Tag: isms

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

maryrobinette:

gehayi:

youmightbeamisogynist:

naamahdarling:

mythosidhe:

Although I have to point out that there was a piece of speculative science fiction called The Blazing World published by one Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1666, slightly predating Mary Shelley.

This is the thing. Women have been doing awesome shit since there was awesome shit to do, we’ve BEEN THERE, if anyone bothered to look.

Oh, they looked. And then maliciously and willfully erased us from the books to keep anyone else from “getting ideas.”

Hell, the first named author in history? Enheduanna, a Sumerian high priestess, poet and lyricist. She’s known as the Shakespeare of Sumerian literature.

The first American mystery novel was written by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor, as well as the first dime novel, and the first crime novel..

The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.

Scott Woods (x)

collababortion:

acmesalesrep:

lnthefade:

So there’s this.

How is this not a crime? Obstruction of justice? Tampering? Hell, a violation of Son of Sam laws?

Burn the whole damned city down, starting with City Hall and the police station.

It’s a conflict of interest, at bare fucking minimum, and he should be forced to recuse himself.

maarnayeri:

Let us be vividly clear about this.

What the New York Times did to Michael Brown today was not merely slander. It wasn’t a case of a lack of journalistic integrity.

Highlighting that a black teenager was “no angel” on the day he is being laid to rest after being hunted and killed by racist vigilante forces is not an unfortunate coincidence.

The New York Times deliberately played into an archaic American tradition in devaluing both the merit of black life and the tragedy of black death.

They chose the day of his funeral, as his family, friends and activists everywhere have to grapple with a human being lost to pontificate about how he was “no angel”. Michael Brown was many things to many people; a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew and another black causality of murderous police institutions and today, amidst all the racist violence he, his loved ones and community have had to endure, he was going to finally receive the respect and moment of honor he deserved and NYT decided today, of all days, to tune in their audience onto wholly irrelevant facts about his life – that in turn, transform the very injustice surrounding his death and the following police violence that plagued Ferguson into a national panel about whether or not his death is actually worth mourning and their language suggested that to them, it indeed is not.

This was hardly an accident or mistake. This is the perpetual hostility that is met against black life in America. The consensus is that black people deserve no respect and for black life to be legitimized and honored, we must meet a list of prerequisites. Subsequently, if black people aren’t valued, neither are our deaths understood as tragic or murders seen as criminal action.

This has been the atmosphere of America since its inception and much has not improved.