{"id":3313,"date":"2011-12-30T20:28:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T01:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=3313"},"modified":"2012-05-13T21:14:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T01:14:02","slug":"un-settling-occupation-opening-a-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/un-settling-occupation-opening-a-conversation.htm","title":{"rendered":"Un-Settling Occupation – Opening a Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Un-Settling<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s long been my thought that until this nation learns to tell the truth about ourselves, our founding, our history and our current events, we will remain unable to move forward.\u00a0 Some of us believe that the truth must be kept in the closet (as if such a thing was possible) because to tell the truth is to stir up “anti-American sentiment”.\u00a0 But the truth remains the truth, it’s not going anywhere, it’s way more powerful than our resistance, and until we face it, we remain lost.<\/p>\n

Long before the Occupy Wall Street movement was a gleam in anyone’s eye, I’d heard Native people say that we were living on “occupied land”.\u00a0 Like anyone who’d been influenced by schools and the dominant society, I didn’t understand when I first heard it said.\u00a0 But for the last nine years I’ve listened to Native speakers, read their words on line and in books, and tried to catch a glimpse of their cultures.\u00a0 They’ve given me an education the likes of which I’d never even known existed and words cannot express the gratitude that I feel to those who take the time to tell the truth.<\/p>\n

Now there is no doubt in my mind.\u00a0 We do live on stolen occupied land.<\/p>\n

When Zuccotti Park was first taken by the OWS movement, I wanted to know if the activists there were interested in telling the truth.\u00a0 If it was just a bunch of\u00a0 middle class people complaining about how they were suffering due to government\/corporate greed without addressing the very foundation of who and what our government and corporations are and what we continue to inflict upon our First Nations’ People, our poor, our working class, our people of color, the land, and people the world over, then I didn’t see the point.\u00a0 We can’t go seeking a band aid for a minor bruise when we’ve got a broken leg.\u00a0 We can’t deal with a symptom of our society if we are unable to tell the truth about our society as a whole.<\/p>\n

The corporate takeover didn’t just happen yesterday.\u00a0 The injustice that the middle class is now feeling has been felt by others since the earliest days of this country.\u00a0 A few years back, I heard Russell Means say that soon enough, all of America would be turned into a reservation.\u00a0 It’s beginning to happen for the middle class now.\u00a0\u00a0 But it’s nothing new.<\/p>\n

Unless you’re attending a NMAI event or a Pow Wow, chances are slim that you’ll find yourself in the company of an assembly of Native speakers, artists and activists in New York City.\u00a0 So when I heard that such an assembly was taking place right here in Brooklyn to open a conversation with OWS activists, I knew that I had to be there.\u00a0 I attended the meeting of Un-Settling Occupation last night (commemorating the 121st anniversary of the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee) and found it to be the most compelling experience that I’ve had since OWS began.\u00a0 The conversation went on for more than four hours, mostly with Native people speaking and the rest of us listening.\u00a0 Speakers included Jake Little (Oglala Lakota), Janice Richards (Oglala Lakota), Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Mnicoujou Lakota and host of First Voices Indigenous Radio<\/a> on WBAI), Gloria Miguel (Kuna\/Rappahannock), Joseph (Cree\/Ojibwa), Firewolf Bizahaloni-Wong (Navajo), and Demelza Champagne (Turtle Mountain Chippewa).\u00a0 Also appearing was the Wachamchick Warrior Society Drum.<\/p>\n

From the earliest days of Occupy Wall Street, I heard that word “Occupy” being called into question by Native people.\u00a0 They preferred the word “De-Colonize” and so have I.\u00a0 But it wasn’t until last night that I came to understand just how truly offensive that word “Occupy” is to Native people.<\/p>\n

There was talk about the unconscionable poverty on Pine Ridge and the continuing exploitation and theft of resources on Lakota and Dine land under colonization.\u00a0 There was talk about the reservation system and how the government holds the land and “allows” nation members to live on it but not “own” it — meaning that the government and corporations feel entitled to come in and help themselves to resources on reservations whenever they want them, regardless of what the Native nation has to say about it or how it will affect the health of the earth and the people who live there.\u00a0 There was talk about materialism and hierarchy and how those who live within such systems tend to feel as if they’ll never have enough.\u00a0\u00a0 There was talk about the 37 years of hard time that have been served by Leonard Peltier.\u00a0 Tiokasin Ghosthorse broke down the etymology of some well worn English words and contrasted their meanings with Lakota ways of thinking.<\/p>\n

The conversation has been opened.\u00a0 There was a call for communication and respect.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to seeing where the conversation\u00a0 will take us.\u00a0 Many thanks\u00a0 to those who organized the event and to those who spoke.<\/p>\n

\n

Un-Settling Occupation on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

First Voices Indigenous Radio<\/a><\/p>\n

Photos from the event taken by Javier Soriano<\/a><\/p>\n

Un-Settling Occupation on the OWS Web Site<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s long been my thought that until this nation learns to tell the truth about ourselves, our founding, our history and our current events, we will remain unable to move forward.\u00a0 Some of us believe that the truth must be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,20],"tags":[333,356],"class_list":["post-3313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-just-a-thought-karen","category-karen","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-un-settling-occupation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3313"}],"version-history":[{"count":73,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3383,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions\/3383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}