Oppression at the Oscars 2015

SeanPenn

Sean Penn

 


Western values

 

Western values (fl. 1946- ) are those moral ideas that many in the West say they value most, like freedom and democracy.
The English word “values” only goes back to 1918. It comes from a sociological model of how society works.
The phrase “Western values” did not catch on till the late 1940s during the Cold War. The US opposed the Soviet Union and world communism. So it played up the values that set it apart from communism, like capitalism, democracy and human rights of a particular sort (freedom of speech and religion, say, rather than equality). Men will not die for rubber, tin and oil, but they will die for “freedom” and “democracy”.

 

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Source: abagond.wordpress.com

 

Another on point article by Abagond.

 

The Stories of Immigration to Chicago

Immigrants learned that to survive and prosper in a hostile urban environment of unleashed capital, they needed to stick together. Mutual aid societies and houses of worship provided support and kept their histories and languages alive. The strong communal bonds that could in effect relocate a European village to a single tenement are evident today in many of Chicago’s neighborhoods. While the points of origin may have changed over the years, Chicago continues to welcome a significant immigrant population.


Decades of Immigrants
Examine Chicago’s top immigrant groups decade by decade, in U.S. Census data from 1850 until 1990. Each year highlights a different country of origin from the top five immigrant groups of that year.

1850 (France)
1860 (Scotland)
1870 (Norway)
1880 (Ireland)
1890 (England)
1900 (Bohemia)
1910 (Austria)
1920 (Russia)
1930 (Germany)
1940 (Sweden)
1950 (Poland)
1960 (Italy)
1970 (Mexico)
1980 (Philippines)
1990 (Korea)




Source: www.pbs.org

The use of the word ‘lure‘ in the image above without mentioning that (im)migration is a such a big decision that to imply that a whole group (im)migrates because of only one reason seems troublesome. 

(im)migration involves both push and pull factors. People will often be prompted to leave their country because of a push factor (war, economy, environment), then they choose which country to go to for it’s pull factor (liberal immigration policy, availability of jobs and availability of freedoms). 

Although interesting, many of these synopses are so oversimplified as to be misleading. 

The Tarnished History and Image of Police Departments

Long before there was a police force in America, there were sheriffs. The office of sheriff has its roots in 9th century England. According to the National Law Enforcement Museum, the early policing system was modeled after the English structure, which incorporated the watch, constables, and sheriffs (derived from the British term, “shire-reeves”) in a community-based police organization. The British system developed from “kin policing” dating back to about 900 A.D., in which law enforcement power was in the people’s hands, and they were responsible for their families or “kin.”) Early law enforcement was reactionary, rather than pre-emptive—the watch usually responded to criminal behavior only when requested by victims or witnesses.

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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com

Dr. Joy DeGruy – Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome [VIDEO]

 

YOU MUST WATCH!!! THIS IS THE MOST EMPOWERING HISTORY LESSON ABOUT THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA EVERY GIVEN.

Someone sent me this lecture given by Dr. Joy DeGruy that will educate and give you real knowledge that white America doesn’t want you to know. She explains the horrible history and pain inflected upon people of African descent in America. She thoroughly explains the justify the use of mechanisms used to keep this cultural group deprived and in slavery.

IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE YOU MUST TAKE THE HOURS OR SO TO BE EMPOWERED AS TO WHY PEOPLE OF COLOR CONTINUE TO SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF WHITE AMERICA. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND!!!

 

Source: thoughtprovokingperspectives.wordpress.com

Samantha Power

 

Samantha Power (1970- ) has been the US ambassador to the United Nations since 2013, succeeding Susan Rice. She has long been a top adviser to Barack Obama on foreign policy. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” (2002). She was a professor at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights.

 

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Source: abagond.wordpress.com

 

Interesting article on the complexities of mixing real world politics and self interest with real world human rights.

 

Reminds me of Dr. MLK’s quote of each of us having both good and bad qualities.

 

settler colonialism

 

Settler colonialism is the process where a country or people creates an offshoot of itself in a new land. Countries like the United States, Australia, Liberia and Israel were created by settler colonialism. Countries like Haiti, Nigeria and Iraq, on the other hand, were created by extractive colonialism.

Settler colonialism, says Andrea Smith, is one of the three pillars of White supremacy in the US, the other two being anti-Black racism and Orientalism.


In extractive colonialism
 there are two main parts:

  • metropole – the country that rules an empire;
  • periphery – the countries it has power over.

Metropolitans extract wealth from the native peoples and lands of the periphery. Wealth flows from the periphery to the metropole. Metropolitans may work for a time in the periphery – as soldiers, slave traders, priests or plantation owners, for example – but consider the metropole their homeland.


In settler colonialism
 a third element is added: settlers. They move from the metropole to the periphery to create a new homeland. The Pilgrims are a good example. In the long run they cause trouble for both natives and the metropole as they gain land, wealth and sovereignty.


Settlers and natives:
 Settlers are not mainly interested in ruling over natives or joining their society or even in making them slaves. They want their land and therefore want them to disappear by any means necessary, even genocide. To replace natives they bring in:


Cheap labour:
 Convicts, slaves, refugees, immigrants, contract labourers, etc. These people serve settler society, becoming part of it in time, sometimes a racialized part. Unlike settlers, they do not create homelands of their own. Sometimes they are forced out.

 

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Source: abagond.wordpress.com

Flabbergasted!!!

 

During the last several days, the release of a Senate report on torture at the hands of the American government was not too much of a surprise. However, I will say, I was dumbfounded by the response from the talking heads on television and much of white America for the most part.
One of my followers, who is a white woman, commented on a piece I wrote with the comment “I can’t believe my country did such things. I am ashamed to be an American.” To her comment and other likeminded folk – I will use a word white folk’s use, I am “flabbergasted”.
When you consider this country’s shameful history with regard to human rights abuses, its brutal past, and racism – really! How could anyone be shocked? I know, they tell us this is the great country on earth, God-fearing and Christian – yada – yada. But, if you ask a person of of any other cultural group that is non-white I guarantee you will get a different answer! They might use another word white folk’s use – ludicrous! It is only His-Story and the Bible that makes them believe such a notion to warrant such reactions.
First of all, America is a land stolen from its native people, who were massacred, infected with disease, and put on reservations to accomplish this theft from the country from which they came. The Chinese were used and abused in many ways like today’s Latin people but the most wretchedly brutalized people were those taken from Africa and enslaved. To be clear, each group was used as a beast of burden to build a nation and wealth for non-whites; all the while claiming “all men are created equal”.

 

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Source: thoughtprovokingperspectives.wordpress.com

Pay Reparations 2.0

 

Every penny donated here will be paid straight back as reparations.

Who whould collect reparations?

  • African Americans
  • Native Americans
  • Latinos of Amerindian heritage

Thank you to Thank you to Damali Ayo for her genius workReparations Day.

Source: www.youcaring.com

Sand Creek Massacre

The Sand Creek Massacre (November 29th 1864) took place in Colorado, then a western territory of the US, now a state. US Army Colonel John Chivington had at least 105 women and children and 28 men …

Source: abagond.wordpress.com

 

Connecting the dots between historic oppression, and murder to modern day oppression,  and murder.

 

What’s in common: Euro-Americans oppressing in the past and now. Euro-Americans not punished for murdering in the past and now.