Please respond to Hank Pellissier (and especially his followers) on his proposal to Ban "Baby-Making" (Births) in the U.S., "for the sake of the children"

Hank Pellissier

I've heard similar things from white folks in the U.S. But this guy is coming out with a book. Everything that follows was written by Hank Pellissier, except my comment below his post. You can link to his post and comment, if you think it's worth it, by clicking on the title below. Much of what he's written is so fucked up, it's a wonder anyone can come to these viewpoints. The appropriate conclusion is that one comes to viewpoints like this when one passes through some kinds of "education" with gross entitlements and privileges to be ignorant about the world while doing so--and since. This tells us a lot about how WHM supremacist the education systems in North America often are and why 'being educated' isn't at all the same thing as being intelligent, moral, good, or wise.
 
A White Het Supremacist Man with class-privilege demands that we...  [TRIGGER WARNING: what follows is profoundly misogynistic, classist, and racist.]

Ban Baby-Making Unless Parents Are Licensed

by Hank Pellissier

Ethical Technology

Posted: Apr 20, 2011

For the sake of the children, let’s control human breeding. No one should be permitted to reproduce until they pass a battery of tests.

---

Does that proposal enrage you? Go ahead, hate me. Call me vile names like “Neo-Nazi-Elitist-Baby-Killing-Totalitarian-Sicko.” Or simply “Eugenicist.” I don’t care. I know I’m right.

It’s blatantly clear that 15-year-old intoxicated half-wits can easily spawn, but should they? Hell no. Let’s control human breeding, please. Let’s keep babies away from buffoons, and let’s test fetuses meticulously to guarantee healthy infants. No one should be permitted to reproduce unless and until they pass a battery of tests.

[for the rest of his article, please go to the site linked to from the title]

_________________

What follows is a slightly revised version of what I posted to his discussion page.

JulianReal • http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/ • May 2, 2011

Hank, that's a very classist, misogynist, and racist perspective. You should know only the most privileged people have the option to do such things. How, for example, would you recommend an immigrant woman called "illegal" by our racist government, get licensed? What makes you think women usually choose to get pregnant? What about girls impregnated by their father or their mom's boyfriend? What about women who are routinely raped by their boyfriend or husband?

You'll have to end incest and rape--and all of patriarchy, as well as racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism, before such a position would be at all considerable and considerate of most women.

And, you do know you, a white man, is declaring yourself as Holder of The Truth in a nation that remains pro-genocide, yes? We whites are still committing this atrocity against Indigenous people across the land that was stolen--and many Indigenous nations' people are struggling in many ways to survive the atrocity. We whites allow our government to plant nuclear waste nearest to Indian reservations, don't we? And we whites have a history of forcibly sterilising poor women of color--especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous women and girls. And forcibly removing culture, religion, and language from Indigenous children. As well as taking children from their own communities. As well as white men trespassing on reservation land and raping Indigenous women and girls.

Your proposal also does nothing to substantively stop white wealthy het men from traversing the Earth to rape girls and women in systems of trafficking and sexual slavery.

I hope you know that the term "breeding" for child-bearing is one that was used by white men against Black people throughout U.S. history--and never, ever to describe the "breeding" of white wealthy men.

Do you see any of these very related issues as relevant to a discussion of "ethics"?

Julian

Update: a recent exchange. I'll put Hank's words in italics. Mine won't be.

Hi Hank.

I'll reply in sections.

You wrote:
For example, I don't believe that just because I am a white man I am supposed to be silent and not have an opinion. I also don't believe that past historical atrocities - like African-American slavery and Native American genocide - are supposed to dictate policy forever, especially in rather unrelated fields.

I don't see whites' genocide against American Indians, which is current, as something that is unrelated. And I'm not suggesting you be silent. There are also more slaves now than in the past. So neither genocide nor slavery are matters of the past, and whites benefit to this day in all kinds of ways due to their on-going reality. I won't take up this thread detailing how that works. I recommend reading Tim Wise's work for more on this, though.

You wrote:
I can't buy into the "white shame" that you seem to want me to feel, for a variety of reasons.

I'm not at all suggesting you feel any guilt or shame. I'm asking you, I suppose, to be responsible for the structural location you inhabit. We are not all placed into this world equally, even if equality is a value for some of us. Surely the Royal Wedding proves this point. And also the fact that bin Laden can have a bullet blow his brains out and U.S. Americans can cheer, but if such a thing happened to Cheney or GWB, or Rumsfeld, we'd bomb the CRAP out of the countries we determined to be involved. Oh wait: we already are doing that.

You wrote:
I find your notion of "white guilt" and "white shame" very silly and non-productive.

Where do I use those terms? I don't. So why are you quoting them? And that's not what I'm speaking about at all. Please don't presume what I'm saying. If you're not sure, I welcome you to ask.

You wrote:
You regard my parent-licensing proposal as invalid, and you claim it is racist and classicist.

Yes, the proposal is. And I apologise for saying that you are racist and classist, if I did. I meant that the proposal was. I still find that to be the case.

You wrote:
 I maintain, as I have throughout this thread, that my motivations are charitable,

I find most white people's charity to the less materially fortuned to be racist and classist as well.

You wrote:
 I am interested in guaranteeing that children are born into this world in good health and that they live in family situations that promote their well-being.

Riches not only don't guarantee it, but rich folks tend not to even raise their own children: they have servants do it and send their kids away to boarding schools. This is addressed to the person who seems to think that having more money makes someone a better parent, automatically.

You wrote:
We are looking at situations from a different perspective -- I see children as the victims and I want to remedy this, perhaps you see Native Americans as the victims and you want to protect them.

Not at all. I see people as people. And political location as a meaningful factor in what people say and how they say it. For example, I find that rich folks tend to talk down to poor folks. And whites tend to talk down to people of color. And that middle aged people tend to talk down to children and to the elderly. Not each and every time, and not without plenty of exceptions. But these are patterns that correlate well to "what one has experienced" and if someone has never been treated as a non-person by whites because they are white, they likely don't know what it is like to be treated the way Black and Brown people are often treated by whites. I'm speaking about the real world, in reality. Anyone who isn't white will likely have plenty of stories to tell about not being treated as well as the average white person similarly economically located.

You wrote:
You have also resorted to calling me names, and that is unfair. You say I am racist and classicist,

I meant that the writing, what you say, participates in patterns of racist and classist writings by others. Sorry for not being clearer.

You wrote:
 let's just talk about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I am interested in ending this horrible maiming of human beings before they are even born, and I am interested in doing it quickly.

Hank, you can't. I hope you truly understand that you can't do that. That's an aim well beyond your capabilities, or mine, or anyone else's.

What we "want to do" is not at all what we can do, necessarily. And I think it's important to soberly realise that.

You wrote:
Your attitude about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome seems to be that it is a Native American issue and I should not have any say in it? because I am just a white male perpetrator of genocide?

I said nothing of the kind. I never asked you not to speak. And I never called you a perpetrator of anything. My comment is up there. Please re-read it. What I wrote about was your political structural location in society as white person, as a man, and as someone with relative class (economic) privileges. And nowhere did I associate fetal alcohol syndrome with being Native American, and for you to do so is, in your writing, "racist" to me. Because it plays into a common negative stereotype about American Indians--that white folks write about and think they're being "charitable" to American Indian babies when doing so. I welcome you to engage with American Indian children and get their point of view, and not try and speak for them. Or for any children who you don't know personally. That's not asking you to be silent. It's asking you to speak responsibly about what you know--not from reading, but from life outside of reading. Are you implying that white babies don't suffer from F.A.S.? And every other color of babies? Rich, middle class, and poor babies too?

You wrote:
I very adamantly disagree and I am happy to represent the infants in this situation.

I'm saying that you don't represent them, Hank. Nor do I. In theory or in abstraction you might. But not in reality. You don't, unless you're an attorney or a social worker. You're speaking here, writing here--that's not "representing" them. I'm asking you to be honest with what you say and write.

You wrote:
I believe they have the right to be born healthy

So do I.

You wrote:
 and I believe we all have a moral responsibility to help them.

Hank, I find this to be an issue of abstractionism. How does you having this discussion in cyberspace materially or spiritually benefit any children in the U.S., or any fetuses? Can you explain that to me please?

You wrote:
 Do you think the threatened fetus, in a womb toxic with alcohol, if it had a vote, would side with its mother, or with me?

Assuming a level of distinguishing itself from its mother, which cannot happen before birth, my answer is: no doubt with its mother. The baby doesn't know you at all and would likely be frightened by you pretending to be someone who "represents" it.

You wrote:
I think discussion of ethnicity and even gender in regards to my proposal are just paralyzing distractions and that I've been subjected to very foolish name-calling and finger-pointing.

I'm addressing the content of your writing. I'm naming it a certain way. You get to disagree, but that doesn't mean I'm right and it doesn't mean I'm wrong either. We get to disagree about what you're saying above, and to me here. A person above noted that there are unowned biases in your work. I agree. I'm asking you to be more conscious of those and to be responsible with them.

You wrote:
 I believe that the USA should be much more egalitarian - my recent article on Denmark exhibits this - but waiting for that to happen while babies are born unnecessarily damaged and children are severely abused - is cruelly negligent.

Hank, you haven't shown how writing about this makes any difference at all in the lives of real fetuses, babies, and children. Writing out ideas isn't the same thing as shifting societal patterns and systems of harm. We might call it a written proposal, or a statement of belief, or an argument for something. But that doesn't mean it is more than that.

You wrote:
I know who I am defending in this discussion - the future children.

I'm calling that statement dishonest. I don't think future children will likely ever know you or me, honestly. I doubt much that either of us has to say will impact their lives at all. So I hear you attributing to yourself as power I don't believe you (or I) have: to advocate, in material reality, the lives of children, unless you are raising them or being an uncle or teacher to them directly.

You wrote:
 WHo or what are you defending? The right of Native American women to drink heavily when they're pregnant?

I wish you'd please stop putting really sexist-racist statements in my writing that aren't there. Is that a fair thing to ask of you? I'm not defending anyone at all. I'm only speaking for myself. I object to racist and sexist and classist speech. I find your writing in this post to be all of those things. Am I not entitled to come here and state that? You welcomed me to come here and post comments, so I did.

You wrote:
 I oppose their right to do that. Is that what we're disagreeing on?

You don't oppose a racist-sexist stereotype; you promote and perpetuate it. How does that help anyone of any age?

I'll try and be clearer. I don't believe that people writing things down means they magically happen. I don't believe you have the power to do what you say your statements can do. I don't believe you are, in reality, advocating for any Native American children. I believe you think you are. But that's not the same thing. If you were working with poor women and children, assisting them in finding more social services slashed because the rich don't want to be taxed 3% more, I'd argue you are, in fact, helping those very few women and children. Is that your line of work? If you were a doctor attending to babies, white ones, or not, with F.A.S., I'd argue you are helping those few children. Is that your line of work?

I hope I'm being clear. I'm not insulting you, I hope. I mean to be communicating truthful statements. I'd like racism to go away, and sexism too, and classism, and for all children to be loved and cared for in family systems if that's the social model, or in community, raised more communally. But me writing that doesn't do much of anything to make it socially real. It helps no children in the present. And future children aren't here. And I don't believe you or anyone else speaks for them. When they are born and grow up, if they grow up, if they can speak, they will speak for themselves.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Now can the U.S. get out of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Or will the U.S. use this death as an excuse to stay in corrupt wars even longer?

The U.S. government has been terroristically and criminally at war against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and has military presence in the Middle East and North Africa. Will the death of bin Laden result in the U.S. withdrawing troops? Or will the U.S. remain the most terroristic, militarised, racist nation-state on Earth?

anti-war image is from here

Dear President Obama,


Please withdraw all troops from Afghanistan and everywhere else, cut the military budget, increase taxes on the rich, make corporations earning billions annually pay taxes, and stop looting the poor and middle class. And please stop looting and polluting the Global South too. And stop the genocide against Indigenous people. And rape. And please work to end all forms of exploitation of girls and women.


Julian Real

Abusive Husbands? Are you listening? "Wife-beating is unacceptable", says Dora Byamukama. So, men: stop beating women already!!!!

image is from here

It's not that hard to get, men. If you think women believing in their own inferiority entitles you to beat them, then you need to be removed from the home, permanently.

What follows is from NewVision: a leading feminist website. Click on the title to link back.

Wife-beating is unacceptable

Wednesday, 27th April, 2011

By Dora Byamukama

ACCORDING to the World's Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet, Uganda records the highest percentage of women internationally who agree that wife-beating is acceptable if a wife argues with her husband. This state of affairs is totally unacceptable.

Sadly more women than men find wife-beating acceptable! One wonders why this is so. India was ranked second with 30% and Ghana came third at 21%.

In the East African region Ugandan women are considered gentle and submissive. Whether this is a positive or negative trait is a subject for debate. This notwithstanding, when gentility and submission have the potential to contribute to self-hate then this attitude calls for change. Change can only be effective when the causes are known otherwise whatever action is taken may be like mopping a wet floor, when the tap is left open.

Causes of acceptance of violence against women are several. These are basically beliefs and practices that treat women as inferior human beings and thus undermine their self-esteem. These beliefs and practices perpetuate an attitude that makes men and women believe that women are inferior and less intelligent--thus the need to punish them for arguing with their husbands.

Beliefs and practices permeate the human soul to the extent that women who are likely to be harmed by such a negative attitude internalize it and thus not only accept the degradation but also pass on the same to their children over time.

It is, therefore, not uncommon for a woman to be told to endure violence in a marriage by her mother on the basis that this is the wear and tear of marriage. While growing up, I heard of a story of a woman who reported such violence several times to her parents who kept sending her back to the marriage until their daughter was sent back to them in a coffin! In fact the coffins were two because the woman had been eight months pregnant.

Beliefs and practices that wife-beating is acceptable are rooted in several factors which include religion, culture, social pressure as a result of war, poverty and alcoholism. Most religions emphasise that women are inferior to men. Christianity, however, categorically states that all human beings are made in the image of God.

When some religions read texts to support oppression of women out of context then the resultant effect is to misinterpret and misapply the very same religion that is fundamentally based on respecting the person created in the creator's very image.

Religion shapes attitudes fundamentally because it is personal and the frequency with which one is exposed to it on a daily and weekly basis ensures that the belief is sustained and that is enforced through social pressure.

Culture is another aspect that shapes attitude that may promote women's tolerance to wife-beating. Culture is a form of religion because it dictates a person's way of life, and shapes what is socially acceptable. In fact most cultures do not condone wife-beating but because domestic matters are considered private, this privacy is abused and used to commit crimes.

Culture is dynamic and is also shaped and influenced by globalization through internet interaction, videos and films. Globalization has introduced what is termed as modern culture, which has large doses of violence and in some instances is spiced with witchcraft. One such good example is the growing consumption of Nigerian films in Uganda.

When one is exposed to such films over and over again, the resultant effect is that they will copy and put into practice what they see.

The World's Women and Girls Data Sheet also indicates that 31% of Ugandan women and 19% of Ugandan men said that it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him. This indeed is an interesting and deeply disturbing finding. The question is, if after a beating the woman agrees to sex, does it make the man feel any better?

Apart from wife-beating being a human right abuse and a crime it also has the potential to spread HIV/AIDS and other venereal diseases.

In most cases when one talks about wife-beating people imagine that it is a mere slap. A mere slap has the potential to cause the destruction of an eye. More importantly no one has capacity to pre-determine the kind of beating that may be meted on a woman in any given circumstance.

The anger of a spouse can lead to grievous harm and even murder! Wife-beating also has the potential to turn the victim into a violent person with the potential to avenge the torture any time.

Uganda has set the trend in the East African region for the empowerment of women significantly since the NRM came to power in 1986. The law is clear. Wife-beating is a crime prohibited by the Constitution, the Penal Code Act and the Domestic Violence Act. All people have a right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The fact that less men than women find wife-beating acceptable is cause to celebrate. However, more work needs to be done in order to make wife-beating totally unacceptable by religious and cultural leaders and the media.

Champions that promote and practise respect for the dignity of the person are needed at all levels of society--beginning with you.

From CODE RED: Struggles for Children's and Women's Rights Must Challenge Men's Rights and Fathers' Wrongs

image is from here

What follows is from CODE RED, reprinted here with permission.

CODE RED is a feminist collective of Caribbean women and men. 

Our wordpress blog is an archive of some of our lively discussions and feature articles originally posted on facebook and tumblr. Follow us on twitter and tell your friends about us.

Join the conversation. All voices welcome!

CODE RED for gender justice!

www.facebook.com/redforgender

https://twitter.com/redforgender

http://redforgender.tumblr.com/

   Twitter: @redforgender

Spotlight on Paternity Testing During Child Month

In Barbados between April 1, 2010, and February 28 this year there were 737 cases of child abuse involving 1,061 children. Of that number 199 children suffered physical abuse, 151 sexual abuse, 612 neglect, 97 emotional abuse and two were abandoned.   Of course these figures do not reflect the countless other cases of child abuse that go unreported and the other institutionalized and normalized practices of child abuse that are not even considered such.

May is child month.  I learn today that the activities for Child Month include: the launch of a campaign against child abuse, a men’s forum to discuss DNA Testing And Implications For Men And Children, in addition to a forum for the youth on the topic Teenage Pregnancy: Life Before, Life After.

Just who is setting the children’s rights agenda in Barbados? With 1000+ children reported to have been abused  and the countless other cases which go unreported, how is a “a men’s forum to discuss DNA Testing And Implications For Men And Children” a legitimate child month activity? Just how do men’s rights and responsibilities with regards to paternity and paternity testing fall within the remit of an organisation set up to respond to the needs of children? Where are the children’s voices?

I’m not dismissing the relevance or usefulness of paternity testing.  Neither am I dismissing the premise of a men’s forum to discuss it.  Yes, men and women, mothers and fathers have a key in ensuring that children’s rights are not denied.  But theirs interests and agendas cannot be assumed to be the same.  I just think that child month should be about the issues which deny our children their right to a good life and also about the issues which our children define as important to them.

The UNICEF report on “Perceptions of, Attitudes to, and Opinions on Child Sexual Abuse in the Eastern Caribbean” revealed that:

a significant number of people consider that childhood ends at 13 years. This may help to explain why, in the focus group discussions, some men indicated that they considered girls to be legitimate sexual targets once girls have gone through puberty (this phrase was taken to mean that a girl had begun menstruating);

The bible says that when a woman goes through puberty she is ready, so if it happens at 11 she is ready (Male Focus Group Participant).

It also revealed that the majority of respondents agreed that ‘girls draw men’s sexual attention by the way they dress’.  While respondents may have been stating that they believe this to be a fact or that they in fact believed that girls actively seek men’s attention through their choice of dress, it is a belief that ultimately relieves men of their responsibility for their own behaviour and contributes to victim-blaming in cases of rape and sexual abuse.

Another key finding is that the majority of respondents said that if an adult in their family was sexually abusing a child within the family, they would always report it to the police.  However, when asked a related question, a significant number of people said they would try to sort out such a problem without informing the police.   Men were twice as likely as women respondents to state that they would sort it out without going to the police (34% of male respondents said this as compared to 17% of female respondents).

Clearly we have a long way to go towards recognising the right of all children to a good life. This includes moving away from viewing children as the property of their parents, a view that is very much prevalent in the Caribbean.  We also need to recognise that children’s rights must be addressed on their own terms. We cannot allow the children’s rights agenda to be hijacked by groups whose aims are often inimical to the rights of children.

We need children’s voices on the Children’s Rights agenda.  

Indigenist Event and Action Alert: Mining Corporations vs. the Oglala Lakota Oyate and the Earth. Who will win? See this for more...

image is from here

Genocide and ecocide are all around. But few people wish to see it who aren't experiencing the devastation, such as in Alabama and Mississippi--due to ferocious hurricanes directly caused by Global Warming by the White Man. Even fewer wish to do anything about it. That's a tragedy and a failure of white humanity to be humane--again.

Please support Indigenous activism and anti-genocide and pro-Earth events and organising. What follows is from Censored News, with thanks to Brenda. Please click on the links just below to visit to that website about this and many other Indeginist actions taking place that need support.

Wounded Knee, SD Environmental Film and Forum

Environmental Awareness Film Presentation and Forum

Location Wounded Knee District School Gym
Saturday, May 7, 1 pm to 7 pm

"The condition of Mother Earth is approaching a crisis for all human beings. Sacred water has been under attack for generations now and only in isolated pockets around the world are people fighting to preserve water. This is especially true in Indigenous communities where sources for clean, safe drinking water are under threat by mining. On the Pine Ridge reservation on the Northern Plains of North America, the Lakota people are taking a stand against uranium......"

All people are invited to participate in this event which includes the presentation of three short films, dialogue on the condition of sacred water and health, a live performance by the band SCATTER THEIR OWN whose performance will include their latest song about Mother Earth, and presentations by environmental activists as well as tribal officials regarding environmental impacts by mining corporations to the Oglala Lakota Oyate and all human beings, water, air, land, and all of sacred life.

Open microphone for participants to voice their concerns and comments about protecting our sacred Mother Earth.

Refreshments will be provided at the conclusion of the event.

Sponsors include Owe Aku, Vic Camp, 407-7808; Lakota Media Project, Rosebud White Plume 319-1367; H.E.L.P. Autumn Two Bulls, 441-7369; Looks For Buffalo Foundation, Floyd and Natalie Hand, 867-5762.

An Environmental Awareness Film Forum will be held on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 1pm at the Wounded Knee District School in Manderson, SD. Three films will be screened, followed by Guest Speakers to present updates on the environmental protection work they are involved in. The films include Water Is Life by Art Is Action, which is an 8 minute show that chronicles the impacts of uranium mining to the drinking water and health conditions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and that examines the dwindling drinking water supply in this area; the 28 minute film Poison Wind by 220 Productions, which shares the voice of the Navajo Nation and other tribal peoples in the southwestern United States who are impacted by uranium mining; and a work in progress by Prairie Dust Films which documents support for and opposition against uranium mining in Nebraska and in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Guest speakers include the film makers, governmental and health officials from the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Indian Health Service and environmental activists working in this region. Oglala Sioux Tribal President John Yellow Bird-Steele has confirmed his attendance. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal staff will be present to address cultural and historical preservation work in the area regarding the proposed tarsands XL Keystone oil pipeline of Transcanada, Inc. which is planned to skirt the boundaries of the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. Plaintiffs in the case against the Canadian-based corporation Cameco, Inc. will be present to discuss their case regarding current and proposed In Situ Leach Mining near Crawford, Nebraska. State officials have been invited and it is hoped they will be in attendance.

Live music will be provided by the popular group “Scatter Their Own”, headed by Oglala Lakota Scott Clifford, who will perform a recently released song about Mother Earth and the Black Hills. A local drum group will open and close the Film Forum with traditional Lakota music.

Open microphone time at the forum is available so those present can make comments or share environmental protection work they are involved in. All people are invited and encouraged to attend.

The Film Forum is free and open to everyone, refreshments will be served. The event is sponsored by Owe Aku, (Bring Back the Way), the Lakota Media Project, Project H.E.L.P., and the Looks For Buffalo Foundation. For more info please call Vic at 407-7808, Rosebud at 319-1367, or Autumn at 441-7369.

Indigenist Action Alert: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties don't apply to All People: PROTECT GLEN COVE (Vallejo, CA).

Photo Corrina Gould. Photo is from here

Tribal members fulfilled their part of what was thought to be an interim agreement, including taking down tents used for sleeping during the around the clock ceremonies. GVRD however has now refused to do anything they had agreed to do, while stepping up the police presence and monitoring of the ceremony.

Support for the efforts of tribal members to protect the site continues to grow. Last night over 50 people gathered for ceremonies and to welcome Mohave and Chemehuevi visitors from the Colorado River Indian Tribes who came to express their solidarity and encouragement.

Sunday evening begins Yom HaShoah, or Nazi Holocaust Remembrance Day. Which means we who are U.S. Jews--as well as non-Jews--ought not forget the genocides happening all around us.

Genocide has lots of components: stopping specific groups of people from living their lives is part of it. Also: occupying their land, preventing people from practicing their religion, from being able to gather and protest. And threatening specific groups of people with cultural and physical extinction is also part of it. How it is that we allow genocide in this country--this allegedly GREAT country that portrays itself as against things like genocide and racism--is beyond me.

I see this move by the Greater Vallejo Recreation Re-destruction District as a violation of people's civil rights and civil liberties to gather peacefully and to protest, and to practice their religion. This is part of a genocidal war against Indigenous people in the U.S. 

Please support the protest.

What follows is being cross-posted from Censored News with thanks to Brenda.

 

Protect Glen Cove Day 15: More Civil Rights Claims Filed

Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT).

For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Contact: * Corrina Gould 510-575-8408 * Morning Star Gali (510) 827 6719 *Norman “Wounded Knee” Deocampo 707-373-7195 * Mark Anquoe (415) 680-0110

Day 15 : Spiritual Vigil and Gathering to Protect Glen Cove Sacred Site Enters 3rd Week as Greater Vallejo Recreation District Breaks Agreement to Negotiate in Good Faith

SSP&RIT Files More Civil Rights Claims Against GVRD for New Violations as Threats Against Spiritual Ceremony and Sacred Site Escalate

By Protect Glen Cove
http://protectglencove.org/

Vallejo, California – As the spiritual gathering and vigil being held by local tribal members and supporters at the sacred burial site at Glen Cove in Vallejo entered its third week, Native Americans working to protect Glen Cove filed more complaints this morning with the Attorney General of California in response to new and serious violations of civil rights by the Greater Vallejo Recreation District.

The organization Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes today filed an addendum to the civil rights complaint filed on April 13, 2011 with the State Attorney General in response to GVRD’s attempt to intimidate and limit the number of participants in the spiritual ceremony, attempts to restrict certain ceremonial practices including songs, and GVRD’s refusal to negotiate a resolution of the dispute. The new complaint also further documents the presence of cremations as well as burials at the site, highlighting the risk that bulldozing the hill poses to the ancient human remains.

In a major development, GVRD has informed the United States Department of Justice that they will not sign a proposed agreement allowing the ceremony to temporarily continue without threat of arrest, and GVRD has failed to follow through on their agreement to meet with tribal members to try to resolve the burial site dispute.
Tribal members fulfilled their part of what was thought to be an interim agreement, including taking down tents used for sleeping during the around the clock ceremonies. GVRD however has now refused to do anything they had agreed to do, while stepping up the police presence and monitoring of the ceremony.

Support for the efforts of tribal members to protect the site continues to grow. Last night over 50 people gathered for ceremonies and to welcome Mohave and Chemehuevi visitors from the Colorado River Indian Tribes who came to express their solidarity and encouragement. Hundreds of Native Americans and their supporters have pledged to peacefully defend the sacred site in response to any attempt to desecrate the site or remove the ceremony. “I dont believe any of our tribal people would agree to outright grave robbery and disturbing sacred sites. We will not allow it to happen,” said Fred Short, Spiritual Leader of the American Indian Movement and a participant in the spiritual gathering at Glen Cove.

Glen Cove is located near the intersection of South Regatta and Whitesides Drive in Vallejo. For more information and directions: www.protectglencove.org

A copy of the Civil Rights Complaint and Addendum is available by contacting Bradley Angel at Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice

(415) 722-5270 or bradley@greenaction.org

The WHM Supremacist Celebration of the Decade: The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate: husband and woman, not man and wife

image of Britain's Kate Middleton and Prince William is from here

 

This post has been revised with portions and a link added, on 29 April 2011, prior to the wedding ceremony.

With a tad under ninety years left to this century, I think it's rather presumptuous, and totally in service to corporate media ratings, to term this event the "wedding of the century". What about the weddings of Kate and William's culturally hoped-for and presumably heterosexual children and their children in turn? Those next two generations of royal weddings will all likely happen before 2100 ECD. So, for now, I'll call this the media wedding of the decade. And that's with nine years to go. I fully accept this is likely to be a "where were you when" non-tragic event remembered and reflected on many times over the next couple of decades. After that, corporate media--if it still exists--will need something else to make money off of.

What does that media tell me I am supposed to feel about the upcoming wedding of Prince William to Kate (Catherine) Middleton? Given the ubiquitous hype, at a fever pitch this week especially, I know for sure that I am supposed to feel happy for them, excited about the event, eager to watch the excessive coverage, and hope the day goes well and that they live happily ever after.

I'd have to say all of that is true. That is how I feel. (And some say media has no effect on people: where else would I have learned not only of the event, but how to feel about it?)

I will be among the billions watching very early Friday morning. Almost thirty years ago, I got up early to watch the wedding of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer, who would become the parents of two sons: William and Harry.

What I am most happy about is that Kate and William are friends, took time to get to know each other, have a solid foundation under them for a partnership, and seem to genuinely love each other. Charles was only really ever in love with Camilla, his current wife. And it is sad and ageist that the Royal Family would not have welcomed Charles to marry Camilla to begin with, instead picking some teenager he didn't love to call his wife. (Diana was all of sixteen when they met and was only weeks out of her teens when they wed.)

I feel sorry for what Diana had to endure being married to him, even with all the privileges afforded her. By most accounts it was a very unhappy life for her, in so many regards. And an obviously tragic and terribly premature death.

It is said their may be rain over London on Friday. I hope not. I want it to be sunny and not too hot or too cold. I want things to go well. I am also not supposed to think much about anything else--certainly not any other dimensions of the human event other than the fashion, perhaps.

Somewhere in my brain and body are buried the anti-woman lessons of fairy tales, which told me that heterosexist romance among white people was to be held as an ideal, and which resulted in plenty of self-loathing, shame, and disgust for being gay. They also taught me a lot about over-valuing non-Jewish European cultures, including some of the British Isles. I was not taught to admire and respect the traditions of any of the thousands of cultures of Africa, Asia, and Indigenous people. I was not taught that gayness and lesbianism exists. I was not taught that women do not have to exist in relation to men. I was not taught about the dangers of het romance as the West promotes and protects it.

There are obviously many issues available to be analysed here. This is, after all, presumed to become the largest viewed electronically broadcast event in human history: the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Piers Morgan is the sleazy, pasty, physically unmemorable middle-aged white het man with short brown hair who has a nightly chat show on CNN. Formerly one of three judges on America's Got Talent, he revealed himself, along with the far more sexist and sleazy David Hasselhoff, to be a big fan of young white women who strip on stage. Today he called the British monarchy "sexier" than the elected politicians in the US.

A recently added co-anchor on Entertainment Tonight, a very Aryan-looking thin, young-looking white woman named Nancy O'Dell, with long, flowy straight blond hair, made a remark I'll closely paraphrase shortly. She was reviewing the footage of the last 24 hours: the rehearsal of the royal cavalry's street route in London to and from Westminster Abbey and to Buckingham Palace: "And look at the bayonets on the ends of the rifles of the soldiers. Pretty sharp!" She unquestionably meant the men who comprise the cavalry, who she thought looked good in uniform with weaponry.

Why does the glimmering blade of an implement intended to stab people to death become a glamourising and sexualising accessory of men already trained to kill offensively as well as defensively? Is the cavalry's gun and knife the "sexy" equivalent of the female citizen's hat and shoes? Are women allowed to carry such weapons (not hats and shoes) and use them against men who attempt to assault them and have that violence be considered "sexy" and attractive? These bayonets are not symbols of pacifistic regal "British tradition". They really do get bloody from time to time. Not with blue blood, either.

image is from here

I will continue to discuss several of them following this very pertinent commentary by blogger Celie's Revenge:

Please correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t “The Royal Family”
the DIRECT DESCENDANTS of the British imperialists who
colonized Africa, Asia, & the Caribbean? Aren’t these
the people who raped, robbed, enslaved, and converted the
so-called natives? Aren’t they of the blood line of folks
who are proud because the sun never sets on the British
Empire? Doesn’t their wealth come from white supremacy
and theft? Isn’t all the pomp and pageantry surrounding
the wedding about European superiority backed by its
domination of black and brown and even Irish folk?

And weren’t there royal families in Africa? Where are
those royal families now? Weren’t they made slaves and
subjects of the crown?

And if I’m correct why should I care about a royal
wedding? Does might make right all of a sudden? I mean,
dumb question, of course it does but I’m just trying to
get to the facts, the truth even if those things are
meaningless and powerless to the seductions of
domination: aren’t Prince William & Kate the direct
descendants of the Imperialists?

I must admit I enjoy British accents, humor, and I love
British rock and pop bands (and lately their Hip Hop too)
but I’ve never bothered to take the royal family
seriously. The time when monarchs mattered was a time
that should bring Brits collective and national shame
not pride! Blood defining ones destiny as either
colonizer or colonized, master or slave, royalty or
commoner, is hardly something we should circulate
globally as in our symbols of love and beauty. If you
are white like Kate at least you can escape one’s
class/stock and marry into a superior one. So maybe
that’s what the common working class white Brits holds
onto. But what of black Brits? All of whom are British
because at some point they belonged to a nationality
that made them colonial subjects of the British Crown.

Of course this all makes me very sad personally because
unfortunately I know that even those who share my rage
and confusion at how fucked and dangerous this
celebration of domination under a cloud of
heterosexual romance and European aesthetics of beauty
still refuse to get how a whole lot of other things we
applaud are just as harmful and fucked.

And let's not forget to mention this Nazi crap the
younger prince pulled off:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article101247.ece 

It is Yom HaShoah, beginning on Sunday night at sundown. So for me it is an appropriate time to ask: what WAS Harry thinking? How funny is it to dress up as a Nazi when you, yourself, are a very public member of a family of racist colonisers and genocidalists? I mean it's one thing for Mel Brooks to attempt it, as a Jew of European descent trying to poke fun at something he knows damn well was an atrocity against his people. But when someone dresses up in a Nazi uniform who is not Jewish, is not of color, and is a royal white heir to fortunes made on the lives and labor of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian people, that's something else entirely.

Let's not forget Harry and William have both been trained as a soldier in the British military, and have each been taught to value and practice the acts which result in the mass murder of people of color in many parts of the world. You will not likely ever hear either fellow speak against a British war against various regions of Asia, or anywhere else. What follows is partially from Wikipedia:

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Blues and Royals of the Household Cavalry Regiment — serving temporarily with his brother — and completed his training as a tank commander. He served for 77 days on the front line in the ceaseless white man's war on Afghanistan, although he was pulled out following publication of the story in an Australian magazine.

As for William, we have this from Wikipedia:

Prince William of Wales KG FRS (born William Arthur Philip Louis on 21 June 1982) is the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, and third eldest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He is second in the line of succession, behind his father, to the thrones of 16 independent states, while he resides mostly in, and is more directly involved with, the United Kingdom, the oldest of these realms.

He was educated at four schools in the United Kingdom and obtained a degree from the University of St Andrews. He spent parts of a gap year in Chile, Belize, and countries in Africa. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry—serving with his brother Prince Harry and, two years later, earned his wings by completing pilot training at Royal Air Force College Cranwell. In 2009, the Prince transferred to the Royal Air Force, was promoted to flight lieutenant and underwent helicopter flying training in order to become a full time pilot with the Search and Rescue Force. In Autumn 2010, he completed his generic and special-to-type helicopter training and he is now at RAF Valley on No. 22 Squadron performing co-pilot duties on the Sea King search and rescue helicopter. On 16 November 2010 it was announced by Clarence House that Prince William and his long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton are going to marry, and it was subsequently confirmed that the wedding ceremony would take place at 11 am on 29 April 2011 in Westminster Abbey, London.

Guards, police, and the armed forces; imperialism, colonialism, and militarism; white Christian, het, and male supremacy. How these are part of one another is not something dominant media will discuss. Each, instead, will be glorified more or less separately. But glorious or inglorious, these are the themes of the wedding days and of the British Royal Family. And the lives of royals exude the power and privilege they are born into.

William is royal patron of an animal preserve and conservation project in sub-Saharan Africa, it is a recipient of his charitable help. Charity is the publicly "good" side of colonialism. The U.S. can be "charitable" to Haitians, for example. Or wealthy whites can be charitable to Black people living (and dying) in poverty in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. It's a way to promote the non-existent overall goodness of the ruling classes.

"Charity" implies one has economic and political power over the group or individuals being "helped". For much more on how this racist idea expresses itself in contexts of allegedly pro-feminist discussions, please see *here*. William's role maintains a colonial and imperial position over part of the African continent. He also proposed to Kate in Kenya, as "Africa" is very special to him. How does a continent get to be special to someone who only sees it in terms of being an over-privileged and tremendously entitled visitor and heir of  the wealth acquired by pillaging so many regions of the world? This reminds me of how whites in the U.S. speak of the Caribbean, which is promoted only as a destination location for vacations, or as a place for very wealthy white people to purchase islands. Rendered invisible in all of this are the many people who live there, who are not white, whose ancestors were slaves, many of whom remain imprisoned in paradise by economic poverty made probable by the World Bank and IMF's policies and practices which are fully supported by the US and the UK.

This is the "sharp" militarised force of patriarchal, imperialistic, and racist Nation-States and of this British Empire in particular. This is what Nancy O'Dell and corporate media generally is sexualising, romanticising, and covering for profit. This is a central part of the history and function of England as an oppressively racist ruling G8 nation-state in the world; this must be centrally celebrated on Friday. If the Brits weren't involved in military actions designed to murder people of color as I type this, there would be less of a need to celebrate British militarism as a way of promoting social denial about what the military is for and what it exists to do. It would still be "tradition" if Britain were not at war. But we must always ask, as Celie's Revenge does above, what "traditions" are being honored and celebrated?

These officers and soldiers are the people who keep "order", meaning WHM supremacist order. Meaning: white, het, men ruling and determining the degrees to which they will exploit and loot the lives, cultures, and nations of everyone else.

For more, please see this post from Censored News:
Royal family's wealth is from the blood and genocide of Indigenous Peoples

Another obvious theme I'll focus more on is the not-so-covertly celebrated misogynist heterosexism of Friday morning's event. And the celebration of an institution--heterosexual marriage. This institution has been the political site and source of untold atrocities against women and girls for centuries, with the social, cultural, religious, and legal support of the nation-states in which the marriages have been occurring often due to the compulsory and coercive nature of both patriarchal heterosexuality and het marriage.

Women, until relatively recently, were considered the chattel property of their husband-owners, and this remains the case in some countries. Children who are born into such unions, if any, are "his" not "theirs". His rape of her is legally impossible, because he is said to have rights of access to her body, with our without her will and welcoming. Rape cannot happen, within this (un)ethical framework. What can happen is him having what he is awfully lallowed to have: full control and possession of her. The celebration of heterosexual marriage is a celebration of misogynist atrocity and het male domination. The making of het marriage into a fairy tale fantasy is steeped in male supremacist traditions, not ever equality or mutuality between women and men. I am grateful that Kate refuses to say she'll "obey" William. His mum Diana started the pro-woman change in Royal Wedding tradition. I'm glad Kate and William are continuing it.

Girls, not women, are still chattel brides of men, not boys. Internationally, white men from North America and Europe procure trafficked girls and women to be their brides, wives, and "lovers": which too often means men's objects of gross sexual exploitation, and slaves for rape and labor.

Classism and status of royalty is another theme: Kate arrives in a car as "a commoner" and returns in a carriage as a member of the Royal Family. He status is forever changed. She gets a title. She rises in importance and prominence as a role model and figurehead, as a setter of fashion trends, only because she is the spouse of the future King of England. She ceases to be her own person separate from him. This is what they mean when they say "man and wife": she exists as a thing who is gendered relative to him, a full human person whose own gender is assumed to be synonymous with humanity (mankind, or Man).

The heterosexism, racism, and classism combines to reinforce and romanticise both white male hetness, Christian white families, and white wealth: cornerstone values and ideals in the contemporary U.S. Empire.

The bride and groom will be socially required to kiss--wait and see--in front of millions or perhaps billions of people watching them greet the public at Buckingham Palace. They must prove they are heterosexually involved and active. When will a lesbian or gay couple's newlywed kiss be this demanded by the media and public as a source of celebration among millions or billions watching? When will lesbian romantic love or gay romantic love be this joyfully observed and validated with this much media and pageantry?

I'll leave you with this, to underscore the political parameters of the marriage: Can Kate or William object to British involvement in military wars? Can she or he call for an end to discrimination against lesbian women and gay men? Can she or he promote feminist causes? Can they adopt a child rather than bearing one or more from their own genes? I suspect she has already been carefully coercively "coached" not to speak out against any of the political matters discussed in this post. As, of course, has he. Her refusal to say "obey" will be about as feminist a statement as she'll be allowed to make, and that will be an act of omission.

Now, let's all wait and get a look at that dress! I am genuinely curious to know what she will wear. If you've been following the media hype, you already know what the groom will wear: his military uniform.