Genocide in the United States: U.S. Policy

The terms irony, duplicity, and hypocrisy don't even begin to describe what I've just found, which is the U.S. government's Chapter 50a Code on Genocide, and how this government is mandated to respond to such an horrific event. An "event", it must be noted, can happen continually over hundreds of years with different tactics for achieving genocidal "success".

It is worth remembering, and never forgetting, what genocide is, in practice, inside and outside the United States.

The definition referenced below is from the book Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader (2003), page 260:

[T]he term “genocide” was coined to describe not only policies leading to the outright physical liquidation of “ethnical, racial, religious or national” aggregates, but also policies designed to bring about the dissolution, destruction, and disappearance of these “identified human groups as such,” by other means.

Now, on with U.S. policy:

U.S. Code; Chapter 50A;
Section § 1091. Genocide

(a) Basic Offense. - Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war, in a circumstance described in subsection (d) and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.

(1) kills members of that group;
(2) causes serious bodily injury to members of that group;
(3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties of members of the group through drugs, torture, or similar techniques;
(4) subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part;
(5) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group; or
(6) transfers by force children of the group to another group; or attempts to do so,

shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).*

In what moral universe is the United States government not committing genocide against American Indians? And why isn't the U.S. government acting accordingly? (We know why. It is because in order to effectively carry out this policy, the U.S. government would have to commit suicide.)

I pulled those two pieces of information together: the definition and the policy regarding genocide, because when I do a Google search on "Genocide in the United States" I encounter the informational equivalent of crickets chirping. Genocide not being discussed among the citizens of a dominant society is one sure-fire way to guarantee genocidal practices will not cease any time soon.

This "silence" is an outrage. As the late great feminist, Andrea Dworkin, once noted in her discussion of the work of James Baldwin: Amerika has no memory and no mind.

I'll add: or soul.

*For more on the code, click here.

If you wish to address the hypocrisy of this governmental policy directly, or to express outrage that the U.S. government is, still, committing genocide against American Indians, the contact info follows:
Prevent Genocide International
1804 'S' Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009 USA
Tel. 202-483-1948, Fax 202-328-0627
info@preventgenocide.org
END OF POST.

White Gay Media Spokesperson Dan Savage Doesn't Speak for me

Below, Dan Savage, makes an appearance on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Proposition 8 Protests - Dan Savage

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

"You can't be pro-gay and anti-gay marriage." -- Dan Savage

Then what am I, Dan, chopped liver? I know, it's not all about me.

Dan Savage is "connected" to media hotties like Stephen Colbert. And what they do in the pseudo-privacy of the backstage area behind the Colbert set is, frankly, none of my business.

What is my concern, however, is the issue of turning all matters of social justice into late-night humor-fodder, but I find that raising criticism or concern about the likes of straight white liberal boys such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert is, apparently, a particular form of heresy in secular straight white Amerikkka. I do find a good portion of what both those men do to be very funny, even hilarious. In the realm of U.S. white straight male comedy, I believe they are very talented. Hey, you don't get your own show on Comedy Central for nuthin'!

I'll save a deeper critique of their humor for another time.

For now, I want to speak out against the ways in which dominant national white media stereotyped and targeted Black Californians--lesbian, gay, and neither, in its reporting on the Nov. 4, 2008 decision to repeal an ordinance, aka Prop 8, which, prior to Prop 8 passing, meant that "gay marriage" was legal in California. It was a classic case of "divide and conquer" without realising that there is a group of people, Queer African Americans, who do, in fact, exist--including in California, and who are also not monolithic politically. As has been reported elsewhere, there is one group of people without whom Prop 8 could not have passed: white heterosexual social conservatives. Far outnumbering socially conservative African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Latin@s*, that demographic is, in my view, the one responsible for the outcome of that vote far more than any community of color. Hence white gay activists getting one thing right: protesting in front of white churches, not Black or Latin@ ones. (Humor about this fact is in the above clip from The Colbert Report.) It was son of the uber-white Mormon Church who was part of the major financial contributors to the "Pass Prop 8" campaign.

*Available demographic stats show that the percentage of Californians who are "African American/Black" is 6% to 7%. The percentage of white folks in California is 50% to 60%. Now, even those of us who suck at math can figure out that even if ALL Black Californians voted to keep gay marriage legal, the burden of it remaining law would clearly fall on the shoulders of white folks. Since when does being part of a racial majority suddenly not matter when the results of any election or referendum get tight?

What the press did that was seriously fucked up was to deploy various methods-- statistical and otherwise, for scapegoating Black Californians--allegedly 100% heterosexual and "70%" socially conservative as the population of homophobes that non-homophobic people--white and of color, btw, are not. From my experience, homophobia is a product of many factors, many having to do with what "being normal" (including employable, apartment-worthy, an asset to the white neighborhood) means in Amerikkka. Patricia Hill Collins, among many other writers, deals responsibly and sensitively with the matter of homophobia in some African American communities.

This ought not be news to anyone, but there are no white communities I'm aware of where it is safe to be completely 'out'. In white-dominant cities and towns where there are few to no people of color, homophobia results in gay-bashing murders and self-loathing suicides.

Let's not forget the not-so-long history of the what can now be termed "the white church" in the U.S. Various Protestant denominations have worked with great white male supremacist passion and commitment over the last two-hundred-plus years to destroy the cultures and communities of people of color, noting particularly the Mormon mission to destroy American Indian families (who knew not of Jesus or the misrepresenters of his few inaccurately recorded teachings) before settler-genocidalists came West from Europe. Let's also keep in mind the ideas of gender and sexuality that are now popularly understood as normal and/or genetically based, were not on this land or part of the many nations' cultures before white folks settled here. (Yes, this does mean science is racist and heterosexist.)

For those who want to blame "the Black Church"--well, last time I checked anything homophobic or heterosexist being preached there was being sermonised by pastors in white churches--and, let me tell you, those white Baptists (among other white denominations) can really preach some vicious anti-queer hate. So fuck all the media--gay and otherwise--who made it seem as though Black Californians were "to blame" for the outcome of the election, re: Prop 8. Lest we forget, this is still a white supremacist nation, and no population of color has the institutionalised power, the economic and police resources to make that be radically different anytime soon. And, for the white folks who insist on arguing this idiocy: having a Black president, AND Oprah be prominent, wealthy, statused U.S. citizens doesn't mean the end is in sight for U.S. corporate white heteromale supremacy. As noted in an earlier post, I do firmly believe white supremacy took a blow when Barack Obama became president-elect. And I think the overall meaning and effect of that historic accomplishment cannot and ought not be underestimated or cynically dismissed with a very racially privileged roll of one's blue eyes. (I direct this to the cynical white "progressives" and "radicals" I know.)

As a matter of understanding the value of basic civil rights, I wouldn't organise against any Queer group working for "Gay Marriage" legislation or rights.

Nor would I put any of my activist energies into such a cause.

As noted elsewhere on this blog, I'm decidedly anti-marriage--particularly the kind that oppresses all women and further marginalises people of color and poor people from the mainstream, in part by promoting State-sanctioned middle and working class unions as necessary and desirable. Across much of the globe and throughout time, there have been many forms of partnership, kinship, and community, most of which CRAP has destroyed, stifled, or rendered null and void. Add to that the not-so-spotlighted effort by the powers-that-be in making such things as "best friends" not a legitimate or sanctioned category of relating.

"Best friends" do not have the rights that a husband and wife have. Why is that? The best friends I know are far less abusive and neglectful of one another than most of the married people I know. Is "marriage" geared, in part, to regulate and mandate certain forms of sexual behavior? If so, it only works to a degree: most of the married heterosexual couples I know, and gay couples, aren't having much, if any, sex. This is reported on talk shows as "a serious problem"--for the straight folks, that is. Not a peep on these shows about how this impacts gay or lesbian couples. Maybe it's just that many folks don't like sex as much as pimps, corporate pornographers, Madison Avenue, Hollywood, sex addicts, and incest perpetrators tell us we're supposed to.

The extended family, the close rural community--generally sustainable relative to suburban and urban neighborhoods, have all been shoved aside as mountaintops come crumbling down, after coal was ripped from those mountains' bellies, to pave and repave highways leading from one unsustainable, ecocidal place to another. Ecocide is not only the destruction of "the environment", as that terms is popularly used in mass media. "We" are part of "the environment." Not caring about it, neglected it, is neglecting ourselves and amounts to paving our own way right into a very ugly, panic-laden mass death. See Derrick Jensen's work for more on this. Although it is not reported on much, the destruction of ways of being among humans-in-relation-to-the-Earth, is systematic, on-going, and is synonymous with genocide. (Genocide is not just the mass-murder of one group by another. It is, among other things, a destruction of cultures, the elimination of a people's means of survival, the banishment of spiritual practices that don't worship a white male sky-god.)

There are indentifiable institutions and systems which, while seemingly benefiting the few (for the time being), are simultaneously killing us all. The activist support for these institutions and systems, while critically necessary for some, functions to make knowledge of other ways of doing things invalid, illegal, or evil.

From the lofty privileged place from which I sit, I see what what has become normalised and naturalised as "heterosexuality" and "marriage" as stifling-to-deadly social/religious/political/economic institutions, particularly for women. I refuse to "unknow" this, even while I must also know the ways that many people with far fewer privileges need these institutions in order to help them survive, in the ways CRAP wants us to survive.

For the time being, I want to publicly denounce the very white Dan Savage as a spokesperson for "Gay Rights." He doesn't speak for me as a white gay man, or for other radical queer, Two Spirit, and same-gender loving people I know and respect. Nor does anti-Black racist Arab American, Marke B. over at the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Should Dan or Marke happen upon this blogpost, may I make this recommendation: give the mic to Jasmyne A. Cannick. (See the prior post.) Revised on Dec. 1, 2008.

No-on-8's White Bias: a Black Lesbian Perspective

The right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights.

No-on-8's white bias
By Jasmyne A. Cannick
November 8, 2008

I am a perfect example of why the fight against Proposition 8, which amends the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, failed to win black support.

I am black. I am a political activist who cares deeply about social justice issues. I am a lesbian. This year, I canvassed the streets of South Los Angeles and Compton, knocking on doors, talking politics to passers-by and working as I never had before to ensure a large voter turnout among African Americans. But even I wasn't inspired to encourage black people to vote against the proposition.

Why? Because I don't see why the right to marry should be a priority for me or other black people. Gay marriage? Please. At a time when blacks are still more likely than whites to be pulled over for no reason, more likely to be unemployed than whites, more likely to live at or below the poverty line, I was too busy trying to get black people registered to vote, period; I wasn't about to focus my attention on what couldn't help but feel like a secondary issue.

The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else -- not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally. The way I see it, the white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals. But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?

Maybe white gays could afford to be singularly focused, raising millions of dollars to fight for the luxury of same-sex marriage. But blacks were walking the streets of the projects and reaching out to small businesses, gang members, convicted felons and the spectrum of an entire community to ensure that we all were able to vote.

Second is the issue of civil rights. White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won't support their civil rights. There is a real misunderstanding by the white gay community about the term. Proponents of gay marriage fling it around as if it is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase for issues of fairness.

But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity -- not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community.

Then there was the poorly conceived campaign strategy. Opponents of Proposition 8 relied on an outdated civil rights model, engaging the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to help win black support on the issue of gay marriage. This happened despite the warnings of black lesbians and gays that it wouldn't work. While the NAACP definitely should have been included in the strategy, it shouldn't have been the only group. Putting nearly a quarter of a million dollars into an outdated civil rights group that has very little influence on the black vote -- at least when it comes to gay issues -- will never work.

Likewise, holding the occasional town-hall meeting in Leimert Park -- the one part of the black community where they now feel safe thanks to gentrification -- to tell black people how to vote on something gay isn't effective outreach either.

There's nothing a white gay person can tell me when it comes to how I as a black lesbian should talk to my community about this issue. If and when I choose to, I know how to say what needs to be said. Many black gays just haven't been convinced that this movement for marriage is about anything more than the white gays who fund it (and who, we often find, are just as racist and clueless when it comes to blacks as they claim blacks are homophobic).

Some people seem to think that homophobia trumps racism, and that winning the battle for gay marriage will symbolically bring about equality for everyone. That may seem true to white gays, but as a black lesbian, let me tell you: There are still too many inequalities that exist as it relates to my race for that to ever be the case. Ever heard of "driving while black"? Ever looked at the difference between the dropout rates for blacks and for whites? Or test scores? Or wages? Or rates of incarceration?

And in the end, black voters in California voted against gay marriage by more than 2 to 1.

Maybe next time around -- because we all know this isn't over -- the gay community can demonstrate the capacity and willingness to change that America demonstrated when it went to the polls on Nov. 4. Black gays are depending on their white counterparts to finally "get it."

Until then, don't expect to make any inroads any time soon in the black community on this issue -- including with this black lesbian.

Jasmyne A. Cannick is a writer in Los Angeles. jasmynecannick.com.

Anachronism and American Indians

With thanks to the moderator at Racialicious, I repost this:

In many places in the midwest the American Indian is very present, but in other places in the U.S., like in California, Disney’s Pocahontas is as close as we get to “Indians.” The idea that American Indians are gone comes, in part, from the ubiquitous representation of them with feathers, buckskins, and moccasins. These anachronisms are everywhere (see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here).

American Indians are as modern as the rest of us, why are representations of American Indians, as they live today, so unusual? And what effect might that have on the psyche of American Indian people?

Via PostSecret.

This was originally posted here.
END OF POST.

"Twilight": another tale of the awful plight of the troubled white serial killer

Where the vampire's otherness posed a terrifying threat for the original readers of Dracula, [...] today that same alien quality is often perceived as an attraction. As rebellious outsider, as persecuted minority, as endangered species, and as member of a different "race" that legend portrays as sexually omnicompetent, the vampire makes a fitting hero for late twentieth-century popular fiction. --"The Vampire as Alien in Contemporary Fiction", by Margaret L. Carter, p. 29 of Blood Read.

The white, dark-haired, not-so-badboy is back. His name is Edward Cullen and he's "sexier", and paler, than ever. Edward is keeping his damsel-in-distress, Bella Swan, out of trouble with the enemies of true white love--you know, those with the "longest incisors". Keep in mind the story of The Ugly Duckling--with feathers all stubby and brown--the first three and a half minutes of this YouTube video tells the tale. Only when it becomes a white swan does it become bella, or beautiful. So of course he's desired by and desires a young thin pale white woman--duh! ("Out" gay men and butch lesbians of any color are not likely to make the cut as "the romantic love interest" anytime soon in a major motion picture.) And of course he desires to BE WITH HER ALWAYS (creepy!), never letting him out of his sight, or, well, to be her soulmate. (Too often in real life: same diff.) This is where this story lures us in: is he a bad "irresistable" pale guy who wants to be good, or a good guy whose passions will lead him to be bad? Even without long incisors, we are aware he carries danger somewhere inside himself... perhaps in his molars.

It sometimes gets confusing as to who exactly is evil in racist Western patriarchal cultural mythology. But generally speaking, in cinema, all that is white, including good-whiteguy cowboy hats, represents good. All that is dark or black, including bad whiteguy cowboy hats, as well as anyone with unpale or "black" skin and allegedly "black" eye color, is ominous, dangerous, and just plain evil. The 1960s campy TV vampire soap opera was called "Dark Shadows" not "Sunny Days" for a reason. More on Twilight's racism a bit later.

This story draws on themes that go all the way back to the Old Testament (with that original irresistible white temptress who only makes the weak white man feel badly about himself for giving into temptation). Is this another telling of male supremacy's Adam and Eve'l or Romeo and Juliet? Well, the woman in such myths is a threat to a man's well-being or she's dead; or, in vampire films, perhaps a combination of both.

This is the dilemma our newest pale male vampire faces in Twilight: to love Bella, be with her, as an abnormal human doing his best to assimilate, or to steel himself away from her, for her own good. Edward isn't your common cannibal, after all. He only goes after non-human animals for snacks, unlike the other more overtly predatory heteromale vampires in this film, such as James--a common cannibal who really hates vampires who won't suck the life out of people who are (only) human. (Figuring out what to serve such a lot at a U.S. holiday supper must get so problematic. I don't get the sense anyone would be all that happy with tofurkey.)

In Edward and James we have the eternal inner struggle of the perrenially tormented pale vampire: To bite/penetrate/kill or not to bite/penetrate/kill? For Edward, a diet of pets may suffice. But not so for James, whose specific tastes might be termed Bellatarian. Good vampire vs. bad vampire. Each battling for the love, or blood, of Bella. The subtitle to this film could just as well be "It's Hard Out Here for a Vampire". Poor fellas. Poor Bella--drawn to a man who cannot love her without the risk of her being destroyed. Here is the painful passion found in many abusive relationships: she wants him, but he's not good for her; he wants her, but his love might result in her death. But back to fiction.

Vampire movies are, historically, a Hollywood film genre known for eroticising pale male violence against [traditionally] young thin white women, in that "oh-so-sexy-while-creepy" way. Sure, there was that 1994 ECD oh-so-controversial Brad Pitt-Tom Cruise homoeroticism pervading some scenes in Anne Rice's best-seller brought to the screen, Interview with the Vampire". (And, the blogger noted sarcastically, they really pushed the envelope regarding who is seen as handsome in Hollywood with that film, eh?)

We might note the number of women involved in the maintenance of this genre. I suspect because these stories are, on the surface, more romance and passion than ugly predation and woman-killing. (Male writers and directors still hold the market on the bloodier, "terrify, fuck, and kill the woman" films. But given the racist-sexist pornographication of Western society, it matters not if the story is written by a woman or a man. All these lines between love, romance, danger, and death have been blurring for some time. Terror and horror can be themes in a dominant society that won't own the real horrific and terrible things that it does, like, say, keeping a genocide going on this soil.

In fact, the blending of racism (not just symbolically), heterosexism, the potential and impending death of a woman or women, spiced with turn-on or terror, is something that U.S. films and many top rated TV shows just can't exist without. For Hollywood, leaving the violence out of sexist and racist themes, and the sexism and racism out of violence, would, well, be like depriving a predatory heteromale vampire of fresh female blood. Well, the female blood that comes from the neck area*.

[*There are plenty of tired, misogynist jokes about male vampires being drawn to women who are having their periods. The idea with this humor is that it is "gross" (hence funny) because, you must understand, menstruating women are really gross, so men say. Menstruation = gross = funny. Yes, this does mean dominant male society's emotional maturity level is perpetually in elementary school. Perhaps because of being raised in the company of plenty of girls and women, I've never understood the aversion to menstrual blood. Women friends and I have discussed using it in political work. For me, the more it is in men's faces the better. Why is it "in vogue" to cover women's faces in men's semen? Because it shows who is degrading whom, and that semen is gross, not hot, when it touches female flesh. (In gay male pornography, it's only hot, because it never touches female flesh.)

I can't seem to get through to my gay and heterosexual brothers on this topic. They'll shriek and cringe like, well, the misogynistic mensesphobic grown men they are, when I bring up the subject of menstrual blood. They share stories of personal "horror" such as when a young or older man finds external evidence lying around of a woman having her period, such as when a woman doesn't waste water by not flushing the toilet when there's drops of blood in it as well as urine, or when the disposal of a tampon or pad is shamelessly left atop a bathroom wastebin "insufficiently" cocooned in toilet paper. The key to understanding misogynist men's attitudes about women and blood is this: blood from the uterus--not sexy. Blood from any other area of a woman--sexy. Menstrual blood is not the kind of blood men eroticise in (or on) women because it is a sign of pre-menopausal women's health, and life. Women bleeding is, in the misogynistic imagination, supposed to be fused only to the possibility of female death. Of course this still allows men the pornographic option of being the violent cause of women's internal bleeding, anywhere in her body, including down there.]

But where were we? Ah yes: misogyny and racism.

Pale white is the dominant U.S./U.K. new (oh, and not-so-new, and olden days) "beautiful", according to fables, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and corporate pimps. Surely you remember: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?" and all that other racist-hetero/sexist children's story horseshit. But the claims of the vampire as another race gets tricky in a film like this one. For there are, [SPOILER ALERT!!] actual people of color depicted in this movie. In typical Hollywood racist fashion, American Indians have "a role" to play in this film, and, unfortunately, it's not solely to remind the pale-faced leeches to go back to Transylvania... or wherever in Europe we came from. Here, they can be werewolves. (Wait: isn't that basically how Hollywood has ALWAYS presented American Indians?) As such, they become "animals" for white-night-crawling vampires to drain. (Sarcasm alert:) Humans as animals: nothing sexist or racist about that!

As for the hidden and not-so-hidden misogynist violence within this genre, one need only note that in the 2008 ECD vampire TV show True Blood, there was reference to a "fang-banging". (The dots are all connected, it's just that we're trained to see only dots, no lines.) Curiously, this time it's the TV show that could "go there" while this movie, rated [SPOILER ALERT!!] PG-13, doesn't quite. Ah, the allure of the long period of longing in heterosexual seduction. The endless wait for consummation, a word which means to bring to fruition, to fuck if newly married, and to terminate. (How quaint of the English language to offer up such a term.)

Twilight, according to reports, handles this topic of consummation in an way that shouldn't upset too many folks who are into the whole white Christian conservative spawned (and miserably failing) phenomena of the "virginity pledge" and the "Purity Ring".

There will be no "sex" (meaning, OF COURSE, genital-to-genital male-with-female intercourse) in this new film! Sparing the audience of predominantly white, middle class adolescent girls and their moms of scenes of consummation means you have a Disney-tame plot line with enough sexual tension to take us through several sequels, or centuries: whichever comes first. It also means that grown men are not so likely to go see this one. (We're virtually all addicted to Internet porn anyway, so "Bye, ladies, have fun at the movies!" This is not to say one need leave home to see fangy-toothed men portrayed graphically.

For example, you may have seen this vampiric theme on CSI:

">

In overtly sexually violent
Vogue magazine photos, and in this more "tame" Vogue image in which such thin white young women seem to walk the line, visually, between life and death.

And in the news, men serially murdering women is also nothing new. To modify a famous quote by C. A. MacKinnon: Man kills women; subject verb objects. There has even been a real life vampire serial killer.

Academics, too, have tackled this theme. For an especially good analytic piece on the subject, see this.

I can only wonder about the on-going jokes of the dashing draculesque dude having blue-balls, and not just because he's so damned cold all the time. All I can say is: Edward Cullen, take matters into your own hands. If you don't get to that nubile female human blood in time, what's the worst thing that can happen? Oh, right: you die, for good.

To Edward, James, and any readers of this blog who happen to be vampires, I recommend that you leave white women, men and women of color, and non-human animals alone and go crawl into a coffin.

Male pale-faces, go home to Transylvania!

Hey, Edward--what do you think of that idea?

I thought so.

Get ready for the sequels, folks.

For a whole book on this subject, see Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Society, edited by Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger.

If interested in more plot details, see here.

For discussion and analysis of the racism in the book (which spills over into the film), click here.

For a wonderfully transgressive fictional spin on the same ole plot, see Jewelle Gomez's The Gilda Stories. A review of her book is here.

(Revised on Nov. 25)

Indigenous Feminist Voices Heard Here

In this post I am sharing information about a book and a conference, each geared to put the voices of Indigenous Feminists front and center.

If you scroll down on this webpage, you will see the video links to many women's lectures. These lectures are from the conference Native Feminisms: Without Apology which convened in the spring of 2006 ECD (in the era of Christian domination), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The book is not related to the conference above but instead grew out of a 2002 Aboriginal Feminist Symposium in Canada. It was published in 2007 ECD by Zed Books. (If I use that acronym enough, I might actually remember to put it after any Christian calendar year I refer to!)

The book is titled as the above front cover image indicates: Making Space for Indigenous Feminism, edited by Joyce Green. If you click on that title in this sentence, you will be led to Women, Ink. Bookstore's online site and a description of the books' contents. (I am happy to be able to link to online booksellers other than Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.) A review of the book is found here.

A more complete description of the book's contents is available by clicking on the blue "Read more!".

About the Book

The majority of scholarly and activist opinion by and about Indigenous women claims that feminism is irrelevant for them. Yet there is also an articulate, theoretically informed and activist constituency that identifies as feminist. This book is by and about Indigenous feminists, whose work demonstrates a powerful and original intellectual and political contribution demonstrating that feminism has much to offer Indignenous women in their struggles against oppression and for equality. Indigenous feminism is international in its scope: the contributors here are from Canada, the USA, Sapmi (Samiland), and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The chapters include theoretical contributions, stories of political activism, and deeply personal accounts of developing political consciousness as Aboriginal feminists.

Contents

Introduction: From Symposium to Book - Joyce Green

Part 1: What is Indigenous Feminism?

1. Taking Account of Indigenous Feminism - Joyce Green

2. Aboriginal Women on Feminism: Exploring Diverse Points of View - Verna St. Denis

3. Metis and Feminist: Reflections from the Margins - Emma Larocque

Part 2: Aboriginal Feminist Analysis and Theory

4. Sami Women and Feminism: Strategies for Healing and Transformation - Rauna Kuokkanen

5. Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change - Andrea Smith

6. Gender, Essentialism, and Feminism in Samiland - Jurunn Eikjok translated by Gunhild Hoogensen

7. Indigenous Feminism as Resistance to Imperialism - Makere Stewart- Harawira

8. Balancing Strategies: Aboriginal Women and Constitutional Rights in Canada - Joyce Green

Part 3: Aboriginal Feminist Activists and Sister-Travellers

9. Looking Back, Looking Forward - Shirley Green

10. Maori Women and Leadership in Aotearoa - Kathie Irwin

11. Yes, My Daughter, We Are Cherokee Women - Denise Henning

12. My Home Town Northern Canada South Africa - Emma LaRocque

13. Culturing Politics and Politicizing Culture - Shirley Bear

14. An Aboriginal Feminist on Violence Against Women - Tina Beads with Rauna Kuokkanen

15. Colleen Glenn: A Metis Feminist in Indian Rights for Indian Women - Colleen Glenn with Joyce Green

16. Woman of Action: An Interview with Sharon McIvor - Sharon McIvor with Rauna Kuokkanen

About the Editor

Joyce Green is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Regina. Green's current work focuses on the potential of decolonization in Canada, and on the way in which sexism, racism, and race privilege is encoded in Canadian political culture. She is of English, Ktunaxa, and Cree-Scots Metis heritage, and mother of a daughter from the Peigan nation.

Rights Information

World Rights are held for this title outside of Canada

Bye-bye Men's Rights Brethren

To John Dias, cybro, Kapt Krunch, Fidelbogen, MadShangi, Frostyboy, Anti Misandry, and all the other Father's Rights/Men's Rights/Antifeminist Activists out there:

It has been brought to my attention by a colleague that all the arguments you put forth have already been answered sufficiently (see below). Therefore, I decided it would be an utter waste of cyberspace to further engage you on those subjects here.

Since you don't seem to know it, I'll inform you that you are a group of very privileged human beings who are utterly clueless about the living conditions and lack of privileges most people in the world--who aren't you--live with, endure, and often don't survive.

When you are, from your points of view, unfairly treated, or falsely accused--sometimes by one woman in your past--this "affront" generates in far too many of you the most self-righteous, scathing, and scornful written assaults on women, especially feminists, with a particularly foolish level of deranged irrationality focused on radical feminists.

These sorts of ego-bruises--assuming the occasional personal injustice done to some of you--to which you are apparently not at all accustomed, is but one indication of the enormous amount of privilege you carry day to day. (Most women I know are treated unfairly every day of their lives.)

You give humanity a bad name. So much for the myth of white men being western civilisation's standard of sanity, honesty, and integrity.

Let the record show that, to date, my questions to antimisandrists have never been answered. I gave John Dias his requested two days to reply here, and he did not choose to do so.

I apologise to the anti-misogynist visitors here for giving those men as much attention as I have.

I'll close this post with the following quotes, correspondence, and this important link (a website from which all of what follows was found). What is blockquoted below, in addition to the other information found at the link just above, thoroughly exposes many of the distortions and lies Fathers' Rights and Men's Rights Groups are organised to promote and promulgate.

Robert Okun, a specialist in men's issues and domestic violence, pointed out that many of today’s dads, whether married, never-married or divorced, are doing their best to stay actively involved in their children’s lives. But of men in the organized father’s rights movement, who typically represent themselves as the innocent victims of gender discrimination and manipulative ex-wives, Okun writes: "Some may very well be getting a raw deal. If so, it is essential that divorce lawyers, psychotherapists, family service court officers, mediators, guardians ad litem and judges educate themselves about those circumstances and take steps to intervene when a man has been erroneously targeted as part of a strategy in a contentious custody complaint. However, in a dangerously high number of cases, many of these fathers have a documented history of abuse."

[C]oncerned citizens who've taken the time to investigate the activities of father's rights groups in greater depth -- notably Trish Wilson, a freelance writer who considers exposing the shady underside of the father's custody movement her part-time job. Ms. Wilson first became curious about the movement when she stumbled into a father's rights message board on AOL ten years ago. When she questioned the accuracy of child support statistics posted on the board, Ms. Wilson reports she was "attacked by the regulars there. The woman who had posted the original out-of-context quotes told me that I believed all women should have custody of their children because they had uteruses, which is nonsense. There were similar, ugly flames thrown at me by others. I was taken aback at how nasty they were." Since then, Ms. Wilson has conducted extensive research reviews and produced a series of articles disputing the studies and data father's rights advocates use to justify their intention to overhaul child custody and support laws.

Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 06:12:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: enclosed@mo.net
To: liz
Subject: Re: SMH

Liz,

One evening I was sitting at dinner with a man who stated "Women don't understand abstract justice." I said, "What do you mean by that?"

He said, "They can only see the world through relationships, and that is all that matters to them."

Thanks for proving his point.

Look for this man's book coming out this year, "The Case for Father Custody." [5]

Liz, a man is very interested in raising his progeny, not somebody elses.

"Organisms have evolved to expend their very lives enhancing the fitness prospects of their descendants. Parental investment is a precious resource, and selection must favor those parental psyches that do not squander it on nonrelatives." --Daly and Wilson, 1988.

Nick

LIZ'S RESPONSE:

I see you've run out of arguments and now have descended into thinly veiled insults, i.e. telling me (a lawyer), that (being a woman) I do not understand "justice," as well as resorting to sloganism, and the "authoritative fallacy," i.e. quoting others, who are to be given extra credence because their words have been published.

You go on to say: "A man is very interested in raising his progeny not somebody elses."

I have a question back. It's "why?" Why do you think so? Are you sure it's RAISING that progeny and not merely passing on genes?

My response to you is this: catering to an adult's ego is just not a priority consideration. It has nothing whatever to do with the interests of a child. If you believe a parental DNA connection is a motivating thing, well that speaks volumes.

We're talking "possession" here, as in property, as in "mine." And "molding" here as in "indoctrination into my beliefs." Not caregiving. Not a child perspective. But self-adoration and replication. If the biological connection alone was so motivating, how is it we have the numbers of nonmarital unions and bad marriages we have? what about adoptive parents? what about sperm donors? I'll agree with you that some men think this way. I just don't buy it as some naturally arising drive, and even as a result of social indoctrination, I don't buy it as a given.

But let's accept your theory for the sake of argument. If a biological father's ostensible natural interest is in raising his own progeny, that interest nevertheless still is unlikely to compare favorably with the gestating mother's interest. She's got the very same biological connection, PLUS the biological relationship in fact with the child! And how is the father's interest later on demonstrated? Who is more likely to be the primary caregiver?

"The Case For Father Custody?" Nonsense. By your own measure, natural mothers' parenting generally would come out on top on both counts: your "abstract justice" theory, as well as my real life relationship preservation.

In one breath you've pretended (that male superiority thing?) that "women don't understand abstract justice," and then implicitly called upon nature, quoting talk about about organism evolution. Evolutionarily, the male reproductive drive in species the world over is merely to pass on the genes, not to raise the children. Most organisms also have evolved such that mothers raise their young.

And what about your "abstract justice?" Life is not lived in the abstract, and some men's egos are just not the sum total of what counts.

This is really what the FR movement is about, isn't it. Children and women as men's possessions. The ideology of property rights. Patriarchy. It has nothing whatever to do with the well-being of children.

By the way. Clarence Darrow, a famous man lawyer well known for his righting of wrongs, had this to say about "abstract justice": there is no such thing, in or out of court.

liz