We are not Indigenous People
We are the African Diaspora, migrants, exiles, captives and resistors, grown into a new people - settlers. We can not be native to this continent even if born here.
How important is the truth? And how do we rise from our awful truths to do better, to make better truths? By learning. By changing our responses. By determining we will understand and remember a new goal for the development of civilizations: It's called Life. As we are coming to understand the significance of the STRUGGLE PROCESS in reclaiming Richmond's African Burial Ground, we should be identifying with like struggle processes around the world.
A connection I've just encountered is that of an online journal called INTERCONTINENTAL CRY. A link to this journal will be added to the links on the page "Interconnections" - see tab above. One of its most interesting features is a directory of Indigenous Peoples around the world and their perspectives on contemporary development. I heard a "progressive" person, someone participating in the Occupation Movement somewhere, say that "globalization" was the only way to save the world, and I cringed. The globalization that I have seen has primarily been a contact sport of geopolitical encroachments by nations more economically and militarily powerful seeking to control the resources of less powerful nations. If you read just a handful of the Indigenous Peoples Directory entries, I think you'll begin to get a sense of what I'm talking .
I have just seen a film that has - can you believe it?? - just introduced me to the history of the overthrow of Hawai'i. This is important to understand on its own, but also in the context of the rest of the US' expansionist foreign policy which includes its criminal conquests of Cuba, Philippines, Haiti, Guam among other nations. How can we discuss reconciliation without truth and justice in the US? How can we discuss justice without the will to face the legacies of the truth, what was done 100 years ago has given birth to the irreparable dynamics of today. So how, precisely, do we move forward together?
How important is the truth? And how do we rise from our awful truths to do better, to make better truths? By learning. By changing our responses. By determining we will understand and remember a new goal for the development of civilizations: It's called Life. As we are coming to understand the significance of the STRUGGLE PROCESS in reclaiming Richmond's African Burial Ground, we should be identifying with like struggle processes around the world.
A connection I've just encountered is that of an online journal called INTERCONTINENTAL CRY. A link to this journal will be added to the links on the page "Interconnections" - see tab above. One of its most interesting features is a directory of Indigenous Peoples around the world and their perspectives on contemporary development. I heard a "progressive" person, someone participating in the Occupation Movement somewhere, say that "globalization" was the only way to save the world, and I cringed. The globalization that I have seen has primarily been a contact sport of geopolitical encroachments by nations more economically and militarily powerful seeking to control the resources of less powerful nations. If you read just a handful of the Indigenous Peoples Directory entries, I think you'll begin to get a sense of what I'm talking .
I have just seen a film that has - can you believe it?? - just introduced me to the history of the overthrow of Hawai'i. This is important to understand on its own, but also in the context of the rest of the US' expansionist foreign policy which includes its criminal conquests of Cuba, Philippines, Haiti, Guam among other nations. How can we discuss reconciliation without truth and justice in the US? How can we discuss justice without the will to face the legacies of the truth, what was done 100 years ago has given birth to the irreparable dynamics of today. So how, precisely, do we move forward together?