27 November 2015

WORD OF THE MONTH: NEOCOLONIALISM

This months word of the month is neocolonialism.

Neocolonialism (noun): The continuation of racist, patriarchal, and colonial relationships of domination that remain after an imperial power leaves a colonized area. Neocolonialism is only an adjustment of the former colonial system. Instead of officially governing the area, the colonizing power now exerts control with capitalism or through a puppet government of native politicians. The formerly colonized country is usually still economically and politically dependent. The class structure of the former colony is always kept in tact. The exploitation of resources continues and the economy is hopelessly dependent on foreign imports and exports. Neocolonialism is also the infiltration of a former colonized country by foreign corporations and humanitarian aid groups.

Neocolonialism in a sentence:

When we speak of globalization in Africa, when we speak of a McDonald's in Nigeria, we are speaking of neocolonialism.



Decolonizing Culture

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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26 November 2015

THE NEWSFEED: OCTOBER, 2015

via atlantablackstar.com


#AssaultAtSpringValley


Video of a 16 year-old Black woman being violently assaulted by a police officer at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina went viral this October. The young Black woman, who is choosing to be identified as Shakara, was aggressively pulled out of her chair by officer Ben Fields and thrown to the floor after being asked to leave because she wouldn't put away her cellphone. She was promptly arrested along with 18 year-old Niya Kenny who attempting to help Shakara.Officer Fields has since been fired. Strangely, over a hundred students staged a walk-out at the school to protest the firing of officer fields, many of them students of color. The controversy has exposed much of the internalized white supremacist patriarchy held by students at the school. Black Lives Matter has issued an open letter to Shakara and Niya affirming their worth as Black woman and offering support. A GoFundMe account was also created to help support Shakara. You can donate to that account at https://www.gofundme.com/7w7h7cvw


Arson Continues At Historically Black Churches


At least seven historically Black churches were burned in St. Louis, MO this October, many of them not too far from Ferguson. White supremacist terror has recently resurfaced in the media since the shooting of the Charleston nine at Emanuel AME Church and the rash of church burnings that followed in late June. The first of the fires began October 8th at Bethel Non-Denominational Church, which was followed by burnings at New Northside Missionary Baptist Church, St. Augustine Catholic Church, and the New Testament Church of Christ. Very recently a Black male, 35 year-old David Lopez Jackson has been charged with setting two of the seven fires. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has jumped on the possibility of Jackson being linked to all of the fires and has dismissed the attacks race-related. Yet the identification of Jackson as Black does not automatically mean that the attacks were not race-related when white supremacist racism can influence the actions of anyone.


Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations win Million dollar Settlement


The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations of Oklahoma have finally won a long standing lawsuit against the United States government. The landmark case Choctaw Nation and Chickasaw Nation vs U.S Department of the Interior was filed in 2005. The suit charged the U.S with mismanaging 1.3 million acres of Choctaw and Chickasaw timberlands, violating the Administrative Procedure act and the Fifth Amendment. The suit has won 186 million dollars from the U.S Department of the Interior, which will be divided between the two tribes.


Native Hawaiians to Vote For Independence


November 1st marked the beginning of a 30 day voting period open to over 100,000 Native Hawaiians who will elect delegates to attend the convention for self-governance in Honolulu this winter. The eight-week convention will be focused on drafting a document for the formation of a government by Native Hawaiians for Native Hawaiians. The Native Hawaiian community has suffered from exploitation homelessness, poverty, and the erasure of Native traditions at the hands of the United States government.


Tamir Rice: No Justice


On October 10th Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty released two reports from the grand jury investigation concluding that Officer Timothy Loehmann was "reasonable" when he shot and killed 12 year-old Tamir Rice. A representative of McGinty explained that the reports were an attempt to keep the investigation as transparent as possible. Outraged family members and activists demand that a special prosecutor take over the case if McGinty fails to pursue an indictment himself. A grand jury has already begun hearing testimony in the case and family members fear that a case brought to a grand jury will result in a non-indictment.



The Newsfeed

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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24 November 2015

FILM OF THE MONTH: THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE

via IMDB


A treasure trove of footage that spans the length of the Black Power movement including film interviews with Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, and other leaders is found in the basement of a Swedish television company. Director Göran Olsson and co-producer Danny Glover bring this footage to life, bridging the voices of struggle from the 60s and 70s with contemporary artists and activists. The Black Power Mixtape takes a crucial look at the development of the Black Power Movement.



Decolonizing Culture

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November 2015

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22 November 2015

TRACK THE MOVEMENT: NOVEMBER, 2015

#NoKXL


On November 6th the Obama administration publicly rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed pipeline Stretching from Canada to Texas would cut through key indigenous territory protected by treaty. Indigenous peoples have beenorganizing protest and meeting with commissions for years. Yet, indigenous interest were largely omitted by Obama as a factor in the decision. Credit for the effort has been largely attributed to white environmentalist when indigenous organizing work was essential in putting pressure to halt the pipeline.


#ConcernedStudent1950


University of Missouri President Timothy W. Wolfe resigned from his position November 9th at an emergency Board of Curators meeting afterweeks of student protesting. Wolfe has been under fire for his failure to address racially charged issues on campus and his dismissal of student activist at the university's homecoming parade. UM students have righteously resisted at every level to push these issues to the national level. One UM student has staged a hunger strike, alumni had called for a walk-out, and UM football players have also vowed to strike.


#Bethlehem


Israeli troops reach new lows in Bethlehem early this November. On November 6th Israeli agents disguised as Palestinian stone throwers jumped on Palestinian protesters at gun point while plain-clothes Israeli soldiers shot at the crowd with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets . Other protesters were hit with live fire. Tactics such as using undercover Israeli agents have become routine in Bethlehem. At least twenty-six Palestinian protesters were killed in demonstrations last month.


#POC@IC


A massive walk-out was staged by Ithaca College students on October 27th. Numerous racially charged incidents on campus including repeated racial surrs directed towards an alumni panelist at the college's "Blue Skies" event and a racially themed white supremacist fraternity party have sparked an up-roar of campus resistance. #POC@IC has since lead numerous rallies, protest, and walk-outs against Ithaca College president Tom Rochon and the current administration.


#BerkeleyKKK


Hundreds of students from Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California walked out November 5th after the discovery of racist threats found on a school computer. The slurs include "KKK forever public lynching December 9th 2015" and "I hung a n***** by his neck in my back yard." It is estimated that over 700 marchers walked from the high school towards Berkeley City Hall.


#FeesMustFall


Cape Town students from over three Universities stormed the South African Parliament November 9th demanding that they speak to South African President Jacob Zuma. South African students have waged the largest protest in the country's history since Apartheid ended in 1994. The protests come after the announcement by many universities that tuition fees would be raised to over 10%, drastically affecting impoverished Black South African students who cannot afford the increase. The protest has since spread to over 10 campuses #FeesMustFall protesters are now determined to decolonize higher education in South Africa.



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November 2015

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ON THE FRONT LINES: #RISEUPOCTOBER #WHATSIDEAREYOUON

by Dubian Ade




As I enter the confines of Washington Square Park I am met with busy people hunched over, chalk drawing liberation into the concrete floor. The massive stone arch towers over them, adjourn with colonial European faces that seem to shrink at the sight of the people gathering increasingly at its base. At any second it seemed the masses would rise up in fury to topple the stone landmark. A woman stationed at the edge hands me a copy of The Revolution newspaper.

Another black woman yells "Get your buttons! Black Lives Matter, get your buttons." Another black woman follows alongside her selling black liberation flags. The sound of drums waters the space in rhythms synced with the beautiful chaos of the people organizing at every direction. Filled with sounds, conversation, movement, smells, tastes swirl behind a backdrop of words ferociously spoken from a microphone.

They are the families. Sandra Bland, Micheal Brown, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, the kind of testimonies that tear at the insides like swallowed rust nails. "Until you experience this you will never know my pain!" she rages as a loved one concerned, hurt written on his face reaches from behind the stage for her "No, no until they been through what I have experience you will never know!"

The microphone drops. It is a thud felt in the pit of a collective stomach.


WHO WILL SURVIVE AMERICA?

ZELLA ZIONA


Zella Ziona was a 21 year-old trans Black woman who was killed on October 15th in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She was approached by four or five teenagers in an alley way. After a dispute with 20 year old Rico Hector Leblond, Ziona was shot in the head. Leblond has been charged with first degree murder. She is at least the twenty-first trans woman killed in the United States this year.



COREY JONES


Corey Jones was a 31 year-old cis Black male who was shot and killed by a plainclothes police officer on October 18th in Palms Beach Gardens, Florida. Jones was on his way home when car troubles forced him to pull over on the road side of interstate 95. Officer Nouman Raja, an on-duty plainclothes officer in an unmarked car pulled up to investigate, believing that Jones' car was abandoned. Raja confronted Jones believing he had a gun and opened fire.



AMONDEREZ GREEN


Amonderez Green was a 18 year-old cis Black male who was shot and killed during a confrontation with police on October 28th in Normandy, Missouri, only two miles away from Ferguson. Ferguson police officers have admitted to being on the scene and eyewitnesses say that Ferguson police officers shot Green in the face. The statement released by the St. Louis County Police Department claims that Green was suicidal, shot at police multiple times with a silver revolver, and then shot himself in the face. However, a video released on twitter shows a woman out of frame screaming "don't shoot my baby" and a male voice shouting "don't kill me, oh god."

REST IN POWER




Who Will Survive America?

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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ARTIST OF THE MONTH: EMORY DOUGLAS



Emory Douglas was the minister of culture for the Black Panther Party beginning in 1967 until the group dissolved in the 1980s. His artwork was featured consistently in The Black Panther newspaper and he was the art director, designer, and main illustrator for the publication. His iconic images represented the struggle of the Panthers as whole. His posters and flyers brought the revolution to people and allowed them to visualize resistance. A comprehensive collection of his work can be seen in the book Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas.



Decolonizing Culture

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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21 November 2015

ON VIOLENCE

by Dubian Ade


We have lived barely. Our naked bodies
clothed with thinning patience. Kept
warm between chapped hands rubbed
together, pealed at the cuticle smell of
deferred dreams
in Chicago it gets so cold.
In New York it gets so cold.
It takes the cold to realize that
maybe these buildings could make a good bonfire.
We watched in front of the TV screen the
night Baltimore made a name for its self.
Broadcast to the colonized the possibility
of exploding cars, molotov bottles, state
troopers who had soiled their uniforms
and will hang them up on cloths pins to
dry tomorrow.
I curl up underneath my rage to keep
warm and live out my vengeance through
the TV screen, my aggression vicarious,
extended outward.
My blood boils. Bubbling underneath the
skin like Fanon's Leukemia.
It is the possibility of the thing.
To be beaten in the streets and not roll over to
die. To respond with anything lying within
reach. A plank, a bat, a machete.
To be resurrected from police custody.
Freddie Gray's ghost poring gasoline onto
garbage cans. Sandra Bland throwing
hands with lieutenants. Water for the
martyr lamented.
Some of us are too young to remember
Watts. Killing us with white fragility we
forgot the possibility. Of the people giving
birth each second they destroy.
You misunderstand us. So we speak in
the language of now and borrowed
tongue. A violent system can only
understand violence. There is nothing
reasonable about occupation. There is nothing
reasonable about racism. There
is nothing reasonable about rape.
You misunderstand us. So come, let me show you:
There are revolts beneath my tongue and
under my eyelids. I did not put them
there.
Who put them there?



Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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A NORMAL LIFE

This poem was originally published in a print anthology of the 9th World Poetry Festival in Kolkata, India.


by Sophia Terazawa


For a woman to write history
is an old way of telling time,

yet she is not ancient

but a girl who stares into the barrel of a gun.


I do not imagine myself in a tunnel.

I do not imagine a helicopter,
 even I
do not imagine the diary of Ho Chi Minh,

for then I must imagine myself inside a jail cell,


and for a woman to be in a jail cell

when her body is already a prison,
I ask
 the historian to imagine the impossibility
of writing time
 through her black, infinite eyes.



Sophia Terazawa

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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18 November 2015

BOOK OF THE MONTH: THE DARKER NATIONS

The Darker Nations (via amazon.com)


Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashad’s fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser, and Indonesia's Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now-forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.



Decolonizing Culture

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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BRIEF HISTORIES: THE NEW JEWEL MOVEMENT (GRENADA)

by Dubian Ade


via berniegrantarchive.org


The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation group (NEW JEWEL) was established in March of 1973 in response to the deplorable economic conditions under Eric Gairy's neocolonial administration and Gairy's increasing corruption within the government. Gairy had been pushing an agenda for Grenadian independence and began talks with the British Crown as early as 1970. Gairy had intentionally excluded the Grenadian people from the negotiations.

Gairy had first come to prominence as the founder of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP). Under the GULP ticket, Gairy had won the election of 1951 and was elected to leader of the Grenadian assembly. Gairy had become the first Black Grenadian to hold that office.

Gairy's tenure as leader of the assembly was marked with serious corruption. So much so that in 1962 the British colonial administration intervened in Grenada to schedule new elections. Gairy was defeated by Hurbert Blaize but was reelected to leader of the assembly in 1967 after economic conditions failed to improve. Grenada was granted its independence on February 7th 1974 after more than two centuries of British rule. Gairy had become the country's first prime minister.


17 November 2015

HOW TO'S: HOW TO MAKE A RADICAL NEWS PAPER

The Black Panther (via Bobbyseale.com)


Newspapers are very important tools for building movements. They can be used to distribute information, provide first hand reporting, offer an alternative to mainstream news coverage, and be a platform for voicing the concerns of the movement. The best newspapers can also mobilize the people around particular issues, challenge mainstream news coverage of the movement, educate, and be a space where the marginalized are centered and have a voice. News papers can also be a source of income for the movement. For example, the Black Panther Party For Self-Defense used sales from The Black Panther to fund bail money for members that were in jail and covered legal expenses. Newspapers are the best way to keep the people up to date with the movement, mobilize support, and most importantly, politicize the people.


Step 1: What Are Your Politics?



What do you stand for? What does the movement stand for? What is the movement fighting for? The answer to these questions will determine the politics of your newspaper and the lens that you are working with. Say your newspaper is explicitly feminist. Then the content and the issues addressed in the newspaper will have a feminist lean. The politics of your newspaper will influence every other aspect of your publication.

16 November 2015

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER: THE CRUCIBLE OF BLACK LIVES MATTER

by Patrice Lockert Anthony


I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must someday die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing! 
"Yet I Do Marvel" by Countee Cullen (1925)

The Black Lives Matter movement has met with a number of assaults. None of which is more curious to me, or more pernicious by nature, than the "go to" charge of "all lives matter" as a counter response. The "all lives matter" movement, within the context of its response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement is a subversive counterpoint to the inconvenience of truth telling. It is inconvenient to spend time, money, thought, energy, et cetera on the meanings and truths behind the egregious loss of black lives in a nation that refuses to hold itself accountable at individual, organizational, or societal levels.

This is what's at the heart of Countee Cullen's poem, "Yet I Do Marvel." To be pressed at the level of faith/belief in something that you've fought for, died for, celebrated, defended, and then to be left to wonder how that thing which you so honor could set you up for such unconscionable, unbearable pain of heart wrenching, soul destroying bias. It is a conundrum, to be sure, to live in a country which makes such full use of your sweat, imagination, and brilliance, only to turn around and beat you up, and down, with a foot on necks while refusing to acknowledge self-evident truths.


12 November 2015

REST IN POWER, AMANCAY DIANA SACAYAN

via chacodiapordia.com

40 year old trans woman and prominent Argentinean LGBT rights activist Amancay Diana Sacayan was assassinated in her Buenos Aries apartment on October 13th. Sacayan was the Co-Leader of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA) and an outspoken champion of LGBT rights in Latin America. She was also the director of Argentina's Anti-Discrimination Liberation Movement (MAL). Well known and revered in Latin America, in 2012 Sacayan was personally presented with her corrected national identity card confirming the legal status of her name and gender by Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez. Sacayan is now the third trans woman killed in Argentina within a two month period.



The Newsfeed

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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WHAT IS THE DECOLONIZER?

THE DECOLONIZER is not the one

THE DECOLONIZER is not to be played with

THE DECOLONIZER is not to be trolled at

THE DECOLONIZER is not to be trifled with

THE DECOLONIZER will strike back

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be infiltrated

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be white

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be colonized

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to be brutalized

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to cooperate

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to be dominated

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to be sexualized

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to be mis-gendered

THE DECOLONIZER refuses to die

THE DECOLONIZER does not negotiate with white supremacists

THE DECOLONIZER does not negotiate with patriarchy

THE DECOLONIZER does not turn the other cheek

THE DECOLONIZER will fight for freedom

THE DECOLONIZER is revolution

THE DECOLONIZER is the tipping point

THE DECOLONIZER is the last stand

THE DECOLONIZER is the back against the wall

THE DECOLONIZER is the fist in the air

THE DECOLONIZER is nothing less




What is THE DECOLONIZER?

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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THE DECOLONIZER, NOVEMBER 2015

THE DECOLONIZER, November 2015







THE DECOLONIZER gives a special thanks to @DecolonizeMedia for their continued coverage on issues regarding #indigenousliberation and for their righteous use of images. Their work continues to influence THE DECOLONIZER. Check out their work at http://decolonizingmedia.tumblr.com/