and 'porn performers'.  It's impossible to know the thoughts of another person to begin with and I dare say, fruitless to ken the thoughts of a hypothetical person.  Suggesting to know the motives of 'men watching porn' is no different than claiming to know the values of people based on their race, their religion, their education or their sexual preference or any other form of prejudice. 

It's conjecture, based on judgment and it's a very human behaviour.  You do it, I do it, we all do it.  We observe, we judge and we speak based on our judgments.  The challenge for us, is to lay aside our judgments and listen to each other as we define our own lives.  The world is not black & white and our experiences are not the same as other people's.

I don't take a book written by someone as a proof. [I should have called him out on this point, but went on. This is bullshit. He has taken much he has read in books to be the proof of a lot, and this gets us back to the intellectual dishonesty that is prevalent among liberal thinkers and doers. They make claims when it suits them, never owning when they do what they ask those radical thinkers to do and to prove.] A book can be only an opinion.  An opinion that agrees with you or me or anyone is merely agreement.  Agreement is not proof.  Agreement is agreement.  People agree to all sorts of things that are not true.  A fact is a fact, independent of agreement.  The boiling point of water is what it is, regardless of opinion or agreement.  The tree in my yard is a tree, no matter what I think of it or how many people agree with my opinion. 

I think you weaken your argument by stating opinion as fact.  If you are anti-porn, just say so.  You're entitled to your opinion just as anyone.  If you believe that porn is rape, just say so.  No one can ever tell you that your opinion is not your opinion.  If you share how porn equals rape in your life, meaning your relationships, that is powerful and compelling.  If you state that porn is rape for all men, you turn the conversation into one where you need to actually prove that this exists in the minds of all men watching porn.

The same goes for shame.  If you feel shame or are in relationship with someone who feels shame, share that.  Declaring that shame exists in the minds of hypothetical 'men' is neither tangible or provable. 

The idea of this site is that we practice articulating our own sex, gender and body identities, in our own terms and listen to one another as we would define ourselves.  So, I invite you to make "I" statements and not broad judgments of what other people are thinking or doing or their motives.  I'm not saying that you can't have your opinions, but that all people are welcome here including sex workers and others working in the porn industry, many of whom already do.

If you have experienced shame in your own life regarding sex or porn, then share that.  I would find it much more powerful than proselytizing about 'porn = rape' and the shame of hypothetical men.  You will find that some people agree with you, while others do not.  But, let us identify ourselves rather than you telling us what we think and what we are doing and why we are doing it.
- arvan