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#native genocide tw
headspace-hotel · 11 months
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against the logic of the lawn
Imagine a box.
This box is sealed with tape or adhesive, which shows you that it has never been opened or re-used. It is in pristine condition. Apart from that, the box could hold anything. It could contain a Star Wars Funko Pop, a printer, a shirt ordered from some sketchy online vendor, a knockoff store-brand cereal, six individually wrapped protein bars.
As a Consumer ("the" Consumer) this is your fundamental right: To purchase a box that is, presumably, identical to every other box like it.
When you Buy Product, it arrives in a box, entire of itself and without context. It has not changed since its creation. If and when Product does change—whether it is broken, spoiled, used up, or eaten—you can Buy Product that is identical in every meaningful way to the original.
It's okay if this doesn't make sense yet. (You can stop imagining the box now.)
Imagine instead a suburban housing development, somewhere in the USA.
Imagine row on row of pristine, newly built houses, each constructed with small, meaningless variations in their aesthetic, all with beige or white vinyl siding and perhaps some decorative brick, all situated on identical rectangles of land covered with freshly unrolled sod. This is the Product that every consumer aspires to Buy.
I am not exactly—qualified, or entitled, to speak on the politics of land ownership in this country. My ancestors benefited directly from the genocide of Native Americans, which allowed Europeans to steal the land they lived on, which is where a lot of wealth comes from in the end, even today. However, I have eyes in my head to see that the act of colonizing a continent, and an economic system that formed as a supporting infrastructure to colonization, have embedded something almost irreparably dysfunctional into the dominant American culture's relationship to land.
This dysfunctional Thing, this Sickness, leads us to consider land to be a Product, and to consider a human upon the land to be a Consumer.
From this point of view, land is either locked into this relationship of control and "use" to varying extents, or it is free of human influence. People trying to reason about how to preserve Earth's biosphere, working within this framework without realizing, decide that we must "set aside" large areas of land for "nature."
This is a naive and, I would reckon, probably itself colonialist way of seeing things. It appears to be well-validated by evidence. Where human population is largest, there is less biodiversity.
But I find the broad conclusions to be strikingly unscientific. The plan of "setting aside part of Earth for nature" displays little curiosity about the mechanisms by which human presence impacts biodiversity. Otherwise intelligent people, perhaps caught up in the "bargaining" phase of climate grief, seem taken in by the idea that the human species gives off a magical anti-biodiversity force field, as if feeling guiltier will fix the problems.
(Never mind that lands managed by indigenous folk actually have MORE biodiversity...almost like our species' relationship to the planet isn't inherently exploitative, but rather, the capitalist and colonialist powers destroying everything.......)
Let's go back to the image of the new housing development. This image could be just about anywhere in the USA, because the American suburban home is made for universal interchangeability, where each little house and yard is static and replaceable with any other.
Others have written about the generic-ification of the interiors of homes, how houses are decorated with the most soul-killing, colorless furnishings to make them into Products more effectively. (I think @mcmansionhell wrote about it.)
This, likewise, is the Earth turned into a Product—razed down into something with no pre-existing context, history, or responsibility. Identical parcels of land, identical houses, where once there was a unique and diverse distribution of life. The American lawn, the American garden, the industry that promotes these aesthetics, is the environmental version of that ghastly, ugly "minimalism" infecting the interiors of homes.
The extremely neat, sparse, manicured look that is so totally inescapable in American yards originated from the estates of European aristocracy, which displayed the owner's wealth by flaunting an abundance of land that was both heavily managed and useless. People defend the lawn on the basis that grass tolerates being walked upon and is good for children to play, but to say this is *the* purpose of a lawn is bullshit—children are far more interested in trees, creeks, sticks, weeds, flowers, and mud than Grass Surface, many people with lawns do not have children, and most people spend more time mowing their lawn than they do doing literally anything else outside. How often do you see Americans outside in their yards doing anything except mowing?
What is there to do, anyway? Why would you want to go outside with nothing but the sun beating down on you and the noise of your neighbors' lawn mowers? American culture tries to make mowing "manly" and emphasizes that it is somehow fulfilling in of itself. Mowing the lawn is something Men enjoy doing—almost a sort of leisure activity.
I don't have something against wanting a usable outdoor area that is good for outdoor activities, I do, however, have something against the idea that a lawn is good for outdoor activities. Parents have been bitching for decades about how impossible it is to drag kids outdoors, and there have been a million PSAs about how children need to be outside playing instead of spending their lives on video games. Meanwhile, at the place I work, every kid is ECSTATIC and vibrating with enthusiasm to be in the woods surrounded by trees, sticks, leaves, and mud.
The literal, straightforward historical answer to the lawn is that the American lawn exists to get Americans to spend money on chemicals. The modern lawn ideal was invented to sell a surplus of fertilizer created after WW2 chemical plants that had been used to make explosives were repurposed to produce fertilizer. Now you know! The more analytical, sociological answer is that the purpose of the lawn is to distance you from the lower class. A less strictly maintained space lowers property values, it looks shabby and unkempt, it reflects badly on the neighborhood, it makes you look like a "redneck." And so on. The largest, most lavish McMansions in my area all have the emptiest, most desolate yards, and the lush gardens all belong to tiny, run-down houses.
But the answer that really cuts to the core of it, I think, is that lawns are a technology for making land into a Product for consumers. (This coexists with the above answers.) Turfgrass is a perfectly generic blank slate onto which anything can be projected. It is emptiness. It is stasis.
I worry about the flattening of our imaginations. Illustrations in books generally cover the ground outdoors in a uniform layer of green, sometimes with strokes suggesting individual blades of grass if they want to get fancy. Video games do this. Animated shows and movies do this.
Short, carpet-like turfgrass as the Universal Outdoor Surface is so ubiquitous and intuitive that any alternative is bizarre, socially unacceptable, and for many, completely unimaginable. When I am a passenger in a car, what horrifies me the most to see out the window is not only the turfgrass lawns of individuals, but rather, the turfgrass Surface that the entire inhabited landscape has been rendered into—vacant stretches of land surrounding businesses and churches, separating parking lots, bordering Wal-Marts, apartment complexes, and roadsides.
These spaces are not used, they are almost never walked upon. They do nothing. They are maintained, ceaselessly, by gas-powered machines that are far, far more carbon-emitting than cars per hour of use, emitting in one hour the same amount of pollution as a 500-mile drive. It is an endless effort to keep the land in the same state, never mind that it's a shitty, useless state.
Nature is dynamic. Biodiversity is dynamic. From a business point of view, the lawn care industry has found a brilliant scheme to milk limitless money from people, since trying to put a stop to the dynamism and constant change of nature is a Sisyphean situation, and nature responds with increasingly aggressive and rapid change as disturbance gets more intense.
On r/lawncare, a man posted despairingly that he had spent over $1500 tearing out every inch of sod in his yard, only for the exact same weeds to return. That subreddit strikes horror in my heart that I cannot describe, and the more I learn about ecology, the more terrible it gets. It was common practice for people in r/lawncare to advise others to soak their entire yard in Roundup to kill all plant life and start over from a "blank slate."
Before giving up, I tried to explain over and over that it was 100% impossible to get a "blank slate." Weeds typically spread by wind and their seeds can persist for DECADES in the soil seed bank, waiting for a disastrous event to trigger them to sprout. They will always come back. It's their job.
It was impossible for those guys to understand that they were inherently not just constructing a lawn from scratch, and were contending with another power or entity (Nature) with its own interests.
The logic of the lawn also extends into our gardens. We are encouraged to see the dynamism of nature as something that acts against our interests (and thus requires Buy Product) so much, that we think any unexpected change in our yard is bad. People are sometimes baffled when I see a random plant popping up among my flowers as potentially a good thing.
"That's a weed!" Maybe! Nonetheless, it has a purpose. I don't know who this stranger is, so I would be a fool to kill it!
A good caretaker knows that the place they care for will change on its own, and that this is GOOD and brings blessings or at least messages. I didn't have to buy goldenrod plants—they came by themselves! Several of our trees arrived on their own. The logic that sees all "weeds" as an enemy to be destroyed without even identifying ignores the wisdom of nature's processes.
The other day at work, the ecologist took me to see pink lady's slipper orchids. The forest there was razed and logged about a hundred years ago, and it got into my head to ask how the orchids returned. He only shrugged. "Who knows?"
Garden centers put plants out for sale when they are blooming. People buy trees from Fast Growing Trees dot com. The quick, final results that are standard with Buy Product, which are so completely opposite the constant slow chaos of nature, have become so standard in the gardening world that the hideous black mulch sold at garden centers is severed from the very purpose of mulch, and instead serves to visually emphasize small, lonely plants against its dark background. (For the record, once your plants mature, you should not be able to SEE the mulch.)
Landscapers regularly place shrubs, bushes, trees and flowers in places where they have no room to reach maturity. It's standard—landscapers seem to plan with the expectation that everything will be ripped out within 5-10 years. The average person has no clue how big trees and bushes get because their entire surroundings, which are made of living things (which do in fact feel and communicate) are treated as disposable.
Because in ten years, this building won't be an orthodontists' office, in ten years, this old lady will be dead, in ten years, the kids will have grown, and capitalism is incapable of preparing for a future, only for the next buyer.
The logic of the lawn is that gardens and ecosystems that take time to build are not to be valued, because a lush, biodiverse garden is not easily sold, easily bought, easily maintained, easily owned, or easily treated with indifference. An ecosystem requires wisdom from the caretaker. That runs contrary to the Consumer identity.
And it's this disposable-ness, this indifference, that I am ultimately so strongly against, not grass, or low turf that you can step on.
What if we saw buying land as implying a responsibility to be its caretaker? To respect the inhabitants, whether or not we are personally pleased by them or think they look pretty? What creature could deserve to be killed just because it didn't make a person happy?
But the Consumer identity gives you something else...a sense of entitlement. "This is MY yard, and that possum doesn't get to live there." "This is MY yard, and I don't want bugs in it." "This is MY yard, and I can kill the spiders if I want to."
Meanwhile there is no responsibility to build the soil up for the next gardener. No responsibility to plant oaks that will grow mighty and life-giving. No responsibility to plant fruit-producing trees, brambles, and bushes. None of these things, any of which could have fulfilled a responsibility to the future. Rather, just to do whatever you damn well please, and leave those that come after with depleted, compacted soil and the aftermath of years of constant damage. It took my Meadow ten years to recover from being the garden patch of the guy that lived here before us. Who knows what he did to it.
The loss of topsoil in all our farmland is a bigger example, and explains how this is directly connected to colonialism. The Dust Bowl, the unsustainable farming practices that followed, the disappearance of the lush fertile prairie topsoil because of greed and colonizer mindset, and simple refusal to learn from what could be observed in nature. The colonizing peoples envisioned the continent as an "Empty" place, a Blank Slate that could be used and exploited however.
THAT is what's killing the planet, this idea that the planet is to be used and abused and bought and sold, that the power given by wealth gives you entitlement to do whatever you want. That "Land" is just another Product, and our strategies for taking care of Earth should be whatever causes the most Buy Product.
It's like I always write..."You are not a consumer! You are a caretaker!"
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Why Are Indigenous Women Disappearing Across Canada?
The formation of 'residential schools' in Canada was and remains a cultural genocide. Canada -a current white settler nation -has a responsibility to take accountability for the continued disproportionate amount of violence that Indigenous women face in this country, as Indigenous women are 4 times more likely, compared to the national average in Canada, to be victims of violence.
Since 1980, thousands of Native women have gone missing and have been murdered, and their cases have been either entirely dismissed or under-investigated. I have spoken about this on my page before, and although this short piece by Vice does not delve into the history of the RCMP -there is rampant anti-Indigenous racism in their ranks.
These issues are ongoing and epidemic, and we must always keep raising awareness about and talking about MMIW. This is only one of many videos on some of these issues, but I wanted to share this today.
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dreikit-23 · 8 months
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There is a Rampant and Vicious Cycle in the Online Left That Needs to Be Addressed
Every leftist needs to understand that not every proclaimed leftist is a safe person or one that is acting in good faith. Many people in this sphere --even if they are minorities themselves-- are Abusers. Let me be clear: they are Abusers REGARDLESS of --NOT because of-- them being a minority. Despite this, many of them have weaponized their standing as a minority in order to get away with their behavior and achieve what they see as some form of power and control over others. Let me be clear. I am referring to those that:
Manipulate and lie about pressing situations (especially when it's to harm another person or demographic)
Excessively use idpol to either elevate themselves to holier than thou levels ("listen to ___ people but only when it's something I agree with, which just so happens to devolve from constructive change to making others grovel and plead forgiveness endlessly before me") or belittle others (ie their skin color, gender, queerness, disability, neurodivergence, religion, age, etc.) in order to discount their point or not treat them as equal human beings; yes, even if their skin tone is white or if they are men, abuse does not have to be backed up by systemic issues in order to be abusive or at the very least harmful (sidenote: this does not apply to people talking about their experiences as a minority that is otherwise not experienced or understood by others, the issue I'm pointing out is when it's twisted to cover everything not directly tied to their identity and proclaim themselves as the only ones allowed to be the voice of reason, therefore shutting up everyone else and to avoid any constructive criticism or discussion)
Act on rage and at times even trauma to bring forth harmful ideals (ex: truly hating every person of a demographic, wishing for a genocide, making actual death or rape threats towards someone or a group, conversion, etc)(sidenote: I'm not discounting those that have trauma and even have harmful thoughts, just please seek help and understand that it is not healthy nor sustainable to paint or alter reality to be in line with what trauma makes you believe)
Actively try to get others they don't agree with to either permanently leave the internet or commit suicide and even celebrate when either happens
Excessively test others on their "purity" on unachievable standards to the detriment of everyone and Leftism as a whole (purity culture is fueled by christian culture in order to disguise doomerism, accepting defeat when change is not possible, of which is the very thing that will kill leftism)
Infight over weird made up issues (remember how divide and conquer is a war strategy? To split hairs and discount others for non-issues is to do the work of conservatives and nazis for them)
Shut down people or discussions over minor slights such as using an incorrect word/phrasing or any numerous perceived mistakes (example I've seen here: berating a person with schizophrenia (or a trans person or any other minority) for using a derogatory term for themselves when they're talking about how everyone else is speaking over them and not listening), ignoring the hypocrisy or not taking into account any number of mundane causes such as non-native english speakers, generational gaps, being in the process of learning (either recovering from harmful beliefs or simple ignorance), using those terms to prove a point (such as that example I mentioned above), neurodivergence, etc.
Not letting others talk about their experiences of oppression when those experiences don't match theirs, instead opting to call those people bigoted for contrived reasons
A rejection of nuance, intersectionalism, and even reality to better suit their goals (ex: claiming that every trans man benefits from the patriarchy and can never experience misogyny)
Misuse of therapy speak and terminology in order to water down those terms and render them near meaningless so they can weaponize them under the pretense of their original use (ex: gaslighting), or to cut off any need to connect or sympathize with other human beings and instead speak to them like a PR message (refer to this video by Zena and Poppy for reference)
They never speak on true leftist/progressive ideals or positive change, they only engage in destructive discourse or any behavior listed above
Making baseless dangerous accusations towards someone they don't like. Before you go harr harr you're doing that, I'm not calling out any specific person and am merely listing dangerous behaviors I've seen people here act out. What I am referring to are when someone casually calls someone specific a predator (or whatever else) with absolutely zero proof and expecting everyone to believe them no questions asked. This has been shown to ruin people's lives
Any other similar behaviors not included in this list (as well as classic logical fallacies), but what I've mentioned above should paint you a good picture
Every example I've pointed out were REAL EVENTS I've seen from people that proclaim themselves as leftists or even just progressive, and sometimes are even minorities themselves (some even infight against their own communities using the behaviors listed above, often out of internalized bigotry)(an example of a real event that happened here recently were when several people were making rape threats towards a trans man by the username of @a-faggot-with-opinions). To be blunt, I'm pointing out exclusionism in practically every form, asexual discourse, transandrophobia, TERFs/radfems, TEHMs, tankies, "cornbreadtube", nationalists and ethnonationalists, and all else I don't have the terminology for For many of the people that fall under that bullet list I would hesitate to even refer to them as leftist or progressive, as they never seem to actually show they act on it or even believe in it, only making an appearance in those communities for their own destructive personal gain; hell, often times they have ideals that directly go against what those communities stand for! Examples include TERFs with white supremacist beliefs, transandrophobes that are misogynistic, ethnonationalists that are antisemitic, puritans that are ableist, the list goes on forever. Once you know what to look for, you can see the hidden or overt bigotry behind their false "progressive" statements
No one is infallible No one is better than everyone else You are not immune to propaganda No one is immune from behaving abusively
These people are dangerous, whether they actually qualify as abusers --as I've been referring to them as such for brevity and impact-- or are people that are engaging in hurtful or fully abusive behavior (use this paragraph as a disclaimer, I of course can't know if someone is an abuser in real life unless there is documented evidence of such). Regardless, they are hurting the left and are letting the right win
If you see any of these behaviors either 1) take caution if you're unsure, 2) block them, or 3) if you have the fortitude, call them out. Either way, use your best judgement and think for yourself (or discuss with good faith leftists if you're uncertain). And remember, often times (albeit not always) they are actually fully aware of their disgusting behavior and are choosing to act maliciously, not ignorantly.
Stay safe, log off, do what you can to support your local community and leftism as a whole, don't let these people distract from the real issues at hand. Have empathy, if you don't have empathy then act in compassion, if you don't or refuse to do either please do not engage in politics. Misanthropy has no place in matters concerning humanity.
And remember: we have to stand together in unity so we can create a better future for all
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saetoshis · 5 months
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hot ppl don’t support genocide 😻
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WARNING: This story contains distressing details and images.
New information uncovered by Radio-Canada's investigative program, Enquête, suggests there were perhaps dozens more deaths in Quebec residential schools than the 38 officially reported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
Combining newly uncovered photographs, previously unpublished reports and interviews with survivors, Enquête found several instances of deaths of Indigenous children in Quebec that aren't reflected in the official numbers.
Some of the children died from illness. Some were victims of abuse who later died under nebulous circumstances.
Continue Reading.
Tagging: @politicsofcanada
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penwrythe · 5 months
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Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is important. I'm genuinely not okay when I hear, see, and research more about the genocide happening in Gaza, the history of Israel's founding, and its terroristic actions. It is important for me to know.
Taking short breaks (usually a couple of hours or so) does help when things get too much. Then, I return and continue engaging with reblogs on Palestine.
I really don't know what else to say, but this genocide must end. All genocides must end and must never happen again. Keep talking about Palestine, Armenia, Congo, and Sudan! Keep protesting! Keep fighting!
What is important now is to be as loud as you can be! Raise ruckus! Make your voice unavoidable! Be as annoying as possible! Do not let your representatives ignore this!
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as8bakwthesage · 1 year
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im very funny-
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autismmydearwatson · 1 year
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The worst kinds of non-religious people are the ones who degrade Christianity for having the exact same traits MANY religions share. It's disgusting, close-minded, privileged, and complete erasure.
"The Bible is fiction" by that logic so is the Tanakh. The Torah, the story of Moses freeing his people from slavery using the wonders of G-d. The Neviyim.
That "sky daddy" you mock is the same God worshipped by Jewish ppl, Zoroastrians, and Muslims, as well as Christians.
MANY religions have sacred texts. Hinduism, the OLDEST SURVIVING RELIGION (recorded), worships multiple gods that form the many faces of greater more powerful Gods. Is that primitive? Does it shock you?
Indigenous religions know many spirits that they believe make up the forces of humanity and nature. The Navajo Holy Ones. The Australian aboriginal Dreaming.
These are their LIVES. Muslims are killed for their beliefs, while some misuse them for tyranny.
The Christians beat the culture out of the Native Americans, and now they're treated like antique humans. Ancient Central American religions paid their gods in the blood of PoWs, and now they're all dead.
Ever since Constantine hallucinated that magic cross in the sky and made Christianity mainstream, the holiness has been dying out. Crosses, SACRED SYMBOLS, are bought and worn by Goths, and Rroma culture is appropriated for the "aesthetic". They mashed Yule (a sacred pagan day to celebrate Midwinter) and Christmas (celebrating the day a refugee family bore the Son of God in a barn) into a capitalism holiday. The Bible and the hijab is twisted toward hateful causes, and now the hijab is the symbol of oppression when it was meant to show respect.
Christians in the age of Rome were hunted, chained up for gladiatorial sport, and blamed for terrorism. Now they have fallen, and have done the SAME THING TO OTHER CULTURES. it was the belief of the poor and oppressed, now its been stolen by hatred and entitlement. Homophobia, xenophobia, racism, hypocrisy, the Rich. Christianity isn't white, european, nice, clean, priveleged, pearl-clutching colonialism. It's about kindness, sympathizing with the oppressed, valuing mothers, raising your voice against injustice, and driving out the rich from holy spaces.
Muslims aren't terrorists. Jews aren't greedy. Buddhists aren't weak. Native Americans aren't primitive. While Christians are often fools, God isnt.
All religion means something. Memory, justice, spirituality. These are people's LIVES.
you hate religion? All religions? All of them are fiction? Maybe to you. But not everyone thinks we're meant to be alone in our lives.
THAT is humanity. Believing whatever takes so that we don't have to be alone. It doesn't matter if a people is the majority. They are people, culture. I don't give jack shit what you say about the assholes in my religion, but mocking the most basic framework of human spirituality is despicable and needlessly spiteful. You are shallow and have a narrow, spiteful view of humanity.
Treat religion with respect, or you'll risk repeating history.
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the-trail-to-oregon · 8 months
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'conservapedia' warning post!
Ik I already made a post like this but I decided to make a coherent version. Please reblog this version instead of the previous one so that people are aware of this website. Thanks :)
Until today I didn't know that this thing existed, but I was researching a frontiersman called Frank Mayer, and there isn't a Wikipedia article about him but there IS a 'Conservapedia' article about him. The logos and website names look similar enough for me to mistake Conservapedia for Wikipedia, and that's probably intentional.
'Conservapedia' is basically set out just like Wikipedia, only their logo looks like this
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Despite what it says, it is not a trustworthy source of information. In fact, it includes lots of harmful misinformation. I decided to have a gander at what this website actually has in it, and what I found is both hilarious and sickening. However there is a hell of a lot of racism, genocide/slavery denial and pro-cop shit going down so I'll put it under a readmore.
If you don't want to read on, please reblog now to warn people about this site. In short, it's wildly inaccurate, uses inflammatory language to provoke and spark anger in readers, it spreads blatant misinformation, some of which could be actively harmful to those reading it, and it is ridiculously pumped full of every kind of prejudice and hate.
This is going to be super long probably but here goes. I decided to have a look at whether their claims of being 'trustworthy' are really... well... trustworthy. So, as my mutuals are probably aware, I'm fascinated by American history, and especially the frontier period, so I decided to see whether there was an article on American history. There wasn't. That was... odd. Especially as it appears that Conservapedia is an American site, what with the logo and everything. This seems to suggest some advanced stage of denial going on here. Another thing to add is that there is no article on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I checked.
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The article about slavery itself is... worrying. It blames 'Marxists' and 'Socialists' for slavery, and says that imperialism 'stopped slavery'. Yeah, after being the main perpetrators for three hundred years??
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This is from their article about the Confederates. The underlined bit is the important bit. It says 'all the slaves were emancipated with no compensation to their owners'. The rest of the paragraph discussed how the Nasty North forced the poor uwu South to give up slavery, which led to the South losing a lot of their revenue. Racist, capitalist shit.
I then checked out their article on Colorado, because I know a lot about Colorado's history and wanted to see how much of it was, you know, actually discussed. This paragraph, about the BLM movement, leapt out at me particularly:
The anti-police punks, who outnumbered the pro-police side, attempted to overwhelm the rally and acted in their typically childish fashion to drown out and silence the pro-police message while also assaulting rallygoers and police officers [...]
This isn't just ignoring history, this is blatant propaganda and misinformation. Compare the use of inflammatory language and rhetoric like 'punks', 'childish', 'assaulting' etc against the more neutral tone of regular Wikipedia. If, like me, you thought that this was normal Wiki, you could easily believe this. I had to do a double take. This shit is bad. There's more, but if anything it's even worse.
And because the page on Colorado is the Hellhole o' Horrors that just keeps on giving, THIS pro life shit was right at the beginning of the page.
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'The murder of infants'. Pls. Wtf. I have no words. Again, see the inflammatory language. This is not 'trustworthy' in the slightest. In fact, this is actively harmful.
As for actual history, there was zilch. Something about the colonial Spanish guy who named Colorado. That was it. Overall the section on Colorado's history comprised of a measly 167 words. On regular Wikipedia, the section about Colorado's history is 2,543 words. Notice the difference? The conservatives are obviously making omissions, and it's soon clear what they are. Where is Colorado's historic abortion laws? Where are the mass shootings? The Mexican-American war? The coal strikes? The Chicano Civil Rights movement? Where is Sand Creek? Nobody on Conservapedia is fessing up to Sand Creek.
So yeah, that made me angry. But wait, there's more. Following on from the lack of Sand Creek, I found myself thinking hm, maybe this genocide denial goes a bit deeper. So I tried to find an article on Native American history. Again I found nothing. The page on Native Americans was pitiful. Firstly, the writers seemed to have an aversion to the words 'Native American', instead using 'Indian', which I'm pretty sure is outdated/offensive (apologies for using any offensive terminology, I am quoting the article and this definitely does not reflect my views).
Ok, let's look at what the 'Native American' page has to say, shall we?
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Ooh, boy, there's a lot to unpack here. Firstly, this is EVERYTHING I could find about Native American history. And it's about the Genesis story. Let me summarise for you. Basically, the screenshot is saying that 'creation scientists' find the Native Americans batshit crazy because they don't have any 'ties' to any other populations in terms of biblical proof. The Native population was 'established after the destruction of the Tower of Babel'. They're stating the Bible like it's a fact. I can confirm as someone who was once Christian that the Bible has to be taken with not a pinch but a bucketful of salt.
This is absolute shit. Firstly, it's saying that Native American myths and Bible stories bear some resemblance. This is possible. Different myths around the world have the same themes. However, just because Socrates, Confucius and the Buddha were all around at a similar time it doesn't mean that they were best pals and were on a WhatsApp groupchat together. It seems to me like Insecure White People (tm) are trying to forcibly fit other people into their worldview. Which is very narrow minded of them. And I'm white, but this feels pretty racist to me. Oh, and was there anything about the millions of native people killed since everyone's least favourite Chris rocked up? Nope. There wasn't.
So, to see whether they were denying EVERY genocide or just this one, I went to check the article on the Holocaust/Sho'ah. Bingo. Finally, a reasonable article. Great, they'd agreed that Nazis = bad, they were feeling sorry for the Jewish people and other victims of the Holocaust/Sho'ah.
And then they said it was all the fault of the socialists. Yeah. Blame everything on the socialists. At this point it's laughable - imagine saying that Hitler is a SOCIALIST?? Other than that, the page actually... wasn't bad?? Compared to other pages it was really long, it said that the Nazis were 'evil', and about how awful it was. Admittedly they did use what I believe is a slur to describe disabled people, but this is Conservapedia after all. Oh yes, and they blamed Hitlers 'animal rights' and 'environmentalism'. Right.
Other than the page about the Sho'ah, they don't mention any other genocide. ???? Why ?????? So yeah, in general they're all genocide deniers, which is fun.
So the point of this SUPER long post (sorry guys it got out of hand) is DON'T GO ON conservapedia. Avoid it like the plague; it spreads blatant misinformation, is wildly racist, ableist and homophobic, says that everyone is to blame for slavery OTHER than white people, it denies genocides, it uses extreme language to spark anger in readers and spouts pro-life shit. And that's just from the few pages I saw.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reblog this so that people are aware of this. I was absolutely horrified when I found and read it. Stay safe, everyone.
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Thanksgiving myth
Trigger Warning - Genocide, Death, Slavery.
Written by Laura Casey.
The Myth - In 1620, Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and friended the Wampanoag, who showed the colonizers how to harvest and survive the brutal NE winter. This “thankfulness” culminated into a “celebration” in 1621 between the Wampanoag and Pilgrims.
The truth - English colonizers landed in the vicinity of (what is now) Massachusetts in 1614, taking the regional Indigenous as slaves, selling them for 200 shillings on European markets and leaving behind small pox and other European disease.
By the time Puritans arrived in Plymouth, entire nations of Indigenous tribes were already decimated or extinct because of Europe’s lust to conquer. Within 4 days of landing, the Puritans robbed graves and stole crops.
Within 15 years, the Puritans were at war with the Pequot nation. And by 1641 the first scalp bounty was placed. Puritans at this point (and through out) were determined to eliminate any Indigenous Nations and take their land.  They held massacres in order to achieve and then celebrated EVERY SINGLE TIME with “Thanksgiving”.
It became such a TRADITION to celebrate the genocide in every puritan town that George Washington recognized ”the need” to make it a holiday and declared the fourth Thursday in November as “Thanksgiving Day”.
Then, Lincoln made it a legal national holiday on the same day he sent troops to march on Lakota Nation in Minnesota. This is what you celebrate. This is what colonizers on Turtle Island “celebrate” when they sit with family and friends today. 
Genocide.  Murder.  Slavery.
So instead, we remember today as a Day of Mourning. We stand in solidarity with the thousands of Indigenous tribes, nations, and federations who still exist today.
We will remember lives lost and we will celebrate the strength and resilience of the first people of this land — because they are still here and thriving, living and loving, building and growing (so stop talking about Native tribes in the past tense) — and they have done it with grace and humility while surviving genocide.
We will hold space for our local Tribes (who do not have federal protections or sovereignty). We will support local Wabanaki businesses, we will cook local food (today it is Three Sisters, cornbread and maple syrup pie made with Passamaquoddy Maple), we will provide mutual aid, we will continue to call our state and federal representatives demanding support for the Alliance (and their legal sovereignty) and we will continue centering Indigenous voices.
Because whether we want to admit it or not — it’s all interconnected — the environment, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, the water crisis, the healthcare crisis, the food crisis, social norms/mores, etc…all of it.
So…enjoy time with family.  But share the true story and stop celebrating American violence (WE can break this ugly cycle folks). This is Turtle Island.
I live on Wabanaki/Nanrantsouak land. I acknowledge that today’s holiday and celebrations are rooted in violence, harm, genocide and erasure.
http://www.uaine.org
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZpy2GhNxc
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shxtdisturber · 5 months
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This is something that's been bothering me for a few years now, but of all the characters to align with the return of the Third Reich, why these three?
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The three darkest-skinned characters in the entire series, one of which is coded as being Native American... and they're n*zis? These three???
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There's an American buffalo documentary playing in the other room and they just said that when "not to say European... But when the Americans" showed up compared to the Native Americans the treatment of the buffalo "was a collision of two different views of how humanity should interact with the natural world" and I think I'm going jokermode
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Why must everything be against indigenous people? including The Barbie movie?there's a disgustingly racist joke about small pox in the movie.some people say it isn't a joke while others say it's an analogy
https://www.tumblr.com/antinativefaves/723813293691666432/your-fave-is-anti-native-barbie?source=share
This is really not surprising considering that Greta is a white feminist. I reblogged it and I will be sharing it on all my blogs.
mod ali
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communismlives · 8 months
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Soviet Purges, 1937-1938: Officially denounced by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, political prisoners retroactively exonerated. Deaths mourned by everyone.
Economic crisis in China after Great Leap Forward, 1958-1962: Officially denounced by Deng Xiaoping, political reform program implemented in 1978. Deaths mourned by everyone.
Literally anything done by Rhee Syngman, 1948-1960: Truth and Reconciliation Commission implemented in 2005, South Korean government issues official apology for crimes against humanity. Deaths mourned by everyone.
Rape of Nanjing, 1937: Official apology issued by Japanese Prime Minister in 1995. Deaths mourned by everyone.
Holocaust, 1941-1945: Reparations paid by German government between 1945 and 2018. Laws passed making it a criminal offense to deny, trivialize, or encourage genocide. Deaths mourned by everyone.
Genocide against Indigenous Americans, 1609-2023: No apologies, no reparations, no effort to right the countless wrongs perpetrated by the United States government. Average US citizen won't even pretend to give a fuck about the millions of people eradicated by colonialism. They won't even remember their names.
I am not here to support or denounce any of the governments I have mentioned. I'm just saying, it's never too late to make amends for these atrocities. So don't use "all of the people responsible are dead" as an excuse to deny reparations. Don't use "winning the war" as an excuse for genocide denial. Don't use "every other country did it" as an excuse to forget about it. When your government won't even do the bare minimum in apologizing for the horrific shit they've done, how can you not be angry?
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killemwithkawaii · 2 years
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soooo uhhhhhh.... about Travis' mom?-
Some (almost) totally baseless hc about Travis' mom-
[CW: Racially motivated violence, abuse/exploitation/murder of indigenous peoples/ Native Americans, child abuse, death of a parent, Ch5 spoilers, Kenneth is an evil fucked up irredeemable racist misogynistic dickbag and getting stabbed was way too good for him]
>Travis' mom was a young brainwashed cult member that Kenneth '''''''married''''''' because he found out that she was a direct descendant of the Grey Tribe with very few remaining family members that would come poking around looking for her if she went missing
>Likely ended up in the bologna/ fed to the endless one/ used as a ritualistic sacrifice after she gave birth to Travis and she was 'no longer of use as a vessel'. (Hell, the birth of Travis/ 'the D.O.G. heir' might have been made into a huge cult ritual in itself)
>Publicly, Kenneth still wears a wedding ring says that his wife died 'giving the gift of life to his son', which always gains him sympathy and stops people from asking any more questions.
>Travis has never seen a picture of her and has no memories of her, so the only reference he has for what she might have looked like is what he can piece together from his own reflection. He mourns the relationship he never had with his mother, rather than his mother herself (how could he, if he doesn't know anything about her?)
>Kenneth doesn't tell him any details about her beyond the fact that she existed and she died giving birth to him. It's a huge source of guilt and Kenneth doesn't hesitate to use it against Travis whenever he's being defiant. Travis doesn't press for details about her anymore because it has earned him a number of beatings in the past.
>'Nannies'/ female cult members that were tasked with caring for Travis when he was a child would disappear if they let any details about his mother slip (though most of them didn't last more than a year, anyway. Kenneth couldn't let anybody get too close to him and make him 'soft'.)
>When he was a child, Travis assumed that Kenneth refused to talk about her because it was too painful. Travis began suspecting otherwise when he started seeing just how fucked up the cults practices were behind closed doors and how many people disappeared from Nockfell every year without anybody bothering to look into it.
>Travis killing Kenneth was about revenge- for himself, for Sal, for the countless victims of the cult, but most of all, it was revenge for the mother he never knew and the childhood he never had because of his fathers own egregious actions.
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jezifster · 2 years
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I've said this before but
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[Image transcript: a Wikipedia screenshot that says "Kroeber reported the population of the Maidu in 1910 as 1,100. The 1930 census counted 93, following decimation by infectious diseases and social disruption. As of 1995, the Maidu population had recovered to an estimated 3,500.]
Diseases purposefully given to them and if by "social disruption" you mean shot and buried in unmarked graves yeah.
Souce: my great grandma survived this and told the stories.
Here's one: they found her three older brothers' car shot up and riddled with bullet holes in the bottom of a canyon with military-issue ammo.
If you find that hard to believe, just realize native people probably don't. There are stories like this in every family history. And often not very long ago.
Here's some stories from my Dad growing up in the 60s because shit was still happening:
People used to try to run him and his brothers over when they were walking to school.
His family were left provisions on their doorstep that the dogs got into and died from due to rat poison.
His dad (my grandpa) was let to suffer days in the hospital from appendicitis until it ruptured and he died. They knew he had appendicitis. They just gave him stomach medicine instead of operating.
He was allowed to work agricultural jobs at 13 that grown white men wouldn't because they were too dangerous (chemically speaking). He ended up with lifelong health complications and ultimately died due to this. If you don't think this was racially motivated idk what to tell you.
I could go on but I won't. I know I've talked about my tribe before and I will again because sometimes it feels like no one knows what the fuck happened and it makes me sick to think this might be forgotten like so many other atrocities by the United Fucking States.
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