#indigenous participation

[indigenouspeopleday]

4th Meeting, Second Intersessional Meeting on the Participation of Indigenous Peoples - UN Human Rights Council.

This intersessional meeting is the second of two mandated under paragraph 16 of resolution 54/12, in which the Council decided to "continue to discuss and develop further steps and measures necessary to enable and to facilitate the participation of Indigenous Peoples' representatives and institutions duly established by themselves in the work of the Human Rights Council." The first intersessional meeting was held on 18 and 19 July 2024.

Watch the 4th Meeting, Second Intersessional Meeting on the Participation of Indigenous Peoples - UN Human Rights Council!

[naivety]

So long as the political and economic system remains intact, voter enfranchisement, though perhaps resisted by overt white supremacists, is still welcomed so long as nothing about the overall political arrangement fundamentally changes. The facade of political equality can occur under violent occupation, but liberation cannot be found in the occupier’s ballot box. In the context of settler colonialism voting is the “civic duty” of maintaining our own oppression. It is intrinsically bound to a strategy of extinguishing our cultural identities and autonomy.

[...]

Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities. What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us? This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. We’re not rallying for a perfect prescription for “decolonization” or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings. Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, it’s the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land? We aren’t advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of “utopia.” In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism, we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation.

Voting Is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective

[articroses]

I understand the misery / feelings for women to need to do something regarding the justified anger they have but I don't think starting an 4b movement in the U.S is the right move.

1) separatism from men because they voted against women's rights isn't a solution when much of the votes that Trump got from his election were from white women. Presumably, the white women that voted for Trump won't be participating in this movement, so this kinda limits the whole plan.

2) This kinda falls into bioessentialist thinking of "women are pure and virtuous and just need to separate from men who are evil and make their own *feminine* utopia", which is obviously false as shown in point 1 with white women voting for Trump. Plus, if you keep falling into this thinking, you run the trap of thinking patriarchy and misogyny can all disappear if we stop associating with men, which isn't the case since women can internalize misogyny and uphold patriarchy. Not to mention, you might end up with very rigid ideas of gender, which pretty much brings you down a transphobic (especially transmisogynistic) path.

Also, it's not like this is an entirely new concept! It has similar reasoning with the concept of political lesbians, which is abstaining from male relationships (hence, identifying as a lesbian "politically".) I believe this came from the idea of seeing women as an oppressed class (which is understandable from the conditions women dealt with during the 1970s) and hence this would be like a labor strike from heterosexual relationships, which was all good and fine but the actual movement harbored a lot of homophobia and lesbiphobia ironically. Reading feminist theory and you would see history repeat itself over and over again in interesting ways, luckily we can learn from it!

But I digress, if you want to decenter men in your life, go right ahead. Though I really hope it didn't take three sucky elections for people to realize they don't have to fuck guys who hate women.

[martyrbat]

blocking so many people tonight because how the hell do you post this without an ounce of self shame? 'there are people out there who are just as scared as you are' are you including the people your candidate has funded a genocide against? are you including the people Israel targets and opresses with the US regularly funding its crimes against humanity? the people who cant just go have a snack and talk to their friends because they watch their friends be murdered and theyre facing starvation? are you including the people you called the genocide of as a necessary sacrifice and something thats a 'lesser evil'? do you take into account their fear and trauma for a year of nonstop bombings, drones, missiles, shootings, invasions, etc?

'the world is going to be tense' its already fucking tense, you people just dont give a shit about anyone that isnt white or cant play into your ultimate victim complex to excuse your eager participation in genocide. you cant call for people to just 'survive' when you helped put a heavy asterisk next to who exactly expected to stay living if your war criminal wins.

[GO DONATE TO DOCTOR MOATH]

[yves-and-scessernee]

I've been thinking about some things, and I wanted to clarify for some folks outside of the US:

When people in the United States talk about heritage, it's always with the implication of American nationality. Two friends in the US might chat casually about themselves and their families by saying "I'm Irish" and "I'm Polish." What they mean is "I'm Irish-American" and "I'm Polish-American" but, because the context of being in America is present, the "-American" part goes assumed.

That's why the "Where are you from?" / "Where were you born?" / "Where are your parents from?" questions exist. Between friends, those are casual ways to tell if someone is talking about X as a familial heritage or X as a nationality without saying outright "Hey, so are you a member of this American subculture or are you from another country?" It is absolutely rude to ask these questions without the context of friendship, but within a friendship people often share information about their heritage and nationality quite freely. Those two friends I mentioned above might go on to talk about how "My grandparents were born in Dublin and immigrated to the US, and my parents grew up together in Boston." "Oh, that's cool that they grew up together! My great-grandmother moved from Kraków as an infant with her family, but my dad met my mom through an exchange student program and she just finalized her dual citizenship."

Stripped of the context of "being in America", such statements can come off as presumptuous and deceptive. I understand that. Someone who has gotten used to chatting about their family while in America will likely default to keeping the "-American" part assumed on their behalf, which they shouldn't do. But an American saying "Oh! I'm Irish" to you when you know already that they are American is telling you this in the context of being American: what is actually being conveyed is "I'm Irish-American." To them, they're sharing what American subculture they belong to, rather than claiming participation in a different country.

And Irish-American culture in the US is alive and well! Irish-American cultural centers, museums dedicated to generations of Irish-American immigration, and festivals sharing what Irish-American families have brought to America are found all over the US. So it is with many other cultural communities. People care about the cultures they and their families brought over with them, and American subcultures are living entities unto themselves shaped by decades of history.

And of course some American families keep in touch with their parent cultures. As I write this, a friend is making arrangements with his family to spent next month with his grandparents in Mexico. My own parents just got back from visiting my sister in Ireland, where she's been studying veterinary sciences. Sometimes that's why Americans drop the hyphen in casual conversation: for my friend, where does Mexican culture end and the Mexican-American subculture within the greater American culture begin? A conversation with him actually got me thinking about this entire thing, because, for him, the distinction between being Mexican, having Mexican heritage, and being Mexican-American can be really blurry, particularly given the United States' history with Mexico.

Americans should stop assuming everyone knows the context of "having American nationality" when they talk about heritage. I agree. It can be easy to come onto the internet with the same assumptions you have in your everyday community, particularly if you're young. If you're American and you're reading this and you're just realizing that someone probably interpreted you as saying "I'm a member of this country" when what you meant was "I'm a member of this American subculture," I understand the embarrassment. This often isn't laid out clearly inside or outside the US.

But that's why I'm explaining it now. If what you mean is "I'm [Heritage]-American" and you're talking about your participation in an American subculture, you probably should start saying the whole phrase aloud. It's more polite to assume that someone doesn't know your nationality than that they do. It'll forestall misunderstandings and frustrations with friends and strangers alike.

[skaruresonic]

>>tfw the government they're telling you to vote for lest that government become even worse slaughtered 99% of your people and the people like you, then shunted the 1% of survivors onto actual prisoner-of-war camps and proceeded to beat the language and traditions out of their children

>>entire country is founded on illegal means because of said genocide >>country has broken every single treaty there is, leading you to believe nothing will change for you just because there's a rotation of the prison guard

>>cannot vote because if you do then you're serving this mendacious government your tribal sovereignty on a silver platter

>>"if you don't vote in this system literally built on precluding, erasing, and oppressing you, you're a psyop and personally responsible for fascism in our already genocidal country"

>>tfw they mess up their own government yet chide you for not helping clean it up

>>tfw you can't help but wonder how it is the Haudenosaunee managed to get along for centuries without all this fuckery, yet they're in charge of the place for two minutes and now it's on fire. >>muh democratic principles without Great Law. muh Constitution that doesn't consider slaves or indigenous tribes people. much greatness, many wow >>tfw they copy your homework and still fuck it up

[dandyshucks]

part of me wants to (re)start up the indigenous selfship tag bc it seems to have died last year but also i do not feel like the right person to do that bc I'm still working to reconnect w my culture properly. also i missed saying anything about indigenous history month last month and augh I wish I'd been around for it properly to actually make art for it ;-; maybe I'll make some late art.... share some cultural things I've learned over the past couple years... draw Wardell with a sash and ribbon shirt perhaps,,,

[choosetheleft]

Just thinking about how we inherited the messed up world created by our ancestors

And how we ARE responsible for undoing the harm our ancestors did but like

It’s not like we can just play an uno reverse card and go backward, you know?

I just got told by someone they won’t listen to white Americans who aren’t willing to just move out of the US because they aren’t indigenous and therefore they are performative if they don’t move away and like

I actually AM willing to move (even more so if I truly believed that would solve anything)

But

Like

WHERE

HOW WOULD I AFFORD THAT

but more to the point

thats a REALLY ridiculous idea on any kind of large scale and would create more problems than it solves

Fixing the mess our ancestors created isn’t simple, you can’t just “go back where you came from!” and have that actually fix anything at all

It just perpetuates the problem.

[chaos-in-one]

Hey to people who try to push non Natives out of public events that the tribe itself purposefully is letting be open to outsiders please shut the fuck up

You are not the authority on this. The tribe itself, ESPECIALLY tribal elders, are. And if they want to let people in on parts of their culture that is their decision to make and you do not get to override that.

[cinnabargirl]

Its crazy how much the adage "a lot of you would have gone crazy about WMDs un 2003" holds up time and time again

[indigenouspeopleday]

3rd Meeting, Second Intersessional Meeting on the Participation of Indigenous Peoples - Human Rights Council.

This intersessional meeting is the second of two mandated under paragraph 16 of resolution 54/12, in which the Council decided to "continue to discuss and develop further steps and measures necessary to enable and to facilitate the participation of Indigenous Peoples' representatives and institutions duly established by themselves in the work of the Human Rights Council." The first intersessional meeting was held on 18 and 19 July 2024

Watch the 3rd Meeting, Second Intersessional Meeting on the Participation of Indigenous Peoples - Human Rights Council!

[creepyscritches]

I spend so much time reading medical journals that reading social/anthropological journals feels like playing a gameboy

[bijoumikhawal]

Mmmmm writing this story has just made me repeatedly run around the fact that there's no such thing as a pre-colonization way of writing about Copts even in fantasy

[tartrazeen]

Some asshole in the notes trying to pull an intellectual checkmate by going "ummmm but don't you think first nations people and blood quantum mean ethnostates should exist"

Same energy as a libertarian being like "ummm but maybe black people didn't have any other employment options so they should be allowed to work on plantations if they want"

Fuck you, @praytriarchy

zionists posting "oh its sooo interesting that u guys only want to dismantle 'colonizer states' when theyre jewish. what about YOUR colonizer states..." as if thats a gotcha. good news! i don't think the united states should exist either dumbass

[beemovieerotica]

struggling with how to word this, but putting it out there anyway:

i can fully understand the posts on here from a lot of americans being tired of "vote blue no matter who" posts when the #1 thing that people are constantly (and sometimes only?) addressing is how the republican party is going treat trans/queer people if elected.

it's part of an unfortunate pattern of prioritizing the effects on a demographic that includes white + upper class people, when people of color and those in the global south are actively and currently being killed or relegated to circumstances in which their survival is very unlikely

it is genuinely exhausting to witness this, and i was also on the fence about even participating in voting because i a) felt like it didn't matter and b) every time i voiced being frustrated with the current state of the country, white queer people would immediately step in with "but what about trans people!" -> (i am mixed race trans man)

and i say this with unending patience toward people who do this, because i know that it's not something they actively think about. but everyone already knows how the republican party is going to treat queer people. you are probably talking to another queer person when you bring up project 2025. the issue is that, for those of us who aren't white, or for those of us who are but who are conscious of ongoing struggles for people of color worldwide, the safety of people around the world feels more urgent than our own. that is the calculation that's being made.

you're not going to win votes for the democratic party by dismissing or minimizing these realities and by continually centering (white) queer people.

very few people on here and twitter are actually talking about issues beyond queer rights that concern people of color, or how the two administrations differ on these issues instead of constantly circling back to single-issue politics. this isn't an exhaustive list. but these are the issues that have actually altered my perspective and motivated me to the point of committing to casting a vote

the biden administration has been engaged in a years-long fight to allow new applicants to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that allows undocumented individuals who arrived as children to remain in the country) after the Trump administration attempted to terminate it. the program is in limbo currently because of the actions of Trump-backed judges, with those who applied before the ruling being allowed to stay, but no new applications are being processed. Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of just deporting the 1.8 million people, but he continues to change his mind depending on whatever the fuck goes on in his head. he cannot be relied on to be sympathetic toward people of hispanic descent or to guarantee that DREAMers will be allowed stay in the country. biden + a democratic controlled congress will allow legal challenges to the DACA moratorium to gain ground.

the biden administration is open to returning and protecting portions of culturally important indigenous land in a way that the trump administration absolutely does not give a fuck. as of may 2024, they have established seven national monuments with plans to expand the San Gabriel Monument where the Gabrielino, Kizh / Tongva, the Chumash, Kitanemuk, Serrano, and Tataviam reside. the Berryessa Snow Mountain is also on the list, as a sacred region to the Patwin.

i'm recognizing that the US's plans for clean energy have often come into conflict with tribal sovereignty, and the biden administration could absolutely do better in navigating this. but the unfortunate dichotomy is that there would be zero commitment or investment in clean energy under a trump-led government, which poses an astounding existential threat and destabilizing force to the global south beyond any human-to-human conflict. climate change has caused and will continue to cause resource shortages, greater natural disasters, and near-lethal living conditions for those in the tropics - and the actions of the highest energy consumers (US) are to blame. biden has funneled billions of dollars into climate change mitigation and clean energy generation - trump does not believe that any of it matters.

i may circle back to this and add more as it comes up, but i'm hoping that those who are skeptical / discouraged / tired of the white queer-centric discourse on tumblr and twitter can at least process some of this. please feel free to add more articles + points but i'm asking for the sake of this post to please focus on issues that affect people of color.

[heiressofdoodles]

A bit of vent-ish thing and some advice.

When someone tells you that the subject you chose for your painting is a creature from a private indigenous culture and that you shouldn't say that word, don't call the painting the name of that same creature!