Tag: i believe in people

ishyagrrrl:

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Yesterday I got a call from my sister Cheeraz Gormon in St. Louis who was standing with poet Elizabeth Vega. They wanted me to know that a few women had created, on lawns, in the streets, healing stations, a place where the youth could come and scream and cry and be held and heard in love. Mighty work. — Dream Hampton

this made me cry.

Homeless aboriginal people “evict” City of Vancouver from Oppenheimer Park

terrorboys:

littleopticalmachine:

Homeless tenters in Oppenheimer Park say they’ve received an eviction notice from the City of Vancouver.

However, the tenters say they have the support of First Nations leaders from the Downtown Eastside and they’re not going anywhere.

Today (July 20), they’ve issued their own eviction notice, effective immediately, to the city. It reads:

We, the indigenous people here today in Oppenheimer Park, do hereby assert our Aboriginal Title, as established in law by the Supreme Court of Canada in Tsilhqot’in v British Columbia. Our people have held title to this land since time immemorial, and we are exerting our right to exclusive authority, recognized as an inherent element of our title, over this land and this camp. The City of Vancouver recognizes the unceded and enduring existence of our Aboriginal Title here. Under this recognition, we now require that you leave this place and cease any attempts to remove people or their belongings from this place. Because we are the title holders to this land, we assert that you do not have jurisdiction over this place until such time as our title to it is lawfully resolved. Any actions against this camp are thereby unlawful actions against our title; we demand an immediate cease and desist of action or the threat of action against this camp or those within it.

A news release from the tenters and their supporters says that about 30 percent of homeless people are aboriginal due to the “effects of colonization and poverty”. It also notes that the 1,798 homeless people counted in Vancouver in March was the “highest number ever counted”.

Referring to the Downtown Eastside local area plan, the release also claims: “Vision Vancouver approved a plan for the Downtown Eastside that seeks to displace 3,350 residents.”

On June 25, city council voted to formally acknowledge that the city lies on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Homeless aboriginal people “evict” City of Vancouver from Oppenheimer Park

tashabilities:

hylianears:

micdotcom:

Canadian music festival takes huge step against Native appropriation

Follow micdotcom 

From their announcement:

For various reasons, Bass Coast Festival is banning feathered war bonnets, or anything resembling them, onsite. Our security team will be enforcing this policy.

We understand why people are attracted to war bonnets. They have a magnificent aesthetic. But their spiritual, cultural and aesthetic significance cannot be separated.

Bass Coast Festival takes place on indigenous land and we respect the dignity of aboriginal people. We have consulted with aboriginal people in British Columbia on this issue and we feel our policy aligns with their views and wishes regarding the subject. Their opinion is what matters to us.

Niiiiiiice

smallstrawhat:

i’m watching a live stream with Vice and Al Jazeera America camera crews on the ground in Ferguson right now and it is absolutely incredible. the area was very good and there was a lot of positive energy from people who were glad the police weren’t attacking and shooting them anymore and they were break-dancing and camera crews were doing interviews with them and then the police thought that it was getting out of control so they brought in SWAT teams and tried to break everyone up.

a lot of people started reacting really negatively and breaking things and going into the street and the police told them to get out of the street and go home and people were yelling about how the police told mike brown to “get the fuck on the sidewalk” before they murdered him. a group of people then broke into the liquor store that the police claimed mike brown stole from and threatened the Vice and Al Jazeera America crews, telling them to stop filming them (the looters) (all of this was on the live stream which i was watching) and shoving them into the road so they backed off for a long time and were nervous to check on the store again for about 15 minutes.

when they next checked there was a group of about half a dozen black men blocking the broken entrance to the liquor store with their hands raised and keeping anyone else from going in. the camera crews approached them and began interviewing them and here are some things i caught even though it was loud with multiple interviews going on at once: “we live in this town and these are our stores. we shop at these stores. every one of us protecting this store is from ferguson and the people looting it weren’t. they wanted to set it on fire. we stopped them and told them ‘that’s what they want us to do. that’s how they want us to act here’. very few people want to fuck things up and ruin people’s day to day jobs and those are the stories the press wants to cover but they don’t show us chasing them off and protecting our stores. we want our town to stay together. the police don’t care about us, they will kill us the same as if we were the ones doing it because they can’t tell us apart. they don’t care enough to try to tell who is looting and who is peacefully protesting and trying to keep things together.”

one of the guy who was blocking people from looting the store then handed his cellphone to the al jazeera america reporter and said “my mom is on the phone and she’s scared for me, she thinks i’m out here fucking things up, can you tell her what is going on” and the reporter talked to the guy’s mom and was telling her how brave her son is. god damn.