VIDEO: "Rio Breaks" - A Story About Surfing & Survival

Rio Breaks tells the story of two best friends, Fabio and Naama, as they navigate their way between life in the slums and surfing on their favorite beach. Thirteen-year-old Fabio and twelve-year-old Naama live in a huge favela near Arpoador Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. What will happen to these best friends? Will their friendship survive the pressures of life in the favela? Can surfing offer a way out and the possibility of a better life?

This is the story of Rio Breaks.

 

Documentary: "Rio Breaks"

Hanging ten in a favela

Oct 3rd 2011, 7:18 by G.G.

“RIO BREAKS” is a documentary that explores two unlikely worlds: surfing and slum-life in Rio de Janeiro. Neither “Blue Crush” nor “City of God”, but a charming tale of two boys on the cusp of adolescence that refreshingly debunks any related stereotypes. 

The film follows a year in the lives of two best friends, Fabio and Naama. They live in “Vietnam”, a particularly violent part of one of Rio's largest slums, riddled with poverty and controlled by the armed drug-gangs of the Red Command. Naama (pictured below) is 12, button-nosed, bright and cheeky. Fabio is a year older, brash and complex. His mother is on the streets; his father was murdered when he tried to leave his gang. For the two young boys there isn’t much to do besides play marbles on concrete, fly kites, catch mice or worse.

So every morning they burn down the hill to Arpoador beach, where they kick sand, angle to borrow a board and dream of becoming professional surfers. They are encouraged by Rogerio, who also grew up in the favela but has made a career out of surfing. He opened the Favela Surf Club, a non-profit organisation that offers guidance and boards to the favela kids in an effort to deter violence. Rogerio offers a rare alternative to the spiral of gang life: the salvation of surfing.

Justin Mitchell, the film’s writer and director, followed the boys for over a year from their cramped homes to surf competitions. He does not speak Portuguese, so his approach was to let the boys talk, only translating and editing them later on. The result is an uninhibited, frank and conversational narrative. The boys’ gabbing and giggling is a pleasant contrast to the lazy lilting narration of Bodie Olmos, an American actor and sometime-surfer. 

The third star of the film is Rio itself, with its irresistible, inimitable flavour. On the beach the dazzling sun hits tanned bodies, puff-clouds hang over the sea, surfers zig-zag frantically in the waves and ladies lounge in tiny bikinis. All the while, a samba soundtrack plays a relentlessly happy beat. 

The film-makers deliberately avoid the well-worn tropes of drugs and violence. Instead it’s a film about friendship, hope and goodness in adversity. But what holds your attention is the ebb and flow of the boys’ friendship, which begins to fray when Fabio is drawn back to the gangs. Mr Mitchell skilfully handles the uncertainty and fragility of their lives, leaving unanswered the question of where they’ll end up. 

“Rio Breaks” has travelled to a number of film festivals, and had an acclaimed British release in June. After Luciano Huck, a Brazilian chat-show host, saw the film he took his camera crew into the favela to meet the boys. Fabio was difficult to track down, but they found Naama and surprised him with a trip to Hawaii to meet Kelly Slater, a world-champion surfer, on the condition he stayed at school, avoided the gangs and learnt English. His family was also moved to an apartment in Copacabana. Good fortune can come in waves. 

“Rio Breaks” is released on DVD in Britain on October 3rd and is currently available on DVD in America

via economist.com

 

HISTORY: Black Los Angeles: The Book Revisits the History > THE ROOT

Revisiting the Story of

Black Los Angeles

A new book sets the record straight on the city's 200-year racial history.


Revisiting the Story of Black Los Angeles

Mission Santa Clara, founded 1777 (Los Angeles Unified School District)

 

Who was Los Angeles' first black mayor? No, it wasn't Tom Bradley, who served from 1973 to 1993. Nearly 200 years earlier, Francisco Reyes, an Afro-Mexican, led the fledgling city of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula (the Town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciuncula).

That fact is just one of the fascinating nuggets in Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities, finally published after a nine-year effort by UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.

Made up of 15 essays by 25 social science scholars, the 432-page work shines a bright light on African-American life in Los Angeles since the earliest-recorded black settlement. It also brings into focus the very early, largely ignored mayoral leadership of Reyes, beginning in 1793.

Described by USC geographer Michael Dear, author of The Postmodern Urban Condition, as "the culmination of a groundbreaking research project that presents an in-depth analysis of the historical and contemporary contours of black life in Los Angeles," the book has been widely discussed and dissected, including on National Public Radio.

Robin D.G. Kelley, a professor of African-American studies at Columbia University, called it "a true masterpiece of urban studies. Taken together, these wide-ranging, diverse, original essays significantly expand our understanding of the African American experience in Los Angeles." Lauding Black Los Angeles' "breathtaking scope and vision," Kelley cited the volume as "a brilliant example of cutting-edge scholarship and a powerful corrective to the enduring image of a city of drive-by shootings and low-rise projects."

The chapters, as Dear noted, are "original essays, multidisciplinary in scope, connecting the dots between the city's racial past, present and future."

In an interview with The Root, Darnell Hunt, the Bunche Center's director and the volume's editor, explained the book's primary objectives. "This volume represents a multidisciplinary approach, so it's not a traditional history, per se," he said. "I'm a sociology professor; the co-editor, Dr. Ana-Christina Ramon, is a social psychologist. We used this multidisciplinary approach of scholars to triangulate on this thing called black Los Angeles -- what it is, what differentiates it from other places, where it came from and where it's going."

Black Los Angeles, Hunt observed, "is unlike any other volume on African-American Angelenos. This city has the nation's second-largest black population, but we felt there wasn't enough scholarship to fully understand it. So for us, we were trying to create something that's pretty radical. Other good books about black Los Angeles exist -- City Limits and Bound for Freedom, for example -- but they look at specific periods."

And although the volume is focused on black Los Angeles, Hunt said, "for us, another objective was to create an essay that covers a range of topics. We created a series of chapters put together in different configurations that teach people about the issues (socioeconomic, political), which can be very useful, particularly in political campaigns."

Dr. Paul Robinson, an assistant professor and geographer at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in the Watts neighborhood of L.A, one America's four historically black medical schools, wrote the volume's first chapter, "Race, Space and the Evolution of Black Los Angeles."

His chapter sets up the rest of the book, Robinson told The Root. "This is a people's history, more of a true history, from the perspective of looking at research, analyzing, studying and inquiring into it, rather than using cursory observations from the Los Angeles Times or a tale from a Hollywood narrative."

When Los Angeles was established in 1781, the majority of the pobladores (settlers) had African ancestry, which has been well-documented. In the section of the book titled "African Roots," Robinson noted that "although there has long been recognition of the mixed Spanish, African and Native American origins of the first settlers in Los Angeles, there also has been a tendency for scholars to downplay the influence of their African and Native American roots, instead dwelling on their assimilation into the region's Spanish heritage."

Robinson said, "This multiracial pueblo formed on the banks of the Los Angeles River in the late 18th century played an important role in the Spanish empire's northward expansion into 'Alta California,' yet that role has been obscured by early Anglo-American historians, who made unsubstantiated charges of the laziness, ignorance and uselessness of the original inhabitants."

These misrepresentations, Robinson continued, "tended to overshadow the remarkable accomplishments of the society that developed on the western frontiers of the Spanish empire. This multiracial society proved crucial to Spain's colonial expansion into North America and set the stage for the modern development of the Los Angeles area."

In the following chapters, scholars discuss the broad range of challenges faced by African-American Angelenos and their responses, often involving multiracial coalitions. These obstacles included the effects of the racially restrictive housing covenants put in place by whites in 1920, and the massive segregation imposed on the entire black community.

The future of black Los Angeles, now home to growing numbers of African and Caribbean immigrants, is also discussed, including the cultural implications of that growth for the city as its dwindling black American population migrates outward to Riverside and San Bernardino counties and beyond, or back to the nation's Southern states.

F. Finley McCrea is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.

via theroot.com

__________________________

 

UCLA book

'Black Los Angeles'

chronicles city's

African American

history, issues

By Letisia Marquez April 21, 2010

"Black Los Angeles"
California's anti–gay marriage intitiative Proposition 8 ignited a debate within Los Angeles' African American gay and lesbian communities: Should black same-sex couples come out to family and friends to help garner support for gay marriage, or should they continue to take a "don't ask, don't tell" approach?

"Some in the community were becoming more supportive of gay sexuality as an identity status that could exist alongside a strong racial-group affinity. Others were holding fast to religious and cultural ideologies that reduced gay sexuality to an immoral behavior and thus not a valid identity status," says Mignon R. Moore, a UCLA sociologist and professor of African American studies whose research — along with the work of more than two dozen other scholars — appears a new book that sheds light on black Los Angeles.

"Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities" (NYU Press, April 2010), co-edited by Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the center's assistant director, Ana-Christina Ramón, delves into the long and rich history of African Americans in Los Angeles and presents a snapshot of contemporary issues affecting the community.

"African Americans have played important and pivotal roles in Los Angeles' history," Hunt says. "As our book demonstrates, African Americans have had a powerful impact on the development of the city — from being part of the first settlers in 1781, through the period of the region's tremendous growth, to the present day."

"Black Los Angeles is and has always been a space of profound contradictions," Hunt writes in the book. "Just as Los Angeles has come to symbolize the complexities of the early twenty-first–century city, so too has Black Los Angeles come to embody the complex realities of race in so-called 'colorblind' times."

"Black Los Angeles" is the culmination of eight years of research the center conducted on African American communities in the region.

Hunt and Ramón were motivated to edit the book because they noticed a dearth of research that connected the dots between the past, present and future of black life in the Los Angeles. They met with scholars and community members to discuss what topics the book should include and then enlisted 23 experts to contribute chapters for the book.

"The chapters are interconnected by themes such as political participation, social justice, religious life, cultural production, and communities and neighborhoods, while individually featuring in-depth analyses of an issue or an episode in black Los Angeles," Ramón says. "We are proud to present a book that is both accessible and relevant to community members, students and scholars."

In the book's "Space" section, which deals with the history and geography of African Americans in Los Angeles, Paul Robinson, a geographer and assistant professor at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, notes that when El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Reina de Los Angeles — the Spanish town that would eventually become the city Los Angeles — was established in 1781, the majority of its original settlers (26 of 46) had African ancestry.

These original settlers came from areas that are now states in western Mexico, a region where the Spanish empire relied heavily on African and mulatto populations as soldiers and laborers in agriculture and mining. By 2008, nearly 950,000 African Americans lived in Los Angeles County, making it home to the second largest number of African Americans in the nation.

Although 6 percent of black residents left the county in the 1990s, many in search of more affordable housing and a safer environment for their families, the population grew by 1 percent between 2000 and 2008, Robinson notes. Black immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and the Americas are spurring the growth.

"The African-origin population of Los Angeles has always been diverse, but never as diverse as it had become by the first decade of the 2000s," Robinson writes.

By 2008, there were an estimated 90,000 persons of sub-Saharan and/or Caribbean ancestry living in Los Angeles County, constituting nearly 10 percent of the county's total black population.

"As the county's non-native population grew throughout the decade, the diverse groups comprising it increasingly challenged common assumptions about the people and spaces comprising 'Black Los Angeles,'" Robinson writes.

Reginald Chapple, former president and CEO of the Dunbar Economic Development Corp. and a UCLA doctoral candidate in anthropology, recounts the development of Central Avenue from 1900 to 1950 as a center of African American culture and of Leimert Park Village, the current black enclave. And Andrew Deener, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, examines the rise and decline of Los Angeles' only black community by the sea, Oakwood, in the Venice area.

In the book's "People" section, Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist and postdoctoral fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health and Society Scholars program at the University of Pennsylvania, examines how some young black males in Los Angeles pursued careers in rapping as a means to economic opportunities that were otherwise absent in their communities.

Alex Alonso, a geographer and gang expert, writes about the influences that led to the rise of black gangs in Los Angeles. The ways in which black families cope with the incarceration of family members is explored by M. Belinda Tucker, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavorial sciences; Neva Pemberton, a UCLA doctoral candidate in education; Mary Weaver, executive director of Friends Outside in Los Angeles County; Gwendelyn Rivera, a UCLA doctoral student in education; and Carrie Petrucci, a senior research associate with EMT Associates Inc.

In the book's "Image" section, Nancy Wang Yuen, an assistant professor of sociology at Biola University, examines the lack of authentic roles for black actors in film and television; Paul Von Blum, a UCLA senior lecturer in African American studies and communication studies, writes about the rise of black art in Los Angeles after the Watts riots in 1965; and Scot Brown, a UCLA history professor, recounts the case of SOLAR, a black-owned record label that symbolized Los Angeles' rise as the media capital of black America in the latter decades of the 20th century.

The section also looks at the media attention focused on issues in the city's African American communities.

Hunt and Ramón, for example, examine Los Angeles Times' coverage of the controversial demise of Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center. Dionne Bennett, an anthropologist and assistant professor of African American studies at Loyola Marymount University, writes about media misrepresentations of South Central Los Angeles and how certain films and television programs have contributed to stereotypical views of the area.

Interestingly, Bennett writes, residents had never referred to the area as South Central until the Watts riots of 1965. While there are various versions of how the term came to describe the area, it was officially used in the McCone Commission Report, a document that has been criticized for its superficial discussion of the complex events that shaped the riots, Bennett says.

"In the early twenty-first century, media images of South Central Los Angeles continued to label and limit African Americans," she writes. "These images usually omitted the educational, social and economic diversity of blacks not only in South Central, but throughout Black Los Angeles and ultimately Black America."

In the final section, "Action," Melina Abdullah, an associate professor of pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and Regina Freer, a professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, examine the rise of African American female leaders Charlotta Bass, a newspaper editor, publisher, activist and Progressive Party candidate for vice president in 1952, and former California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the first African American woman to serve as speaker of a state legislative body.

Sonya Winton, a political scientist and UCLA adjunct professor in African American studies, writes about a movement by the Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles to halt construction of a municipal solid-waste incinerator plant in the 1980s. And Hunt and Ramón recount the efforts of the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education to spur UCLA to adopt a revised admissions policy after it was reported that fewer than 100 African Americans enrolled as freshmen in 2006.

The book also includes a chapter on labor issues authored by Edna Bonacich, a professor emeritus of sociology and ethnic studies at UC Riverside; Lola Smallwood-Cuevas and Lanita Morris, labor organizers and project directors with the UCLA Labor Center; Steven C. Pitts, a labor policy specialist with the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education; and Joshua Bloom, a UCLA doctoral candidate in sociology.

The authors discuss the lack of employment opportunities among Los Angeles' African American working-age population. In 2000, 43 percent were unemployed, while 29 percent were employed in low-wage, dead-end jobs that offered neither retirement nor health benefits.

"It must be noted here that immigrants were not to blame for the crisis in the African American community," the authors write.

While there was indeed job competition between working-class black Angelenos and immigrants, the authors explain that global restructuring, de-industrialization, flexible production and the contracting of services out to independent contractors, in addition to crack and criminalization, were more fundamental causes.

The authors call for a black worker center for Los Angeles, which would aim to increase union membership, participation and leadership among African American workers in the area.

"(The center) would serve as a place to develop ideas for building an alternative economic development plan for Black Los Angeles as a whole," the authors note.

For press copies of "Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities," please contact Letisia Marquez at UCLA Media Relations & Public Outreach at 310-206-3986 orlmarquez@support.ucla.edu.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

 

 

A LUTA CONTINUA: People of Color Speak Out - Up Against The Wall & We Don't Stop - Different Views

It started with 12 students

in Wall Street...

now demonstrations spread

across America as Boston,

Chicago, L.A., Denver and

Seattle erupt

  • Protest enters third week with activists in Los Angeles saying they will remain 'indefinitely'

  • 700 protesters arrested over the weekend as they camp out in New York's financial district

  • Demonstrators angry at corporate greed along with U.S. banking and political systems

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 12:28 PM on 3rd October 2011

 

    Major cities across the U.S. are today bracing themselves for more protests against corporate America as the Occupy Wall Street campaign enters its third week and gathers pace.

    The demonstrations, which began in New York City two weeks ago, have already spread to Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Seattle. The arrests of 700 people on Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend seem to have only strengthened the resolve of protesters.

    Sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement has seen thousands of protesters camped out in New York's Financial District for the past fortnight and mass gatherings started nationwide, with the unified purpose of voicing anger at the U.S. banking and political systems.

     

    Occupy LA: Los Angeles protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall to voice their discontent at the financial system

    Occupy LA: Los Angeles protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall to voice their discontent at the financial system

     

     

    Massachusetts uprising: Demonstrators, pictured on Sunday, are camping outside the Federal Reserve building, in Boston. The group is part of a nationwide grassroots movement in support of the ongoing Wall Street protests in New York

    Massachusetts uprising: Demonstrators, pictured on Sunday, are camping outside the Federal Reserve building, in Boston. The group is part of a nationwide grassroots movement in support of the ongoing Wall Street protests in New York

    The anti-corporate protest in New York City entered its third week today, as the city's residents began to increasingly feel the effect of a mass gathering that began as little more than a dozen students.

    Yesterday members of the NYPD moved in and ordered some of those who had camped out to dismantle what police said were 'dwellings'.

    'A dozen officers came walking toward us with NYPD video cameras pointed at us,' said John Dennehy, who went straight back to Zuccotti Park after spending hours in police custody.

    He flashed a police desk appearance ticket charging him with disorderly conduct and prohibited use of a roadway.

    On Saturday, the 29-year-old United Nations employee joined thousands of protesters who tried to cross the bridge after marching through Manhattan's Financial District.

    Dennehy and three others had built what they called their 'box castle' using cardboard mailing boxes to delineate their space on the plaza.

     

     

     

    Occupy Seattle
    Occupy Denver

     

    Mass movement: 'Occupy' protests have started in Seattle, left, and Denver, right, a clear sign that the sentiment chimes with residents across America

     

     

     

     

    Obama's home town: Demonstrators hold signs across from the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago while trying to keep dry in a downpour of rain on Friday

    Obama's home town: Demonstrators hold signs across from the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago while trying to keep dry in a downpour of rain on Friday

     

    But police told them to remove the structure, they said. Plastic tarps they were using to stay dry in a pouring rain also were not acceptable, they said.
    Under clear skies Sunday afternoon, protesters could help themselves to food that unnamed supporters donated to keep the encampment running.

    'This is unsettling. I think the NYPD has a PR problem'

    Alec Baldwin

    Some ate pizza they said was ordered for them by a man in Egypt who phoned a local shop to have the pies delivered.

    The campers also have been fueled by encouraging words from well-known figures, the latest actor Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his Twitter page that had already been widely circulated.

    One appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young man being tackled to the ground by an officer.

    'This is unsettling,' Baldwin wrote. 'I think the NYPD has a PR problem.'

    In Los Angeles, several hundred protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall on Saturday, and said they would remain camped at the site 'indefinitely', like their New York counterparts.

     

    Bold statement: A protester wears some eye-catching garb as he demonstrates in Los Angeles

    Bold statement: A protester wears some eye-catching garb as he demonstrates in Los Angeles

     

     

     

    Lula Rod, 12, attends a protest march to Los Angeles City Hall
    L.A.

     

    Evocative: L.A. demonstrators are a range of ages, from 12-year-old Lula Rod, left, wearing haunting face paint, to an middle-aged woman, right, holding a straight-forward placard outside Los Angeles City Hall

    Star Spangled Banner: One protester in L.A. made use of the national flag to get his point across on Saturday

    Star Spangled Banner: One protester in L.A. made use of the national flag to get his point across on Saturday

    Organised by a group called Occupy LA, the demonstrators echoed the refrain begun by those on the East Coast, saying they hoped to change economic polices that benefit the richest one per cent of Americans.

    'In the end, what we want to do is inspire working-class people to get involved in the political process'

    Adam Liszkiewics

    Crowd members waved signs, including one that read 'The Banks Ate My Baby,' and chanted 'Hey hey, ho ho, corporate welfare's got to go,' the Los Angeles Times reported.

    'In the end, what we want to do is inspire working-class people to get involved in the political process,' Adam Liszkiewics, a 32-year-old USC graduate student, told the paper.

    The Occupy Boston movement appears the most well-developed of the off-shoot protests, with a sizeable camp, featuring tents, medical supplies and even wi-fi, setting up at Dewey Square, across from the Federal Reserve building.

    Tactical groups have been formed, covering legal affairs, food and media outreach, and a crowd in the spot had reached nearly 1,000 on Friday night on the first day of protest, the Boston Herald reported.

    Key organisers said they had been to New York to learn from the protests. Matthew Krawitz, an unemployed IT expert, told how he had been in Manhattan for the first day of the demonstrations there and wanted to replicate the scene in Boston.

     

     

    A man wears a U.S. flag bandana across his face as hundreds of people converge on Boston Common
    Boston

     

    Screaming out loud: A man wearing a U.S. flag bandana across his face shows where Boston protesters drew their inspiration, while a young woman shouts to make her message heard as hundreds of people converge on Boston Common

     

    Thin blue line: Demonstrators from Occupy Boston storm their way to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston during the first night of their protest on Friday

    Thin blue line: Demonstrators from Occupy Boston stormed their way to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston during the first night of their protest on Friday

     

    Occupy Denver
    Occupy Seattle

     

    Fledgling protests: The movements in Denver, left, and Seattle, right, are in their infancies and have so far been more peaceful than the New York version

    There were other protests in the city over the weekend, including one outside the Bank of America aimed at expressing people's anger at foreclosures and the announcement the bank will charge customers $5 a month to use debit cards to access their own money. It resulted in 24 arrests.

    President Obama's old stomping ground has been gripped by the 'Occupy' movement as well. A group of activists have gathered in front of the Federal Reserve Bank Chicago as part of a rally to protest against poverty and unemployment in the U.S.

    The Chicago sit-in began on September 23 with a march from Willis Tower to the bank, the Chicago Tribune reported, with some protesters calling it their Tahrir Square, in reference to the Egyptian capital Cairo.

    One demonstrator, Emilio Baez, told Press TV the protest is a 'direct call to working people worldwide.'

    'This is our Tahrir Square,' he said of the spot which led to a revolution in the African country. 'We'll stay here for months if we have to.'

    Meanwhile, more than 100 people turned out for Occupy Seattle on Saturday, with protesters waving signs and mingling peacefully with police.

     

    A protester sleeps on a mattress on the ground in Liberty Plaza. The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement has now entered its third week

    A protester sleeps on a mattress on the ground in Liberty Plaza. The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement has now entered its third week

     

    The activists have even produced their own newspaper 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal'. It is paid for by funds gathered online via crowd-sourcing websites

    The activists have even produced their own newspaper 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal'. It is paid for by funds gathered online via crowd-sourcing websites

     

    Protestors at Occupy Wall Street's media area coordinate news updates on laptop computers powered by a portable gas-powered generator in Manhattan's financial district's Zuccotti Park

    Protestors at Occupy Wall Street's media area coordinate news updates in Manhattan's financial district's Zuccotti Park

     

    The demonstrators, however, are only beginning to coalesce and they acknowledge that they need to clarify their goals. Like their New York counterparts, the protesters are seeking for a place in Seattle's financial district to camp out for the winter.

    'This is our Tahrir Square. We'll stay here for months if we have to'

    Emilio Baez

    Denver had its first protest on Saturday, with demonstrators telling 9News that they are a leaderless resistance movement of people who will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of Wall Street.

    Further 'Occupy' protests are planned for San Francisco, Washington DC, Phoenix and Albuquerque.

    Meanwhile in New York, one couple apparently out to take photos after their wedding were pictured being caught up in the march over the Brooklyn Bridge, where more than 700 protesters were arrested.

    It emerged as the New York Police Department said it warned the protesters they would be taken into custody before staging the mass arrest.

    The protesters who have been camping out in Manhattan's Financial District say their movement has grown and become more organised over the last couple of weeks and they have no intention of stopping.

     

    A protester on Brooklyn Bridge is arrested during Saturday's march by Occupy Wall Street
    Participants are arrested and lined up against the side of the Brooklyn Bridge waiting to be taken to jail

     

    More than 700 people have been arrested during the protest on Brooklyn Bridge

     

    The protest in New York has triggered similar occupations around the country by activists angry at the power held by the big financial institutions

    The protest in New York has triggered similar occupations around the country by activists angry at the power held by the big financial institutions

     

     

     

    The Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out small, with less than a dozen college students, but has grown to include thousands of people in communities across the country.

    Now entering its third week in Manhattan, those spending their days and nights at Zuccotti Park say they're going to stay as long as they can.

    New York City public school teacher Denise Martinez joined the protest on Sunday.

    She says the financial industry isn't doing enough to solve the country's economic problems.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Brooklyn Bridge was shut down and more than 700 people arrested yesterday after protesters camping out near Wall Street spilled onto the New York landmark and blocked traffic.

    In a tense showdown, police took swift action - cuffing and dragging hundreds to the sidings - after many of the protesters risked being hit by cars by moving from the walkway on to the road.

     

    Photo-op gone wrong: A couple encounters a sea of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge during Occupy Wall Street demonstrations

    Photo-op gone wrong: A couple encounters a sea of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge during Occupy Wall Street demonstrations

     

    Life is bubbly: It seems having a crowd of angry protesters chanting didn't affect these party-goers too much

    Life is bubbly: It seems having a crowd of angry protesters chanting didn't affect these party-goers too much

     

     

    A large group of marchers, who are rallying against corporate greed, broke off from others on the bridge's pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

    In two separate videos released by police, officers are heard warning protesters that they will be arrested if they strayed from the path and onto the roadway.

    A police captain is heard saying: 'I'm ordering you to leave this roadway now. If you do so voluntarily, no charges will be placed against you. If you refuse to leave, you'll be placed under arrest and charged with disorderly conduct. If you do not wish to be arrested, you must leave this area now.'

    The videos emerged as a film of protesters coming face to face with the subjects of their ire attracted more than 230,000 views on YouTube.

    The demonstrators were walking down Wall Street on September 17 when they came to a halt right underneath the balcony of the National City Bank Building, just as a group of so-called 'swells' were sipping champagne.

    But rather than hide away the potential bankers laughed and took photos of the masses below.

     

     

    Trap: Protesters are blaming police for tricking them and trapping them on the bridge leading them to believe it was acceptable to occupy the roadway

    Trap: Protesters are blaming police for tricking them and trapping them on the bridge leading them to believe it was acceptable to occupy the roadway

     

     

    A protester looks up at police officers as he is arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge
    The Brooklyn highway is not intended for pedestrians and the marchers were arrested when they attempted to cross the bridge on the highway

     

    A protester is arrested and dragged away by police on the Brooklyn Bridge, where hundreds had gathered to join the protest

    Police spokesman Paul J. Browne told the New York Times: 'Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested.

    'Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.'

    Things came to a head when the march - which was going from Zuccotti Park to Lower Manhattan - reached the bridge.

    Most of the 1,500 demonstrators stayed on the walkway but it was when a number went for the roadway that the police surrounded them with orange net and captured them

    Officers cut the marchers off and plunged into the crowd and began making arrests as marchers chanted, 'Shame! Shame!'

    'The protesters were supposed to stay on the pedestrian walkway and some took the roadway and we're now ... making arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge,' a police spokesman said.

    Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters and tied their hands with plastic restraints.

     

     

    via dailymail.co.uk

     

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    File:Day 8 Occupy Wall Street September 24 2011 Shankbone 30.JPG

    Some thoughts on

    Occupy Wall Street

    soupsoup:

    I spent a few hours down there tonight.

    The crowd is diverse, not as predominately young as I perceived from afar. They’re well organized, they have places set up for medics, food, media, etc. The General Assembly hosts a wide variety of speakers, of all ages, gender, race and socio-economic background. The crowd listens intently to the GA speaker, on the people’s mic, and they do call-and-response so those further back in the crowd can hear the person who has been given the soapbox. This was a real honor to watch.

    The folks down there are a lot more nuanced than how they’ve been portrayed. They’re not unsympathetic to the people who have to make a living working for some of the corporations that led to the financial crisis, in fact there are some who spoke at General Assembly tonight who work for or had worked for similar corporations. They’re pragmatic, they’re not anarchists. The whole process is surprisingly organized and democractic. They’re working towards coming up with realistic action items. These people aren’t waiting for someone to save them, they’re working towards how they can save themselves.

    SOURCE soupsoup

    REBLOGGED FROM Soup

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    SO REAL IT HURTS:

     

    Notes on Occupy Wall Street

     

     

    Manissa McCleave Maharawal

    by Manissa McCleave Maharawal

     

    I first went down to Occupy Wall Street last Sunday, almost a week after it had started. I didn't go down before because I, like many of my other brown friends, were wary of what we had heard or just intuited that it was mostly a young white male scene. When I asked friends about it they said different things: that it was really white, that it was all people they didn't know, that they weren't sure what was going on. But after hearing about the arrests and police brutality on Saturday and after hearing that thousands of people had turned up for their march I decided I needed to see this thing for myself.

     

    So I went down for the first time on Sunday September 25th with my friend Sam. At first we couldn't even find Occupy Wall Street. We biked over the Brooklyn Bridge around noon on Sunday, dodging the tourists and then the cars on Chambers Street. We ended up at Ground Zero and I felt the deep sense of sadness that that place now gives me: sadness over how, what is now in essence, just a construction site changed the world so much for the worse. A deep sense of sadness for all the tourists taking pictures around this construction site that is now a testament to capitalism, imperialism, torture, oppression but what is also a place where many people died ten years ago.

     

    Sam and I get off our bikes and walk them. We are looking for Liberty Plaza. We are looking for somewhere less alienating. For a moment we feel lost. We walk past the department store Century 21 and laugh about how discount shopping combined with a major tourist site means that at any moment someone will stop short in front of us and we will we bang our bikes against our thighs. A killer combination, that of tourists, discount shopping and the World Trade Center.

     

    The landscape is strange. I notice that. We are in the shadow of half built buildings. They glitter and twist into the sky. But they also seem so naked: rust colored steel poking its way out their tops, their sides, their guts spilling out for all to see.

     

    We get to Liberty Plaza and at first it is almost unassuming. We didn't entirely know what to do. We wandered around. We made posters and laid them on the ground (our posters read: “We are all Troy Davis” “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “Tired of Racism” “Tired of Capitalism”)

     

    And I didn't know anyone down there. Not one person. And there were a lot of young white kids. But there weren't only young white kids. There were older people, there were mothers with kids, and there were a lot more people of color than I expected, something that made me relieved. We sat on the stairs and watched everyone mill around us. There was the normal protest feeling of people moving around in different directions, not sure what to do with themselves, but within this there was also order: a food table, a library, a busy media area. There was order and disorder and organization and confusion, I watched as a man carefully changed each piece of his clothing folding each piece he took off and folding his shirt, his socks, his pants and placing them carefully under a tarp. I used the bathroom at the McDonalds up Broadway and there were two booths of people from the protest carrying out meetings, eating food from Liberty Plaza, sipping water out of water bottles, their laptops out. They seemed obvious yet also just part of the normal financial district hustle and bustle.

     

    But even though at first I didn't know what to do while I was at Liberty Plaza I stayed there for a few hours. I was generally impressed and energized by what I saw: people seemed to be taking care of each other. There seemed to be a general feeling of solidarity, good ways of communicating with each other, less disorganization than I expected and everyone was very very friendly. The whole thing was bizarre yes, the confused tourists not knowing what was going on, the police officers lining the perimeter, the mixture of young white kids with dredlocks, anarchist punks, mainstream looking college kids, but also the awesome black women who was organizing the food station, the older man who walked around with his peace sign stopping and talking to everyone, a young black man named Chris from New Jersey who told me he had been there all week and he was tired but that he had come not knowing anyone, had made friends and now he didn't want to leave.

     

    And when I left, walking my bike back through the streets of the financial district, fighting the crowds of tourists and men in suits, I felt something pulling me back to that space. It was that it felt like a space of possibility, a space of radical imagination. And it was energizing to feel like such a space existed.

     

    And so I started telling my friends to go down there and check it out. I started telling people that it was a pretty awesome thing, that just having a space to have these conversations mattered, that it was more diverse than I expected. And I went back.

     

    On Wednesday night I attended my first General Assembly. Seeing 300 people using consensus method was powerful. Knowing that a lot of people there had never been part of a consensus process and were learning about it for the first time was powerful. We consens-ed on using the money that was being donated to the movement for bail for the people who had been arrested. I was impressed that such a large group made a financial decision in a relatively painless way.

     

    After the General Assembly that night there was both a Talent Show (“this is what a talent show looks like!”) on one side of the Plaza and an anti-patriarchy working group meeting (which became the safer-spaces working group) on the other. (In some ways the juxtaposition of both these events happening at once feels emblematic of one of the splits going on down there: talent shows across the square from anti-patriarchy meetings, an announcement for a zombie party right after an announcement about the killing of Troy Davis followed by an announcement that someone had lost their phone. Maybe this is how movements need to maintain themselves, through a recognition that political change is also fundamentally about everyday life and that everyday life needs to encompass all of this: there needs to be a space for a talent show, across from anti-patriarchy meetings, there needs to be a food table and medics, a library, everyone needs to stop for a second and look around for someone's phone. That within this we will keep centrally talking about Troy Davis and how everyone is affected by a broken, racist, oppressive system. Maybe, maybe this is the way? )

     

    I went to the anti-patriarchy meeting because even though I was impressed by the General Assembly and its process I also noticed that it was mostly white men who were in charge of the committees and making announcements and that I had only seen one women of color get up in front of everyone and talk. A lot was said at the anti-patriarchy meeting about in what ways the space of the occupation was a safe space and also not. Women talked about not feeling comfortable in the drum circle because of men dancing up on them and how to change this, about how to feel safe sleeping out in the open with a lot of men that they didn't know, about not-assuming gender pronouns and asking people which pronouns they would prefer.

     

    Here is the thing though: I've had these conversations before, I'm sure a lot of us in activist spaces have had these conversations before, the ones that we need to keep having about how to make sure everyone feels comfortable, how to not assume gender pronouns and gender roles. But there were plenty of people in this meeting who didn't know what we were doing when we went around and asked for people's names and preferred gender pronoun. A lot of people who looked taken aback by this. Who stumbled through it, but also who looked interested when we explained what we were doing. Who listened to the discussion and then joined the conversation about what to do to make sure that Occupy Wall Street felt like a space safe for everyone. Who said that they had similar experiences and were glad that we were talking about it.

     

    This is important because I think this is what Occupy Wall Street is right now: less of a movement and more of a space. It is a space in which people who feel a similar frustration with the world as it is and as it has been, are coming together and thinking about ways to recreate this world. For some people this is the first time they have thought about how the world needs to be recreated. But some of us have been thinking about this for a while now. Does this mean that those of us who have been thinking about it for a while now should discredit this movement? No. It just means that there is a lot of learning going on down there and that there is a lot of teaching to be done.

     

    On Thursday night I showed up at Occupy Wall Street with a bunch of other South Asians coming from a South Asians for Justice meeting. Sonny joked that he should have brought his dhol so we could enter like it was a baarat. When we got there they were passing around and reading a sheet of paper that had the Declaration of the Occupation of Wall Street on it. I had heard the “Declaration of the Occupation” read at the General Assembly the night before but I didn't realize that it was going to be finalized as THE declaration of the movement right then and there. When I heard it the night before with Sonny we had looked at each other and noted that the line about “being one race, the human race, formerly divided by race, class...” was a weird line, one that hit me in the stomach with its naivety and the way it made me feel alienated. But Sonny and I had shrugged it off as the ramblings of one of the many working groups at Occupy Wall Street.

     

    But now we were realizing that this was actually a really important document and that it was going to be sent into the world and read by thousands of people. And that if we let it go into the world written the way it was then it would mean that people like me would shrug this movement off, it would stop people like me and my friends and my community from joining this movement, one that I already felt a part of. So this was urgent. This movement was about to send a document into the world about who and what it was that included a line that erased all power relations and decades of history of oppression. A line that would de-legitimize the movement, this would alienate me and people like me, this would not be able to be something I could get behind. And I was already behind it this movement and somehow I didn't want to walk away from this. I couldn't walk away from this.

     

    And that night I was with people who also couldn't walk away. Our amazing, impromptu, radical South Asian contingency, a contingency which stood out in that crowd for sure, did not back down. We did not back down when we were told the first time that Hena spoke that our concerns could be emailed and didn't need to be dealt with then, we didn't back down when we were told that again a second time and we didn't back down when we were told that to “block” the declaration from going forward was a serious serious thing to do. When we threatened that this might mean leaving the movement, being willing to walk away. I knew it was a serious action to take, we all knew it was a serious action to take, and that is why we did it.

     

    I have never blocked something before actually. And the only reason I was able to do so was because there were 5 of us standing there and because Hena had already put herself out there and started shouting “mic check” until they paid attention. And the only reason that I could in that moment was because I felt so urgently that this was something that needed to be said. There is something intense about speaking in front of hundreds of people, but there is something even more intense about speaking in front of hundreds of people with whom you feel aligned and you are saying something that they do not want to hear. And then it is even more intense when that crowd is repeating everything you say-- which is the way the General Assemblies or any announcements at Occupy Wall Street work. But hearing yourself in an echo chamber means that you make sure your words mean something because they are being said back to you as you say them.

     

    And so when we finally got everyone's attention I carefully said what we felt was the problem: that we wanted a small change in language but that this change represented a larger ethical concern of ours. That to erase a history of oppression in this document was not something that we would be able to let happen. That we knew they had been working on this document for a week, that we appreciated the process and that it was in respect to this process that we wouldn't be silenced. That we demanded a change in the language. And they accepted our change and we withdrew our block as long as the document was published with our change and they said “find us after and we will go through it” and then it was over and everyone was looking somewhere else. I stepped down from the ledge I was standing on and Sonny looked me in the eye and said “you did good” and I've never needed to hear that so much as then.

     

    Which is how after the meeting ended we ended up finding the man who had written the document and telling him that he needed to take out the part about us all being “one race, the human race.” But its “scientifically true” he told us. He thought that maybe we were advocating for there being different races? No we needed to tell him about privilege and racism and oppression and how these things still existed, both in the world and someplace like Occupy Wall Street.

     

    Let me tell you what it feels like to stand in front of a white man and explain privilege to him. It hurts. It makes you tired. Sometimes it makes you want to cry. Sometimes it is exhilarating. Every single time it is hard. Every single time I get angry that I have to do this, that this is my job, that this shouldn't be my job. Every single time I am proud of myself that I've been able to say these things because I used to not be able to and because some days I just don't want to.

     

    This all has been said by many many strong women of color before me but every time, every single time these levels of power are confronted it I think it needs to be written about, talked about, gone through over and over again.

     

    And this is the thing: that there in that circle, on that street-corner we did a crash course on racism, white privilege, structural racism, oppression. We did a course on history and the declaration of independence and colonialism and slavery. It was hard. It was real. It hurt. But people listened. We had to fight for it. I'm going to say that again: we had to fight for it. But it felt worth it. It felt worth it to sit down on the on a street corner in the Financial District at 11:30 pm on a Thursday night, after working all day long and argue for the changing of the first line of Occupy Wall Street's official Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. It felt worth it not only because we got the line changed but also because while standing in a circle of 20, mostly white men, and explaining racism in front of them: carefully and slowly spelling out that I as a women of color experience the world way differently than the author of the Declaration, a white man, that this was not about him being personally racist but about relations of power, that he needed to, he urgently needed to listen and believe me about this, this moment felt like a victory for the movement on its own.

     

    And this is the other thing. It was hard, and it was fucked up that we had to fight for it in the way we did but we did fight for it and we won. The line was changed, they listened, we sat down and re-wrote it and it has been published with our re-write. And when we walked away, I felt like something important had just happened, that we had just pushed a movement a little bit closer to the movement I would like to see-- one that takes into account historical and current inequalities, oppressions, racisms, relations of power, one that doesn't just recreate liberal white privilege but confronts it head on. And if I have to fight to make that happen I will. As long as my people are there standing next to me while I do that.

     

    Later that night I biked home over the Brooklyn Bridge and I somehow felt like the world was, just maybe, at least in that moment, mine, as well as everyone dear to me and everyone who needed and wanted more from the world. I somehow felt like maybe the world could be all of ours.

     

    Much love (and rage)

     

    Manissa

     

    ps: http://opencuny.org/socalledmarginalia/current-writings/

     

     

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    Brown Power at


    Occupy Wall Street! 9/29/11

     

     

     

    by HENA ASHRAF

     

    Once again, it is Thursday night, and once again, I am writing this because I think it needs to be documented and shared. And once again, this is about mass actions taking place in NYC. Once again, please feel free to share this.

    The following is from my perspective:

    Tonight was my 4th time down at Occupy Wall Street. I felt drawn to the protests, like I needed to be there, and I guess I was meant to be, as well as the people I ended up with.

    At the general assembly a document was introduced called “The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City”. To my understanding, this document has been worked on for many days, by many people, in a working group. It was announced that this document would be disseminated to the media, to the Internet, to everyone who planned to occupy other cities in the country. Basically – this document is REALLY IMPORTANT, and the audience is meant to be everyone, we were told.

    The general assembly read the document together, line by line. The GA has grown a lot in the past few days and has noticeably (finally?) gotten slightly more diverse. For me, reading the document together was a very powerful and moving moment, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Immediately after this I turned around and joined my friends Thanu and Sonny, who were with Manissa and Natasha. They had all just come back from the first local meeting for South Asians for Justice.

    Without knowing we had spontaneously formed a bloc of South Asians present at the General Assembly. While it continued, we began to discuss the document amongst ourselves, specifically the second paragraph, and our issues with it. We weren’t the only ones who had concerns; numerous people spoke up and requested changes to the document. The facilitators kept wanting to go back to agenda items, but I personally felt, if people wanted to discuss this document, right here, right now, let’s do it, instead of pushing something else. To be heard, a person would shout “mic check!”, said a few words at a time, the crowd repeated their words, and so this process continued until the person’s message was finished.

    I, Thanu, Sonny, Manissa, and Natasha felt that some language needed to be urgently changed. Please keep in mind that this document is a living, working document, and is unpublished, and is being changed as I type with the (as they are called) “friendly amendments” that were proposed. The line was: “As one people, formerly divided by the color of our skin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or lack thereof, political party and cultural background, we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race, and our survival requires the cooperation of its members…”

    The first major concern amongst us was that the phrase “formerly divided by” was unrealistic, and erased histories of oppression that marginalized communities have suffered. The second concern was that the “human race” language also felt very out of touch.

    We debated amongst ourselves whether to speak up about this. As I mentioned, individual people were airing their concerns about the document, even though the facilitators had requested to email any changes to them, or to speak to them later. I felt though, that our thoughts needed to be shared with the general assembly, and not just to a few over email. I was urged by our impromptu bloc to be the one to speak up. So I did.

    I started shouting “mic check!”, got the crowd’s attention, and said that we did not agree with the phrase “formerly divided by” and instead felt it could perhaps be “despite”, and said that the original phrasing erased histories of oppression. Unfortunately, even though about 4 or 5 presumably white people had spoken up before me about changes to the document, I was told that this was a time for questions, not changes to the document – by a facilitator who was a man of colour. Talk about feeling shut down.

    The main facilitator, a white man, said that the document and the paragraph was meant to reflect the future that we wanted, and that “formerly divided by” should stay. I again shouted “mic check!” and our spontaneous Brown Power crew again shouted my words after me – I reiterated again that the phrasing erased much history, and that it was idealistic and unrealistic. I think at this point I looked around and realized everyone was staring at me; it hit me what we were doing, that we had the floor, that we were demanding a change.

    The protestors at Occupy Wall Street have been saying that there will be efforts to reach out to people of colour, to have communities of colour engage and be a part of the protests, to help create real change – because, let’s face it, the protests have been very white and people of colour need to be present, and need to speak up. Well, that’s exactly what we were doing, and I realized that we were helping to make that change happen.

    The facilitators asked if our issue was an ethical concern – if it was, then it would have to be addressed. I said, yes it was, meaning, we were blocking the document in order for this ethical concern to be addressed. Manissa then read out what we felt the change should be to the phrase, after thanking the crowd and facilitators for working with us. The change was instead of “formerly divided by” to have it be “despite” or “despite the divisions of…etc”.

    The change was accepted by the general assembly. Our impromptu crew/bloc turned to each other to discuss what just happened, and people listened in and expressed their agreement with what we did. We still felt however that the paragraph as a whole needed to be changed, and Sonny pointed out that the language left invisible or attempted to erase the dynamics of power. An Iranian man who had been at Occupy Wall Street for a number of days remarked that as a group we were conspicuous. Sonny noted that as a group of 5 brown people, with a hijabi and one wearing a turban, of course we grabbed attention in this still-mostly white crowd, and “how real can you get?”

    The GA finished and we immediately proceeded to the impromptu meeting being held to address the document. Note, our proposed changes about the language to the sentence I mentioned above had already been accepted, but we still felt the document did not address or ignored issues of power. This is extremely important because a document being shared by Occupy Wall Street to the so-called 99% should not be ignoring or erasing issues of power. We found the guy who had been the main facilitator (and who also had been visibly frustrated with us) and started to discuss the paragraph.

    Unfortunately though, there were many who tried to cut us off, and as we sat down on the ground, with Thanu bringing out her laptop, these people gathered nearby, pointed fingers at us, and made me feel very uncomfortable, as if we weren’t welcome. They clearly didn’t like what we were doing, but what we were doing was participating and engaging with Occupy Wall Street, and making ourselves heard – after all, isn’t that what the organizers want? The facilitator who had earlier attempted to shut us down, came and said we should come back the next day to finish our discussion. We said no, let’s do this right here and now, and hammer it out in 10 minutes, which we did. A white woman came up to me and asked, why didn’t we leave the main facilitator alone? I told her he wanted to listen to us and chose to sit down here with us, we didn’t force him. These were the unfortunate distractions and disruptions we had to deal with. I realized that change on the ground is hard, messy, and painful, and we could feel all of this.

    This discussion was around the wording of the 2nd paragraph, which I won’t quote here, because like I said, this document is being changed and is unpublished as of right now. We didn’t like the language of how we are all one human race. The facilitator said that that is scientific fact, that we are all one race. We agreed, but had to explain that socially, there is inequality. It was highly problematic that we had to break down systems of oppression to this man who seemed to have the final say on this document, this document that will be shared with the world, that is supposed to represent Occupy Wall Street, as well as supposedly the 99%. Manissa had to explain that he as a white man had more power and privilege than her as a woman of colour. That racism isn’t about feelings, as he thought, but about power and oppression, as Sonny and Thanu explained. It boggled our minds that we were discussing power and privilege while at the same time we could feel this man’s power and privilege over us, and that he is a facilitator/organizer for Occupy Wall Street! Clearly there needs to be a lot of self-education workshops at Liberty Plaza.

    Long story short, we got the paragraph changed to adequately address our concerns that it reflect issues around dynamics of power and privilege that marginalized people feel every single day. This was a very hard discussion to have, and it felt so real, it hurt. It hurt that it had to happen, it hurt that we had to explain what is really behind racism to this man, and the people around him, it hurt that so many tried to disrupt us. But at the same time, we were meant to be there, meant to be heard, to make this happen, to make these changes occur. And there were a lot of people sitting there and listening in and contributing constructively. We walked away realizing what we had just done – spontaneously come together, demand change, and create it, in a movement that we are in solidarity with, but also feel a need for constructive criticism.

    This document, “The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City”  will be shared with the world soon, and the five or so of us were able to come together, indeed we had to come together, to make sure this document didn’t reflect the ideals of a few people unaware of their power and privilege, but instead could reflect more of the reality of the 99%.

    Thank you for reading.

    peace,
    Hena Ashraf

     

     

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    OCCUPY WALL STREET:

    The Game of Colonialism and

    further nationalism

    to be decolonized from the “Left”

    SEPTEMBER 30, 2011 · 101 COMMENTS AND 133 REACTIONS

     

     

     

     

    By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee

    Decolonization, the GameThe “OCCUPY WALL STREET” slogan has gone viral and international now.  From the protests on the streets of WALL STREET in the name of “ending capitalism” – organizers, protestors, and activists have been encouraged to “occupy” different places that symbolize greed and power.  There’s just one problem: THE UNITED STATES IS ALREADY BEING OCCUPIED. THIS IS INDIGENOUS LAND. And it’s been occupied for quite some time now.

    I also need to mention that New York City is Haudenosaunee territory and home to many other First Nations. Waiting to see if that’s been mentioned anywhere. (Author’s note: Manhattan “proper” is home to to the Lenape who were defrauded of the island by the Dutch in 1626 – see more from Tequila Sovereign).

    Not that I’m surprised that this was a misstep in organizing against Wall Street or really any organizing that happens when the “left” decides that it’s going to “take back America for the people” (which people?!). This is part of a much larger issue, and in fact there is so much nationalistic, patriotic language of imperialism wrapped up in these types of campaigns that it’s no wonder people can’t see the erasure of existence of the First Peoples of THIS territory that happens when we get all high and mighty with the pro-America agendas, and forget our OWN complicity and accountability to the way things are today – not just the corporations and the state.

    1

    Let me be clear. I’m not against ending capitalism and I’m not against people organizing to hold big corporations accountable for the extreme damage they are causing.  Yes, we need to end globalization. What I am saying is that I have all kinds of problems when to get to “ending capitalism” we step on other people’s rights – and in this case erode Indigenous rights – to make the point. I’m not saying people did it intentionally but that doesn’t even matter – good intentions are not enough and good intentions obviously can have adverse affects. This is such a played out old record too, walking on other people’s backs to get to a mystical land of equity.  Is it really just and equitable when specific people continue to be oppressed to get there? And it doesn’t have to be done! We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that?

    4

    I can’t get on board with the nationalism of  an “American” (or now “Canadian!”) revolution – I just can’t.  There has been too much genocide and violence for the United States and Canada to be founded and to continue to exist as nation states.  I think John Paul Montano, Anishnaabe writer captured it quite well in his “Open Letter to Occupy Wall Street Activists”:

    I hope you would make mention of the fact that the very land upon which you are protesting does not belong to you – that you are guests upon that stolen indigenous land. I had hoped mention would be made of the indigenous nation whose land that is. I had hoped that you would address the centuries-long history that we indigenous peoples of this continent have endured being subject to the countless ‘-isms’ of do-gooders claiming to be building a “more just society,” a “better world,” a “land of freedom” on top of our indigenous societies, on our indigenous lands, while destroying and/or ignoring our ways of life. I had hoped that you would acknowledge that, since you are settlers on indigenous land, you need and want our indigenous consent to your building anything on our land – never mind an entire society.

    I will leave you with this new art piece from Erin Konsmo (also pictured above), our fabulous intern at The Native Youth Sexual Health Network she created on “OCCUPY: THE GAME OF COLONIALISM”.  Hopefully you get the picture now.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ACTION: International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier > Anarkismo | ANG

    International Day of Solidarity

    with

    Leonard Peltier - Anarkismo

    Submitted by: TheAngryindian 

    International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier - Anarkismo: The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee calls on supporters worldwide to protest against the injustice suffered by Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. Gather on February 4, 2012, at every federal court house and U.S. embassy or consulate worldwide to demand the freedom of a man wrongfully convicted and illegal imprisoned for 36 years!

    International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier: Clemency Now!

     

    The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee calls on supporters worldwide to protest against the injustice suffered by Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. Gather on February 4, 2012, at every federal court house and U.S. embassy or consulate worldwide to demand the freedom of a man wrongfully convicted and illegal imprisoned for 36 years!

    Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist wrongfully accused in 1975 in connection with the shooting deaths of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Government documents show that, without any evidence at all, the FBI decided from the beginning of its investigation to 'lock Peltier into the case'.

    U.S. prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Mr. Peltier to the U.S. The statements were signed by a woman who was forced by FBI agents to say she was an eyewitness. The government has long since admitted that the woman was not present during the shootings.

    Meanwhile, in a separate trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mr. Peltier's co-defendants were acquitted by reason of self defense. Had Leonard been tried with his co-defendants, he also would have been acquitted.

    Unhappy with the outcome of the Cedar Rapids trial, prosecutors set the stage for Mr. Peltier's conviction. His trial was moved to an area known for its anti-Indian sentiment—Fargo, North Dakota. The trial judge had a reputation for ruling against Indians, and a juror is known to have made racist comments during Mr. Peltier's trial.

    FBI documents prove that the U.S. government went so far as to manufacture the so-called murder weapon, the most critical evidence in the prosecution's case. A ballistics test proved, however, that the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match. The FBI hid this fact from the jury. Mr. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. According to court records, the United States Attorney who prosecuted the case has twice admitted that no one even knows who fired the fatal shots.

    Leonard Peltier is 67 years old and in poor health. An accomplished author and artist, Mr. Peltier is renowned for his humanitarian achievements. In 2009, Leonard was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the sixth consecutive year.

    Although the courts have acknowledged evidence of government misconduct—including forcing witnesses to lie and hiding ballistics evidence reflecting his innocence—Mr. Peltier has been denied a new trial on a legal technicality. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, 55 Members of Congress and others—including a judge who sat as a member of the court in two of Mr. Peltier’s appeals—have all called for his immediate release.

    The Courts may not be able to act but Barack Obama, as President, can. Please join with us to free an innocent man. On February 4, 2012, tell Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

    Scheduled events will be announced and details provided at www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

    via aboriginalnewsgroup.blogspot.com

     

    VIDEO + INTERVIEW: Meklit Hadero - meklithadero's Channel - YouTube

    MEKLIT HADERO

    Leaving Soon

    Bring It On Home To Me

    Interview & Performance clips
    Up and coming singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero (http://www.meklithadero.com/) performs @ Google HQ and talks about her career. To get a free track from Meklit, and read music news, reviews and more check out:http://magnifier.blogspot.com/. It's all free for Music Beta by Google users.


    Like what you hear? You can purchase Meklit's full CD, On a Day Like This..., athttp://www.portofrancorecords.com/onadaylikethis/, and view more of Meklit's videos on her official YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/meklithadero/). She'll be performing at Bumbershoot on September 3rd at the EMP Museum in Seattle. Tickets for that available at http://bumbershoot.strangertickets.com/

    via youtube.com

     

    VIDEO: In Afrospect: The Lijadu Sisters > Kate Bomdiggity + Permanent Condition blogspot

    Lijadu Sisters

     

    In Afrospect:

    The Lijadu Sisters

    BEHIND THE MUSIC: THE LIJADU SISTERS- This Nigerian 70’s band was made up of a set of twin sisters with a wicked sense of humour and a unique perspective on life. Here’s a transcript of a short interview they did, along with a snippet from a documentary from the 70’s in which they talk about the role of women in the music industry at the time.

     

    A reporter once asked them: Now that your horizon is opening up, what plans do you have for your future?

    Lijadu Sisters: We don’t always look beyond our noses, because Man proposes but God disposes, but we are optimists.

    R: Are you as rich as you are famous?
    LS: As rich as rich can be. We are comfortable. We own one Volkswagen beetle and a joint bank account with plenty of money in it. Most of the time we are broke.

    R: Are you religious?
    LS: Very. We are catholics although not the Church going type. Every time we feel the spirit moving in our hearts we walk into the nearest church or Mosque and pray.

    R: Do you have lovers?
    LS: We are not dead. Not yet. We are living beings. To live and to love is the essence of our life. If you don’t have someone who loves you, you are dead. If we didn’t have lovers how come we compose love songs?

    R: Do you take drugs?
    LS: NO. We are permanently high.

    R: You said you have four children but you are not married.
    LS: We are not baby killers. Just because we had children with men we never got married to does not mean we had to kill them. We love children because children are a gift from God.

    R: Would you have the same lover?
    LS: If we did, we don’t see the need for it because there are many eligible men around. Even though we are twins, we want to be exclusive.

    R: What do you think of yourselves?
    LS: We are fantastic.

    R: Do you wear the same clothes?
    Kehinde: Taiwo is wearing my blouse and I’m wearing her wrapper.

    R: What do you do when not singing?
    LS: Playing with our kids, cooking, painting or climbing trees.

    R: What kind of men would you like as friends?
    LS: Simple, intelligent and responsible men.

    R: Do you plan to get married?
    LS: You talk too much.

    via http://37thstate.tumblr.com/

    via katebomz.tumblr.com

     

    __________________________

    Lijadu Sisters in the studio

    Lijadu Sisters, Double Trouble

    IMG_0267 by you.

    There is much to love about the Lijadu Sisters, identical twins of entirely self-determined nature who sing like birds, albeit carnivorous birds with roomy lungs. The sisters raised a brood of four kids, none of whom allegedly knew which Lijadu sister, either Kehinde or Taiwo, was their respective mom. The Lijadu Sisters seemed to be well in control of their professional destiny and critical of the colonial mentality that pervaded Nigerian record companies. They also had little patience for the male chauvinism that was seemingly part of the furniture in their native Nigeria.

    The Lijadu Sisters also featured in one of my favorite music documentaries,Konkombé. The work of English director Jeremy Marre, Konkombé was the Nigerian installment in his 14-episode world music series, Beats of the Heart, which ran often on PBS during the late '80s. The three chapters concerning the black diaspora (Jamaica, South Africa and Nigeria) held the best blend of musical, political and cultural content, and of this trioKonkombé was beyond fabulous. It was loaded stem to stern with great performances, fascinating archival footage, revealing interviews and near-palpable neighborhood funk. (With much of the last; speaking at New York's Museum of Natural History, Marre described the horrors — corpses left in front yards —routinely encountered during his Nigerian shoot.)

    The Lijadus are seen taking care of their kids and rehearsing in the side yard of their house. Without much accompaniment beyond a couple of talking drums and acoustic guitar, the sisters sing in unison, laid-back and vibrantly erotic in the same breath: "If you want to…you can touch me." Then the camera invades a session with the Lijadu Sisters at the cramped, over-heated Lagos recording studio run by their record company, Decca West Africa. The same song is being recorded, but feels rushed, not nearly the wonderfully loose-limbed affair heard a few minutes previous. Aside from coping with their crumby work environment, the sisters do battle with their overbearing producer (a Nigerian version of the evil producer portrayed so well by Lou Reed in Paul Simon's otherwise regrettable film,One Trick Pony). It's a wonder Kehinde and Taiwo got anything done at all, much less music of the quality heard on today's download.

    Double Trouble, released in the U.S. by the Shanachie label in 1984, compiled tracks from then-recent albums (Danger, Horizon Unlimited) by the sisters. Though obviously working in the same climate that gave rise toAfrobeat, being the great invention of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and drummer Tony Allen, the Lijadu twins drew additional rhythmic inspiration from reggae and West African high life.

    The last I had heard of the Lijadus, both sisters had moved to Brooklyn, possibly in the late '80s. They played some dates at Wetlands, the lower Manhattan club-as-Petri-dish partially responsible for culturing the jam band plague. They also did a gig in Harlem, with King Sunny Adé's African Beats as their backing band; first on the bill was Robert Farris Thompson, noted Africanist and author of a genuinely deathless work, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy.



     
    Unfortunately, that's the last I'd heard of them. It would be a dreadful shame if their fate mirrored that of another great African singer, Bebe Manga. The latter's epic "Amie-o" has been revived of late on the Golden Afrique Vol. 1 compilation, yet Bebe Manga's career seemed to end with her own move to Brooklyn. Much as I loathe Bob Dylan, I am reminded of his line about pitying immigrants who wished that they'd stayed home. Hopefully, the Lijadu Sisters are still up to something good.

    DOUBLE TROUBLE

    It never fails to amaze me, but there are humans — sentient types with driver's licenses and all, individuals presumably capable of dressing up and going places — who still have not twigged to the fact that there is music to be had from this site. So, with the consummate subtlety of a flying anvil, I will list the following and remind all concerned to check out the final link always, as encoded in the album title at the end of each entry. And there are new entries planned for the near future, "If we are spared," as my Scottish grandmother used to say. Oh, my grandmother, fun at parties…

     

    PUB: College English Association-Caribbean Chapter Conference: “On Exile. . .” « Repeating Islands

    College English Association

    -Caribbean Chapter Conference:

    “On Exile. . .”

    The College English Association-Caribbean Chapter (CEA-CC) announces its Spring 2012 Conference—“On Exile and its Variations”—to be held at University of Puerto Rico-Arecibo on March 23-24, 2012. The deadline for proposals is December 12, 2011.

    The CEA’s Caribbean Chapter welcomes proposals for 20-minute presentations related to the 2012 theme “On Exile and its Variations.” The organizers look forward to papers that examine the condition of exile through its varied representations in art, literature, film and other media. Themes may include, but are not restricted to: the aesthetics of exile, the politics of exile, ethnic and exile literature, nation/homeland and exile, exile and return, exile and trauma, exile and its discontents, exile and transgression, the pleasures of exile, women and exile, exile and the body, exile and the diasporas, exile and transnationalism.

    Please send 200 to 250-word proposal as part of a text message (not as an attachment) to cea.cc.conference@gmail.com by December 12, 2011. For panel proposals, please submit one abstract that includes all presenters’ names and contact information. This single proposal may be up to 750 words depending on the number of presenters on the proposed panel. All accepted presenters are required to become members of the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association. Conference registration is included in the membership fee.

    Photo: Anaida Hernández’s interactive installation, “Loaded Dices”

    For more information, see http://blogs.uprm.edu/ceacc/

    via repeatingislands.com

     

    PUB: Leaf Books - Memoir Competition

    Closes November 30 2011

    Memoir 2011 Competition - Closes October 31 2011

    In past years our memoir competitions have yielded some fantastic pieces and we look forward to reading them again this year. Send us extract from your own life in 1,000 words or fewer that you think will grab our attention. It can be anything from an amusing anecdote, a terrible job experience or an enduring memory of a moment. As long as it stands alone as a narrative we’d like to see it.

    Prizes: £100 prize for the overall winner, along with a copy of Writing your Self by Myra Schneider and John Killock, Write your Life Story by Michael Oke, and Write From Life. The winner, and selected runners-up will be published in the Leaf Writers’ Magazine and an anthology. All entrants published in the magazine will receive a free e-copy.

    Enter by post: you can download an entry form (word document) here

    or just send your details and a cheque. click here for postal address

     

    Enter online: pay via paypal (they take credit cards if you don't have a paypal account). The button will take you to paypal and then you just email us the writing. Please send your work as an attachment to contact@leafbooks.co.uk

     

    For a single entry (£4.00):

    leafbooks@yahoo.co.uk" type="hidden" /> leafbooks@yahoo.co.uk" type="hidden" />

     

    For 3 entries (£10):
    leafbooks@yahoo.co.uk" type="hidden" /> leafbooks@yahoo.co.uk" type="hidden" />
    via leafbooks.co.uk

     

    PUB: Call for Papers—13th Conference of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars « Repeating Islands

    Call for Papers: 13th Conference of

    the Association of Caribbean Women

    Writers and Scholars

    The 13th International Conference of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS), organized under the theme “The Caribbean, the Land and the People: Women’s Efforts, Women’s Lives,” will take place on May 8-12, 2012 in Paramaribo, Suriname. The deadline for proposals is November 31, 2011.

    Description: With the title “The Caribbean, the Land and the People,” the local committee in Suriname wants to focus on the Caribbean as a geographic region and the people that populate this region. In this conference the organizers want to outline the possibilities and the restrictions of life on a Caribbean island or in the Caribbean region. What does it mean to be a local Caribbean and what is (was/will be) happening with the people in this part of the world? Which chances and opportunities do writers have? Which literary art products does this region have and do these products deserve international attention? What are the possibilities for the Caribbean to highlight their cultural and intellectual works to a global level?

    The subtitle, “Women’s Efforts, Women’s Lives,” links the conference theme and organizing questions to issues of gender, an utmost concern of the ACWWS. It also identifies the role of women as generative in the formation of Caribbean communities. We can even take the theme literally as we think of the many women who made (and still make) their livings out of the Caribbean’s soil, growing food and cultivating agricultural products. Because of the large number of Surinamese literary and cultural producers, this conference aims to look at the new challenges in the writing and studying of Caribbean creative writing in a kaleidoscopic way.

    Proposals: Panel proposals must include (in addition to the requirements for Individual Paper Proposals) a detailed abstract for each paper, a designated chair, and a short statement as to why the submissions should be considered as a panel. Individual Paper Proposals must include: a title, a 200-word abstract, and a short bio. Participants must be dues-paying members of ACWWS to present at the conference. All proposals must be received by November 31, 2011.

    For more information, you may contact waranasolutions@gmail.com or ismene.krishnadath@gmail.com and see the ACWWS website at http://www.acwws.org

    via repeatingislands.com