There has just been so much stupid out there lately, it's hard to decide.
There's the
Middlebury 9-11 memorial desecration, all in the name of a non-existent Abenaki burial ground. I've read the comments by the college student who was involved and her "indiginous person" friend for whom she supposedly helped commit the crime.
They qualify as two of the stupidest and most evil persons I've run into in quite a while.
First. Neither can write a coherent English sentence. The college student's parents need to demand a refund from every educational institution that self-centered little bitch has ever attended. "Visibilize"?!?! And she's wallowing in the joys of "settlers' guilt", whatever the hell that is. I guess her family didn't live in the south, so she can't beat her breast over whether or not they owned slaves, so she's got to find another way to prove that she is more pious than us.
From the Middlebury student, Ms. Anna Shireman-Grabowski:
Today I, along with a group of non-Middlebury students, helped remove around 3,000 American flags from the grass by Mead Chapel. While I was not the only one engaged in this action and the decision was not solely mine, I am the one who will see you in the dining halls and in the classroom, and I want to take accountability for the hurt you may be feeling while clarifying the motivations for this action.
So she wants to take accountability, while spending the next page proving why what she did was right why she is better than those she upset.
My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power.
How do you grieve with or without an "eye to power"? What the f--- is an "eye to power"? And unless her "friend" was personally involved in a genocide, how and why does she need to heal from it? Was her entire family wiped out by the evil white man, leaving her a grieving orphan? If she's talking about ancestors centuries ago, get over it bitch. Every single person on this planet is descended from both slaves and slave owners, and guess what? We deal with it, mostly by ignoring it, because WE didn't do it.
Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism.
I guess that in her view, you can only mourn your own dead, if you also mourn every one who every died, anywhere, any when, all at the same time. But you can show respect for the dead of others, because that somehow proves how enlightened you are. Or something.
The emails filling my inbox indicate that this was not a productive way to start a dialogue about American imperialism. Nor did I imagine that it would be. Please understand that I am grappling with my complicity in the overwhelming legacy of settler colonialism. Part of this process for me is honoring the feelings and wishes of people who find themselves on the other side of this history.
She's complaining that the result she expected, people sending her unhappy emails, is happening. And that we're supposed to forgive her insulting every member of her college community, the local Indian tribe, and anyone who was affected by 9-11, because she can only feel special if she feels personal guilt for white folks moving to the US. Right. And desecrating a memorial is a way to honor the wishes of those "on the other side of history". The folks who think she's a flaming moron.
I wish to further clarify that members of the local Abenaki community should in no way be implicated in today’s events. Nor can I pretend to speak to their feelings about flags, burial sites, or 9/11.
At least she admits she can't speak for them. They speak for themselves very well, and as mentioned above, they think, much more politely than I am, that she is a flaming moron.
Today I chose to act in solidarity with my friend, an Indigenous woman and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who was appalled to see the burial grounds of another Indigenous nation desecrated by piercing the ground that their remains lay beneath. I understand that this action is confusing and painful for many in my community. I don’t pretend to know if every action I take is right or justified—this process is multi-layered and nuanced. I do know that colonialism has been—and continues to be—a real and destructive force in the world that we live in. And for me, to honor life is to support those who struggle against it.
As many others have pointed out, the only things "piercing" the ground that she seems to be upset about are the American flags. Nothing about the buildings, or the fence posts, or the trees. And how multi-layered and nuanced has anything to do with justification.
And as further proof of her inability write decent English, the last sentence if parsed the correctly, says that she can only honor life by supporting those struggling against life.
Please do not hesitate to email me or approach me if you wish to discuss this in person.
I suspect that by now she rather wishes she hadn't put this bit in.
My gut reaction to ready this self-centered little twit's non-apology, is a strong desire to find her, slap her silly, send her to her room without supper, and ground her for the next two years.
And then there is her "indiginous-person" friend, who is oh-so in touch with her heritage, but using an oh-so NOT indiginous name, Amanda Lickers.
She has even less ability to form a coherent sentence, simply stringing together the feminist, victimist, anti-white verbiage she learned from some progressive liberal teachers, in sentences which may make grammatical sense, occasionally, but never have actual meaning.
i am a young onkwehon:we, a woman, a member of the turtle clan and the onondowa’ga nation of the haudenosaunee confederacy. i have been doing my best to be true to the responsibilities i have inherited through the gift of life, and the relationships i must honour to my ancestors and all our relatives.
She must not consider acting like a mature adult as part of those responsibilities.
for over 500 years our people have been under attack. the theft of our territories, the devastation of our waters; the poisoning of our people through the poisoning of our lands; the theft of our people from our families; the rape of our children; the murder of our women; the sterilization of our communities; the abuse of our generations; the uprooting of our ancestors and the occupation of our sacred sites; the silencing of our songs; the erasure of our languages and memories of our traditions
I'm just going to ignore the execrable English grammar and punctuation (or lack of it). Apparently white folk have been oppressing her people for 500 years. Right. Certainly for the first 150 or so of that time, motst of the oppression, rape, and murder, was being done by other "indigenous" peoples. Though it seems odd that they'd rape the children and murder the women, isn't it usually the other way around?
i have had enough.
And so have we honey, enough of your "look at me" histrionics.
yesterday i went to occupied abenaki territory. i was invited to middlebury college to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization. i walked across this campus whose stone wall structures weigh heavy on the landscape. the history of eugenics, genocide and colonial violence permeate that space so fully like a ghost everywhere descending. it was my understanding that this site is occupying an abenaki burial ground; a sacred site.
An Abenaki burial ground that the Abenaki know nothing about. And I can only assume that settler responsiblity means some form of financial reparations, and decolonization, means losing lands that have been in your family for years because an Indian might have walked over them four or five centuries ago. The next to last "sentence" in that paragraph isn't a sentence, unless she meant for a comma, and her feeling the "ghost descending" is shy she thought it must be a burial site. She is such a special little snowflake that she can "feel" burial grounds, even when no one else knows about them!
walking through the campus i saw thousands of small american flags. tho my natural disdain for the occupying colonial state came to surface, in the quickest moment of decision making, in my heart, i understood that lands where our dead lay must not be desecrated.
It's not her tribe, she's admitted that. And she apparently has no idea what true desecration is.
in my community, we do not pierce the earth. it disturbs the spirits there, it is important for me to respect their presence, their want for rest.
So she respects their presence by committing a felony and desecrating the memory of other dead. Great move, Little Snowflake!
my heart swelled and i knew in my core that thousands of american flags should not penetrate the earth where my abenaki brothers and sisters sleep. we have all survived so much – and as a visitor on their territories i took action to respect them and began pulling up all of the flags.
Of course, according to the Abenaki, none of her brothers or sisters sleep there, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?
i was with 4 non-natives who supported me in this action. there were so many flags staking the earth and their hands helped make this work faster. this act of support by my friends, as settlers, tho small was healing and inspiring. we put them away in black garbage bags and i was confronted by a nationalistic-settler, a young white boy who attends the college demanding i relinquish the flags to him. i held my ground and confiscated them. i did not want to cave to his support of the occupying, settler-colonial, imperalist state, and the endorsing of the genocide of indigenous peoples across the world.
So she's admitting to felony theft, as well as assault. And how in the hell does she think that remembering the dead from a terrorist attack is endorsing genocide? As I've said before, self-centered little bitch. She should be glad I wasn't the one whose flags she was trying to steal.
it is the duty of the college of middlebury to consult with abenaki peoples and repatriate their grounds.yesterday i said no to settler occupation. i took those flags. it is a small reclamation and modest act of resistance.in the spirit of resilience, in the spirit of survivalamanda lickers
So, the Abenaki have no problems with Middlebury College, but because some self-righteous little twit wants to feel special, everyone has to do as she says.
With a bit of luck, these two girls may grow up, but given that they have obviously spent their entire lives up to now being told how "special" and unique they are, and how the white people, and men are responsible for every ill that has ever happened to them, I somehow doubt it.
I feel a little better having got this off my chest, but still, this is what I want to do to both of them.
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