And now we come to read a snippet from history; I stumbled upon this appeal published on the New York Times 1 November 1970 edition, it is titled “An appeal by Black Americans against United States support of the Zionist government of Israel,” it was sponsored by Committee of Black Americans for truth about the Middle East. The appeal is explicitly described in a 1972 Journal of Palestine Studies article by Lewis Young titled “American Blacks and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”
In this excellent appeal, we read about the Palestinian cause for justice being connected to the African-American fight for equal rights and complete abolishment for the racist system, we read about it connected to the global fight against imperialism, colonialism, racism, and for justice, freedom, and dignity.
The appeal starts with the signatories stating that they’re in complete solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters who are also struggling for self-determination and an end to racist oppression.
The appeal ends with a demand for the United States government to stop all military aid or assistance of any kind to Israel; it also states that Imperialism and Zionism must get out of the Middle East. It concludes with a call for Afro-American solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation and to regain all of their stolen land.
Native American and African American cowboys.
The one site I found this from (that’s of course not working for me right now) said they were from the Chickasaw Nation. Another website gave no name or who took the photo just said “Native American and African American cowboys, ca. 1860-1870”. Either way this is a great photo. If any information on them please add.
Let me point something out for everyone: The pair shown here are father & son. It’s a shame that no one can see this. The boy has dark skin, so automatically, people refuse to see that not only do they share the exact same features, they have the same posture as well.
The fact that people cannot see what is evident is a direct result of whitewashing.
Didn’t you hear? Being undocumented is hot right now. In the wise words of my friend Yosimar Reyes, we’re taking this shit to Paris. SMH @ American Apparel.
—
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.
Let’s think about this for a moment in relation to the “Arab Spring” or the “Arab Awakening” and how we (they) have already begun to reconstruct and write a narrative of “pre-revolution” history, even in the way we have titled the uprisings. So in Fanon’s words above, instead of just colonialism, we can think also of neo-colonialism, and instead of merely pre-colonial history, also post-colonial authoritarian history. And while everyone loves throwing around “orientalism” as if it is merely a practice of representation and caricaturizing the other, let’s remember that petty, exotic/barbaric representations are a symptom of orientalism, not its meaning, and that orientalism is, by its practice of producing bodies of knowledge and dictating language, is a practice of constructing reality that it consequently colonizes and devalues, both “ours” and “theirs”.
(via residueatlas)
Desde un primer momento comprendí que estábamos vinculados, que algo infinitamente perdido y distante seguía sin embargo uniéndonos.
— Julio Cortázar
— Julio Cortazar (via quemiresmasalla-de-mi)
![butterflyrevolt:
LUCY PARSONS (LUCIA ELDINE GONZALEZ)
Indigenous Chicana, Afro-Latina, Anarchist
Lucy (or Lucia) Eldine Gonzalez was born around 1853 in Texas, likely as a slave, to parents of Native American, Black American and Mexican ancestry.[1] In 1871 she married Albert Parsons, a former Confederate soldier. They were forced to flee from Texas north by intolerant reactions to their interracial marriage. They settled in Chicago, Illinois.
Described by the Chicago Police Department as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters” in the 1920s, Parsons and her husband had become highly effective anarchist organizers primarily involved in the labor movement in the late 19th century, but also participating in revolutionary activism on behalf of political prisoners, people of color, the homeless and women. She began writing for The Socialist and The Alarm, the journal of the International Working People’s Association (IWPA) which she and Parsons, among others, founded in 1883. In 1886 her husband, who had been heavily involved in campaigning for the eight hour day, was arrested, tried and executed on November 11, 1887, by the state of Illinois on charges that he had conspired in the Haymarket Riot — an event which was widely regarded as a political frame-up and which marked the beginning of May Day labor rallies in protest.[2][3]
In 1892 she briefly published a periodical, Freedom: A Revolutionary Anarchist-Communist Monthly. She was often arrested for giving public speeches or distributing anarchist literature. While she continued championing the anarchist cause, she came into ideological conflict with some of her contemporaries, including Emma Goldman, over her focus on class politics over gender and sexual struggles.[4]
In 1905 she participated in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, and began editing the Liberator, an anarchist newspaper that supported the IWW in Chicago. Lucy’s focus shifted somewhat to class struggles around poverty and unemployment, and she organized the Chicago Hunger Demonstrations in January 1915, which pushed the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party, and Jane Addams’ Hull House to participate in a huge demonstration on February 12. Parsons was also quoted as saying, “My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production.”[5] Parsons anticipated the sit-down strikes in the US and, later, workers’ factory takeovers in Argentina.
Her husband Albert Parsons was executed with other anarchists for his role in the Haymarket Riot. The commemoration of this incident and of the Haymarket Martyrs has become the international workers day known as May Day, on May 1st, celebrated the world over.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2lrk2M8a71qi5ugyo1_500.jpg)
LUCY PARSONS (LUCIA ELDINE GONZALEZ)
Indigenous Chicana, Afro-Latina, Anarchist
Lucy (or Lucia) Eldine Gonzalez was born around 1853 in Texas, likely as a slave, to parents of Native American, Black American and Mexican ancestry.[1] In 1871 she married Albert Parsons, a former Confederate soldier. They were forced to flee from Texas north by intolerant reactions to their interracial marriage. They settled in Chicago, Illinois.
Described by the Chicago Police Department as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters” in the 1920s, Parsons and her husband had become highly effective anarchist organizers primarily involved in the labor movement in the late 19th century, but also participating in revolutionary activism on behalf of political prisoners, people of color, the homeless and women. She began writing for The Socialist and The Alarm, the journal of the International Working People’s Association (IWPA) which she and Parsons, among others, founded in 1883. In 1886 her husband, who had been heavily involved in campaigning for the eight hour day, was arrested, tried and executed on November 11, 1887, by the state of Illinois on charges that he had conspired in the Haymarket Riot — an event which was widely regarded as a political frame-up and which marked the beginning of May Day labor rallies in protest.[2][3]
In 1892 she briefly published a periodical, Freedom: A Revolutionary Anarchist-Communist Monthly. She was often arrested for giving public speeches or distributing anarchist literature. While she continued championing the anarchist cause, she came into ideological conflict with some of her contemporaries, including Emma Goldman, over her focus on class politics over gender and sexual struggles.[4]
In 1905 she participated in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, and began editing the Liberator, an anarchist newspaper that supported the IWW in Chicago. Lucy’s focus shifted somewhat to class struggles around poverty and unemployment, and she organized the Chicago Hunger Demonstrations in January 1915, which pushed the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party, and Jane Addams’ Hull House to participate in a huge demonstration on February 12. Parsons was also quoted as saying, “My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production.”[5] Parsons anticipated the sit-down strikes in the US and, later, workers’ factory takeovers in Argentina.
Her husband Albert Parsons was executed with other anarchists for his role in the Haymarket Riot. The commemoration of this incident and of the Haymarket Martyrs has become the international workers day known as May Day, on May 1st, celebrated the world over.
THE FEMINISTING FIVE:
NATALIA GARCIA PASMANICK
“All culture is political; all art is political. I don’t consider myself a political artist for this reason… As a queer, mujer artist I struggle to not let myself be defined by the extremely narrow conception of femininity, beauty or desirability that controls how marketable we are in this industry.”
On Selena Quintanilla:
“To me, she represents someone who exercised cultural resistance and is a feminist because she demanded cultural self-determination… She chose to make music for her comunidad. She refused to assimilate and, to me, that’s a profound act of cultural resistance.”
Re: Latin@ two-spirit
I agree with tierrecita.
Two-spirit as an identity has a long history of both erasure and appropriation.
Despite the fact that many Latin@s have indigenous blood, we are not indigenous per-se. Mexican@s in particular have a large indigenous heritage yet despite this, the indigenous communities of Mexico continue to face high rates of poverty, disease, and unemployment. We are non-incorporated descendents of indigenous folx (called Ladin@s in some parts of mesoamerica) have a privilege that mimics pre-colonial peninsular/creole privilege.
Because of this, we NEED to be aware of how claiming a “two-spirit” identity often silences truly queer indigenous voices. Additionally, “two-spirit” is actually culturally particular, and when used by non-indigenous folx it often only serves homogenizes indigenous cultures. Not all indigenous groups had queer identities in the same ways. Some are similar to gay & lesbian identities others were more similar to heterosexual trans women and trans men identities.
My recommendation, since we are all in a cycle of decolonizing ourselves, is to be aware that we too have unchecked privileges that often only feed our blindspots.
If you truly connect with the two spirit identity, you need to commit to actively re-member your history which has been ripped from you due to racism and colonialism.
