I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The latest salvos against the Occupiers comes not from without but from within. On the Daily Kos website, evergreen2, of New Mexico, tells readers that “The term “Occupy” is not going down well with many indigenous people. . . . we [the Albuquerque “occupiers” of the OccupyBurque site]—and a number of other communities—are having a serious problem with terminology.”
A sit-in participant since last Friday, evergreen2 touts the ethnic diversity of New Mexico and of Albuquerque and points out that “for many indigenous people, the term “Occupy” is deeply problematic. For New Mexico’s indigenous people, “Occupy” means five-hundred years of forced occupation of their lands, resources, cultures, power, and voices by the imperial powers of both Spain and the United States. A big chunk of the 99 percent has been served pretty well by that arrangement. A smaller chunk hasn’t.”
After listening to various indigenous “Occupiers” speak about what the term meant to them, the Albuquerque protesters then debated over what else they might call their movement, wrote evergreen2. In the end, the Albuquerque contingent suggested LiberateBurque. The problem then became, as evergreen2 also pointed out, the anti-Wall Street movement has already become known as an OccupyFillintheBlank phenomenon.
Nevertheless, the debate over nomenclature continues. Up north, the OccupyDenver protesters issued a manifesto that quoted the American Indian Movement of Colorado: “If this movement is serious about confronting the foundational assumptions of the current U.S. system, then it must begin by addressing the original crimes of the U.S. colonizing system against indigenous nations.”
In her NativeAppropriations blog, Adrienne K. of Boston cites other indigenous peoples upset with the Occupiers’ use of the term Occupy—as well as objecting to the use of Native imagery and history. One example she points to is the “Decolonize WallStreet” image that appeared on Facebook. It’s an image that to her “only serves to further stereotype Native people and present mis-information about the land which is currently being double-occupied.”
It’s a point of view, mainly coming from Native Americans and other indigenous peoples of North America, that the Occupiers seemed to have marched right past, according to blogger Jess Yee, who stated her objections to the language of the movement on racialicious.com: “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?”
As Yee stated earlier in her racialicious piece, “good intentions are not enough and good intentions obviously can have adverse affects.”
