Category Archives: colonialism

December 11, 2011 · 7:17 pm

All-American Muslim, profit and representation of Islam

Several prominent US businesses have withdrawn advertising from the television show All-American Muslims.  They were pressured by right wing anti-Muslim groups who believe the show humanizes humans.

Well dang.

Here is Edward Said explaining the early days when there were only a few dozen so-called-experts who exploited the moral panic over Islam to earn money.

There’s a whole group of these people, numbering thirty or forty, who are trundled out whenever there’s a crisis, a hostage crisis, a hijacking, a massacre of some sort or another, to demonstrate the necessary connection between Islam, Arab culture and the Arab character, as it’s sometimes referred to, or the Islamic character and random violence.  To my mind, the great misfortune is that these Orientalists whose role is to understand, to interpret the culture of Islam and the Arabs, and it’s a culture from which they earn their living, and in fact have no sympathy with it.  They deal with it from an adversarial and oppositional position.

– Said & Barsamian The Pen and the Sword 1994 p.27-28

Thanks to Feministe we get a list of the cowardly businesses who bowed to pressure.

Anyway, the companies who pulled their ads include Lowe’s, Bank of America, the Campbell Soup Co., Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, McDonalds, Sears, and Wal-Mart. So many don’t give your money to those companies this holiday season? Or call Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock at (704) 758-2084 or Executive Support Mr. Andrew Kilby at (866) 900-4650 and let them know what you think about this decision (keep it respectful, please).

via Ads pulled from All-American Muslim — Feministe.

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December 4, 2011 · 10:47 pm

Femonomics on forced sterilization

I am appreciative of the thoughtful engagement given to a doctor who brags about sterilizing an Tanzanian woman while saving her life during childbirth.  I first read about  it on Feministe, but followed the original authors back to a new intellectual hotspot: Femonomics. Check out my favorite two paragraphs:

No matter how benign this paternalism masquerading as benevolence might sound, forced sterilization is a crime that is committed against women (and sometimes men, such as in Indira Ghandi’s India), stripping them of free agency and human dignity. Patients get to decide what medical procedures are performed on them for a variety of reasons. They get to decide because there is no medical procedure that does not have risks as well as benefits, no matter how enormous the benefits or how small the risks. They get to decide because lots of things that doctors used to think were really good (e.g., hormone replacement therapy) are sometimes really bad. They get to decide because what makes sense for one person may not make sense for someone else. Fully informed consent, where someone is told of the risks and benefits of a procedure, and allowed to make their own, non-coerced, lucid decision, is one of the hallmarks of ethical medical care.

In the case of sterilization specifically, the stakes can be incredibly high. For some women, being able to produce children may be their guarantee of economic security. If they stop producing, their husband may seek another wife, and cut off spousal support. In Zambia, infertile women have told of being divorced and treated as a burden by their community. In South Asia, failure to produce children has been offered up as one predicator of bride burning. In an environment where women lack access to many conventional forms of capital, their ability to produce something valued by society in the form of children may be vital to their physical and economic security.

via femonomics: Involuntary Sterilization, Cowboy Doctors, and the West in Africa.

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December 2, 2011 · 5:34 pm

Engaging with Burma but at what cost?

photo by Paula Brownstein, from the Guardian

A couple of decades after a military dictatorship started to lock up and exterminate the local Burmese populations, the United States has decided to check in.  Above we see Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

I’m not a romantic about international affairs.  I know that ugly stuff happens.  But the Burmese government is truly nasty.

What would fuel such a sudden rush to check in on Burma?  In my opinion there are two elements which bring US-Burma relations to the forefront.

1.  Many US businesses have been salivating to set up work in the dictatorship.   Turns out that when the military leaders can just shoot labor union organizers and lock up those who complain about bad working conditions, business profits can soar.  A couple of years ago, French and US energy companies built a massive natural gas pipeline through the dictatorship.   Unocol hired a consultant to see just how much evil they were on the hook for (public relations-wise).

And consider this: according to company sources, Unocal hired a former Pentagon analyst to investigate whether the army was abusing human rights along their pipeline. And he warned Unocal executives that Myanmar’s military was committing “egregious human rights” violations. According to company sources, the consultant flatly told executives that when they keep insisting that slave labor is not being used to support the project, they appear “at best naïve and at worst a willing partner in the situation.”

via American Radio Works – Blood and Oil in Burma.

2.  American force projection is taking serious losses.  Talk about going from a dominant first world power to a second-tier nation in the span of a couple of years.  Military backlash in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, Yemen, and everywhere an American soldier shows his head.  Check out the softpower backlash in every place where US aid money is deposited in the bank accounts of local elites.   Bottom line, the United States empire is running out of “little buddies.” The bid to drop money and relations on Burma is a last-gasp effort to shore up the US empire.  The fact that we have to turn to Burma is in itself evidence of just how little clout the US wields.

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November 24, 2011 · 7:54 pm

Shopping for native american appropriation

Who is buying the cultural hijack this season?  Here are four excerpts from my buddy Zack’s reflection on cheesy selling of Native American identity.

Seeing as how this week is that special time of the year when Americans young and old come together in order to collectively indulge in enough food, mirth, and myth to sanitize the brutal genocide upon which America country was founded, I thought it would be nice to provide some shopping advice for this Friday’s consume-a-thon, and to pay tribute to the corporate tribe that has been gracious enough to supply the world with Eskimo Redneck Ice Chisels and 50 round rifle magazines.

via Cabela’s Hearts Indians | Souciant.

Who calls it colonialism?  I just see some king-of-the-hill type wisdom.

Contrary to the logic of sane people, the British arbitrarily decided that this vast expanse of land was ‘theirs’, since the ancient law of man asserts the right for pigmentally-challenged people to claim anything and everything as their own private property, as long as they arrive at said destination by boat (FACT: Even today, if a white guy can technically sail a boat right up to your house and dismount on your property, then it’s totally his for the taking.)

via Cabela’s Hearts Indians | Souciant.

And of course the real question about shopping is WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT ME?

Whether seen as a tools, weapons, or tweapons gifted directly from the Great Spirit to the neoprene’d hands of man, there are three models from which consumers can choose, including the Stone Club (pictured above), which is the ideal choice for (a) those wishing to add masculine nuance to their existing ‘Indians-were-majestic-but-I’m-not-giving-back-this-mountain’ chalet decor, or perhaps (b) the smaller niche market shopper who simply wants to add Blunt Force Trauma to his or her resume.

via Cabela’s Hearts Indians | Souciant.

Selling the certificate-to-justify-genocide along with the offensive weapons — capitalism at the most savvy!

This item is also “100% Navajo-crafted with a certificate of authenticity,” and this means that you’re actually getting a second guarantee for free, which is Cabela’s certificate of assurance that, if necessary, any critique of their gross commodification of Native history can be deflected with the proverbial Navaho human shield whose name appears on the certificate.

via Cabela’s Hearts Indians | Souciant.

Cheers to Souciant!   Add Zack’s new blog “Dudes against ‘dudes’” to your RSS feed.

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November 22, 2011 · 5:11 pm

Juxtaposition: the tear gas edition

Artifact 1. The editor-in-chief of the Bay Citizen was gassed in the #occupy oakland actions.

I looked down and my hand was black, my four fingers covered in toxic chemicals. I couldn’t feel my hand much but could clench it and unclench it and assumed I was okay. My blue flannel shirt also was black, stained where the canister had struck me and discharged. I was soaked in tear gas, but for some reason it was having less of an effect than the burning on my hand.

Another strange but not entirely unexpected thought popped into my head: 6 inches lower and it would have hit me in the crotch.

via Gassed – The Bay Citizen.

Artifact 2.  South Korean debate involves MPs using tear gas in the parliament building.

An opposition MP set off a teargas canister in the South Korean parliament in a failed attempt to prevent the ruling party passing a free trade deal with the US.

Proponents said the deal, the largest US trade pact since the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), could increase commerce between the two countries by up to a quarter. But the opposition claims it will harm South Korean interests, putting jobs at risk.

via South Korean MP lets off teargas in parliament | World news | guardian.co.uk.

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November 3, 2011 · 6:04 pm

Potato politics: senate and school lunches

You should know about Marion Nestle.  She is a food scientist and scholar of eatin’.  She kicks major ass in my opinion.

Her blog on food politics is quite good.  Today she is taking up the subject of school lunches and the powerful potato lobby.

Please note: the proposal does not call for elimination of starchy vegetables. It calls for a limit of two servings a week (one cup is two servings).

What’s wrong with that? Plenty, according to the potato industry, which stands to sell fewer products to the government and could not care less about spreading the wealth around to other vegetable producersPotato lobbyists went to work (apparently the sweet corn, lima bean, and pea industries do not have the money to pay for high-priced lobbying talent). The Potato Council held a press conference hosted by Senators from potato-growing states.

The result? The U.S. Senate added an amendment to the 2012 agriculture spending bill blocking the USDA from “setting any maximum limits on the serving of vegetables in school meal programs.”

Mind you, I like potatoes. They are thoroughly delicious when cooked well, have supported entire civilizations, and certainly can contribute to healthful diets. Two servings a week seems quite reasonable. So does encouraging consumption of other vegetables as well.

via Food Politics » One potato, two potato: Undue industry influence in action.

Not only is Nestle on point with this subject, but her remark about the potato lobby is correct.  Remember the scene in Life and Debt where the struggling potato growers of Jamaica get a meeting with the U.S. potato lobby hoping to sell some potatoes.  Instead the potato politicians are coming to sell Jamaicans subsidized potatoes.

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October 31, 2011 · 4:43 pm

Worried about 7 Billion people? Get over yourself.

Ah yes, the overly-simplistic logic of overpopulation fanatics.  Seven billion people . . . ooooh, what a scary Halloween.

Lets take dumb-ass of the month (only one day left . . . who will win in November?) Dr. Eric Tayag:

Dr. Eric Tayag of the Philippines’ Department of Health said in the AFP report: “Seven billion is a number we should think about deeply. We should really focus on the question of whether there will be food, clean water, shelter, education and a decent life for every child. If the answer is no, it would be better for people to look at easing this population explosion.”

via 7 billionth baby: Congratulations are mixed with dire words – latimes.com.

1.  If you  use the term “explosion” or “population bomb” to describe actual humans, you should immediate be sent back to health class.  Dehumanization by comparison to an inanimate killer is 180 degrees opposite from making a baby.  It is the easiest cue that you are reading or listening to an idiot if they use this language.

2.  Human beings make babies, some of them make many babies because they might want several babies.  Some parents may have kids because they want to love them.  If you don’t like that you shouldn’t have babies.

3.  If you are terrified about the new babies of the world using up your resources, get over yourself.  The lack of ” food, clean water, shelter, education and a decent life for every child” is about poverty and justice.  Work to make sure that every person in the world get’s access to these things.  It’s about politics not about penises.  To imagine that the solution is to reduce population or as Dr. Tayag says “easing” population is part of the racist day-dream that too often leads to sterilization abuses and eugenics.

4.  If you are really concerned with the ecology and sustainability of the earth then STOP USING SO MANY RESOURCES.  No I don’t mean babies, but you — the person wiping their ass with clean paper and pissing in clean drinking water.

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October 29, 2011 · 3:56 pm

#scottolson #occupy wallstreet

Here is the ice-cold footage of US Marine Scott Olson getting shot by the Oakland police department.  Feel free to watch with a cynical eye, but check out when the flash bomb explodes in the midst of people trying to help an injured person.

This is intended to anger you.

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October 27, 2011 · 4:42 pm

Iran lectures the United States on human rights

Zing.  There it is.  Iranian Member of Parliament Zohre Elahian suggests that the United States be criticized for human rights violations stemming from police repression of protesters.

Elahian, who is the chairperson of the Majlis Human Rights Committee, also said that the UN Human Rights Council should address the issue of the violation of U.S. protesters’ rights.

“The scenes of the suppression of US protesters are upsetting and necessitate pursuing human rights (violations),” she said.

She went on to say that the era of U.S. claims about human rights has come to an end and the U.S. government has lost face due to the suppression of the people.

In addition, she called on the international community to condemn the use of excessive violence by the U.S. police against protesters.

via Occupy Oakland – police under scrutiny live updates | World news | guardian.co.uk.

[Although I got it from the Guardian, the original report is from the Associated Press. ]

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October 24, 2011 · 3:34 pm

Doorknockers on unpacking white privilege

If you aren’t reading the brilliant and insightful blog doorknockers — go catch up.  I was struck this morning by Kristia’s essay inviting a deeper understanding of  the go-to-tool-for-reflection Peggy McIntosh’s essay “Unpacking the backpack of white privilege.”  This article has been THE explanation of injustice to people with power for like 20 years.  And it doesn’t really get at the full power of language and inequality.

I’ve always felt like McIntosh points to a kind of Annunciation frame of justice.  If a person with power can announce that they know how they are privileged then they’re off the hook. Thanks to Doorknockers for some broadening of this discussion.

It should be clear by now that this is not at all intended as a bashing of Peggy McIntosh, but it is very much a critique of academics and schools that maintain at best a lightweight analysis of power. They do this primarily by letting one article by one White woman dominate conversations about privilege, as opposed to hosting a larger, deeper analysis of systems of power in our society. They do this by keeping the numbers of brown-skinned faculty and students low. They do this by rewarding brown-skinned students who agree to shut up in racist, heterosexist classes. They do this by not teaching about privilege, power, and oppression through the very writing, oratory, panel interviews, and reflection of parents and children who work minimum-wage, who are of color, who are political and religious minorities.

via Doorknockers: Unpacking the Invisible Purse: A response to years of Peggy McIntosh-based analysis.

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