getting woke and SL

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

time to be controversial again.

no matter how woke someone claims to be or how much you try and wake people to this it wont ever really end.

Most of this thread is about something that can never be a Utopian world. We are closer to being a dystopian world then a Utopian.

all the attempted education against it will not ever stop it.

"you can lead a horse to water.. but you cant make them drink"

Edited June 27, 2020 by Drakonadrgora Darkfold

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pussycat's full quote was:

"(ps: if you think we will solve racism by fixing the police, spend a year in Korea - nicest cops you will ever meet. Wonderful folks in fact... but the racism is still there - you just don't end up in a chock hold over it. Police are not the problem, they are tool corrupted by it)."

The purpose of being woke is to develop awareness of racial injustice and become a less racist society.
Pussycat's goal (stated in her paragraph) is also to end racism.
If we get the police to change some procedures so they are less violent this would be great -- it might end the knee to the neck and laws which enable police to get away with too much (like qualified immunity), but it would not end racism. They would still profile blacks unfairly, and arrest more blacks unfairly. So only fixing the police in ways you stated would not help the goal of ending racism.

 

Okay, just talking the ending racism.  I think you stand a better chance of being one of the first 120 people to colonize and live on Mars if you take definition Number 3 of racism I will copy and paste below and think you or anyone can end it all.  The reason I say this is that to end racism, according to definition Number 3, you would have to change each and every individual on planet Earth.   According to definition Number 3 of racism, it is personal and exists according to each person.

I think a better way to look at it is to end "white privilege" so that there are equal privileges and so that we have a safer and saner society for all.  

But, yes, still the police must reform and many are currently willing.  This does not mean the end of the police; it means changing current things that are dangerous to others and qualified immunity that the police have granted unto themselves illegally.  Say if a police officer is sued for 1 million dollars that they have to pay over a time, I think things on the police force could change very fast. 

Thankfully, there are parts of America that are integrated.  I know I've grown up in them all my life and we get along fine and the love we share is real.  But, as far as racism and racist people, you cannot change them nor does it matter if they aren't going to actually hurt anyone.  The only thing we can do here is to try to end hate speech and outlaw it.  Many people favor their own kind; it's part of human nature too.  We have China town, Korea town, Little Armenia in California too.  Some people would just prefer to be with their own, it's a harmless kind of familiarity that might appear to be racist but really isn't for the most part.  There are some people who don't want to integrate, especially those who speak a different language and don't want to give up their culture like those in China Town for example.  

But, if we look at changing white privilege instead...how?  How are we going to do that?  

racism

---

noun

1)a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

 

2)a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.

 

3)hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Edited June 27, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

7 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

no matter how woke someone claims to be or how much you try and wake people to this it wont ever really end.

Most of this thread is about something that can never be a Utopian world. We are closer to being a dystopian world then a Utopian.

I believe everything we dream
Can come to pass through our union
We can turn the world around
We can turn the earth's revolution
We have the power
People have the power
People have the power
People have the power

The power to dream to rule
To wrestle the earth from fools
It's decreed the people rule

 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

Just now, Luna Bliss said:

I believe everything we dream
Can come to pass through our union
We can turn the world around
We can turn the earth's revolution
We have the power
People have the power
People have the power
People have the power

The power to dream to rule
To wrestle the earth from fools
It's decreed the people rule

 

You may wish to believe that but it does not make it true ever.

For people have far less power than they think they do. You cannot change the mind of someone who does not want to change no matter what you try or say or do.

[Luna Bliss]

5 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

The reason I say this is that to end racism, according to definition Number 3, you would have to change each and every individual on planet Earth.

But, if we look at changing white privilege instead...how?  How are we going to do that?

We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm in the middle of watching this right now and really caught up in it..

It's a long video, I'm at the 30 minute mark myself and can totally relate to a lot of things they are talking about.. Especially when they started going into wealth early on..

I don't know, I just think there are good questions in it and really great answering and conversation..

I just felt like I had to share it here..

 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

 

than you will never rest for it will never come.

for as long as anyone has anything more than someone else, there will be dissatisfaction and anger towards that person and will be based upon their color or ethnic or religion or political or economical status.

until all are equal in everything across the board it will never end.

[Luna Bliss]

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

[Pussycat Catnap]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

Thankfully, there are parts of America that are integrated.  I know I've grown up in them all my life and we get along fine and the love we share is real.  But, as far as racism and racist people, you cannot change them nor does it matter if they aren't going to actually hurt anyone.  The only thing we can do here is to try to end hate speech and outlaw it.  Many people favor their own kind; it's part of human nature too.  We have China town, Korea town, Little Armenia in California too.  Some people would just prefer to be with their own, it's a harmless kind of familiarity that might appear to be racist but really isn't for the most part.  There are some people who don't want to integrate, especially those who speak a different language and don't want to give up their culture like those in China Town for example. 

Just as an aside - something many people do not know; China Towns were created by restrictive racial covenants.

Here is an example of the long lasting impacts of 'systemic racism':

Did you know that if you buy land in San Francisco most of it has a footnote in the deed of title somewhere in the parts that are likely only obtained at the hall of records that basically says it is not allowed to sell the property to 'Chinamen' - which was enforceable up until the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

In other words, if everyone's favorite Libertarian Ron Paul (Rand Paul? Adolf Paul? Not sure - get them all mixed up too much) had his way, roughly half the people in San Francisco and surrounding counties would lose their land because they're Asian, and they have that land in violation of a Real Property Title provision which is legally enforceable... except that the Civil Rights act made it unenforceable... but it's still there on the titles because Property law requires a complete chain of title - at least a complete 'WASP chain of title. The parts where land was held by Spaniards, Indians, and Mexicans isn't always on record (you could and people have written books on who kept and who lost land title and why when half of Mexico was stolen - it mixes racism and greed in bizarre ways with the outcome not always obvious nor consistent with treaty)... But I'm digressing...

 

China Town isn't a choice thing. It's like the Warsaw Ghetto of Poland before and during WWII - that Jews were forced to live in.

Just because you go there now to buy tourist goods and get bad food (the good Chinese restaurants, at least in San Francisco, are in the neighborhoods people with enough money moved to after 1965) doesn't make it a voluntary cultural preserve. That it still has a high Chinese population, like with most 'Chinatowns'... is because despite 'Model Minority' stereotypes, most Asian people are not crazy rich... so they stay in the one part of town their family was allowed to buy land... and then when new folks come they still get told "go there, you will feel more comfortable" despite the fact that China Towns are almost ALL Cantonese and most Chinese immigrants these days are not from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, or Taiwan so the people like each other about as much as English and Irish do, except maybe actually even less so because each views the other as having stolen their country from them...

So yeah... it isn't about 'giving up our culture'...

 

ps: I'm part tusán - but I grew up in the Bay Area, and the story for tusán is also Cantonese. But I mostly grew up around Mexican and Black 'inner cities' which have a similar story of 'this is not where we chose to live, it's where they forced us to live after taking our land from us - literally - in both cases. Things like the 'Projects' out here in the Bay Area were formed after they used Eminent Domain to take land from black families because they were judged not 'able' to handle living on their own... These were the same black families that joined the middle class because they rebuilt the US Navy after Pearl Harbor. There are 2 largely black town in the North East Bay that were steel towns until recently - one of them, I think, mostly escaped the land theft so it's black community was never forced into 'Projects'...

...and the Mexicans... they used to own the entire state... so they can really get talking about land being taken and being pushed into 'protected spaces'... especially as most of them are actually ALSO California Indians... Ask a Chicano what 'Aztlan' refers to sometime...

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Just as an aside - something many people do not know; China Towns were created by restrictive racial covenants.

Here is an example of the long lasting impacts of 'systemic racism':

Did you know that if you buy land in San Francisco most of it has a footnote in the deed of title somewhere in the parts that are likely only obtained at the hall of records that basically says it is not allowed to sell the property to 'Chinamen' - which was enforceable up until the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

In other words, if everyone's favorite Libertarian Ron Paul (Rand Paul? Adolf Paul? Not sure - get them all mixed up too much) had his way, roughly half the people in San Francisco and surrounding counties would lose their land because they're Asian, and they have that land in violation of a Real Property Title provision which is legally enforceable... except that the Civil Rights act made it unenforceable... but it's still there on the titles because Property law requires a complete chain of title - at least a complete 'WASP chain of title. The parts where land was held by Spaniards, Indians, and Mexicans isn't always on record (you could and people have written books on who kept and who lost land title and why when half of Mexico was stolen - it mixes racism and greed in bizarre ways with the outcome not always obvious nor consistent with treaty)... But I'm digressing...

 

China Town isn't a choice thing. It's like the Warsaw Ghetto of Poland before and during WWII - that Jews were forced to live in.

Just because you go there now to buy tourist goods and get bad food (the good Chinese restaurants, at least in San Francisco, are in the neighborhoods people with enough money moved to after 1965) doesn't make it a voluntary cultural preserve. That it still has a high Chinese population, like with most 'Chinatowns'... is because despite 'Model Minority' stereotypes, most Asian people are not crazy rich... so they stay in the one part of town their family was allowed to buy land... and then when new folks come they still get told "go there, you will feel more comfortable" despite the fact that China Towns are almost ALL Cantonese and most Chinese immigrants these days are not from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, or Taiwan so the people like each other about as much as English and Irish do, except maybe actually even less so because each views the other as having stolen their country from them...

So yeah... it isn't about 'giving up our culture'...

 

ps: I'm part tusán - but I grew up in the Bay Area, and the story for tusán is also Cantonese. But I mostly grew up around Mexican and Black 'inner cities' which have a similar story of 'this is not where we chose to live, it's where they forced us to live after taking our land from us - literally - in both cases. Things like the 'Projects' out here in the Bay Area were formed after they used Eminent Domain to take land from black families because they were judged not 'able' to handle living on their own... These were the same black families that joined the middle class because they rebuilt the US Navy after Pearl Harbor. There are 2 largely black town in the North East Bay that were steel towns until recently - one of them, I think, mostly escaped the land theft so it's black community was never forced into 'Projects'...

...and the Mexicans... they used to own the entire state... so they can really get talking about land being taken and being pushed into 'protected spaces'... especially as most of them are actually ALSO California Indians... Ask a Chicano what 'Aztlan' refers to sometime...

 

No, I didn't know much about China Town itself but I was speaking of the China Town in Los Angeles not the China Town in San Francisco.  I don't know how the two differ but the one in Los Angeles is nothing like the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland in World War II.   We have Korea town and Little Armenia and other places which you might call segregated in Los Angeles also.  As to why some are exclusive to a particular ethnicity, I don't know all the reasons.   I'd assumed some was preference.  Though there are Chinese people who live all over L.A. County.  There are Chinese restaurants everywhere in the greater Los Angeles area.  

Also, Mexican's are Spanish who came to South America to conquer.   The invasion of the Spanish conquistadors were a people who were marauders, and invaded and killed the ancient peoples who were on this land first before Spain as well as stealing all their gold and silver.  So, I'm not going there with you.  

Common Questions About Spanish Conquistadors

The Spanish conquistadors were essentially sanctioned pirates. Their goal was to claim land and resources for their investors and conquer natives of other lands for treasure and glory. They also were vital in the spread and enforcing of religion.Apr 29, 2019

The Spanish are the ones who murdered the Incas and the Aztecs.  Mexicans were not on this land first.  Incas and Aztecs were.  

The two most famous conquistadors were Hernán Cortés who conquered the Aztec Empire and Francisco Pizarro who led the conquest of the Incan Empire.

Edited June 27, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Paul Hexem]

10 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Janet, sorry if I am answering for someone else...so just hear me out or ignore me.

Paul is suggesting reform because we do need to focus on "police privilege"; privileges the police have granted themselves that need to be over-turned, imo, that's what Paul was saying.  That's what I got from Paul's post anyways but he can answer it himself.  

White privilege next in line here.  Do you feel white privilege is behind the hurting of POC or is it a few crazies who feel they can get away with it?  

One of the ways to bring down "white power" if i may put it that way, is to bring down police power.  Yes, the police will still have power but not in the ways they did before if we bring about reform.  

"White privilege" we can enact laws against it but it's a little more hidden under the table than police privilege is although police privilege is hidden and corrupt too.  White privilege can vary from personal experience to why are all the presidents white except for one who is part white?  Could we say this country was founded by whites as their government so it favors whites?  I don't know.  

What can we change by having the phrase "white privilege"?    Just ourselves?   But, what do we do with our white privilege as white people...I mean how are we supposed to change white privilege?  Tell our government not to be biased towards white people?  That won't work.  Laws need to be enacted.  

I suggest police reform because that's one part of the problem with "easy" solutions, and will save a lot of lives regardless of racism, classism, and more- meaning we can easily get everyone on board for it on both sides of politics and race and everything else.

In some cases, more laws will help. In other cases, the laws themselves are racist and need to be abolished. The entire system needs reform, but the police are a great first step.

 

9 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

Why are you making it all about money?

Privilege isn't necessarily about money. 

It's about driving through Brentwood - is white Fairre going to be pulled over, or is black Fairre going to be pulled over? How does the cop treat white Fairre and is it different to how the cop treats black Faiire.

It's about going shopping along the Third Street Promenade - who is going to be followed by security looking for shoplifting? White Fairre or black Fairre? Who is going to get seated faster in that restaurant - white Fairre or black Fairre? Who is going to be subjected to a stricter dress code? White Fairre or black Fairre?

Do people cross the street when they see you walking towards them? Clutch their purses, lock their car doors? How difficult is it to find a variety of shampoos for your hair? When you turn on the television, how long does it take before you see a white person? 

You're making your definition of systemic racism far too narrow.

Funny coincidence. Just this morning I followed a white guy vs a black guy while looking into some stolen equipment. Behavior is much more important than skin color. Anyone that thinks otherwise is doing it wrong.

The questions you're putting forward are fair, legit questions. The problem arises when you blame white Fairre for not being pulled over or for not being followed, instead of blaming the people doing the pulling and following. Throwing racist terms and insults at her is, as already previously said, going to make her dig in and argue. It's not going to make her consider the those questions.

[Pussycat Catnap]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

The Spanish are the ones who murdered the Incas and the Aztecs.  Mexicans were not on this land first.  Incas and Aztecs were.  

The two most famous conquistadors were Hernán Cortés who conquered the Aztec Empire and Francisco Pizarro who led the conquest of the Incan Empire.

(it took me about an hour of editing to write this one, so my thoughts may have ended up out of order)

 

Don't ever call a Mestizo a Spaniard. Don't make that mistake with a Mexican either.

I am from the Bay Area, but also grew up in LA and the Central Valley - the Chicano / Chicana community is in many ways my community; the folks who always mistook me for one of theirs, and who police assumed I belonged to. I know exactly what I refer to when I saw I live in land stolen from Mexico - because I know who the Mexican people are. We, them and I both; are 'brown' and not 'white' or 'red' for a reason. Even a full Indian Mexican will refer to themselves as a Mexican or a brown person before they refer to themselves as red - and for reasons that outsiders would do well to not keep trying to deny or erase.

I had it best described to me by a fully-Native Mexican and native of Mexico City when I was there a few years ago; Cortez didn't bring a conquest nor a liberation, but the birth of a new race. It couldn't have happened anywhere else nor at any other time nor with any other set of individuals. Both in the unique character of Cortez, and in how hated the Aztecs were by the actual locals to the region - for the Aztecs were themselves only recent arrivals from the north.

 

Now... In addition to being tusán; I happen to be part Inca as well - and that's a VERY DIFFERENT TOPIC than being Mestizo Mexican because our interactions with the Spanish were radically different.

Neither Inca nor Aztec were actually ever in the parts of Mexico that were stolen by the USA. Inca were several thousand miles to the south - some may know that I have stated that I am part Amazon - because they forget that the Amazon goes into the high mountain Inca territory, and the ethnic group that the Inca belong too spreads down the mountains into territory controlled by Brazil. Other people keep moving our borders on us... something my Chicano friends can relate to... (see my prior reference to Aztlan and when you google it, read the articles about the modern day "radical" movement, not the historical meaning).

The Aztec were a brutal short lived empire (a little more than a century and most of that time they were a vassal of another kingdom, they only came to power I think 3 generations before Cortez arrived) in the region directly around what is today Mexico city. In the last maybe 2 decades of their existence they conquered out to the west and east coasts and held some sway into Mayan territory - and only a little further north. The locals hated them. Cortez had an insane number of local allies. The famous moment where the Aztec killed somewhere between 20,000-80,000 people in the span of 5 days in the very spot that Cortez finally defeated their last king, happened only a few years before he got there - it was a desperate last ditch measure to stop revolts but had the effect of only fueling the fire of more revolt.

 

The Inca by contrast were in power for centuries (I think - need to double check this), and were a coalition that came about as a trade empire. The Conquistadors that attacked them did have some native allies - but those were more like people pressed into service because by the time the Spanish got there, most of the people in the region had already managed to get accepted into the coalition. A lot of it was built on the idea of sharing masonry technology - the famous Inca stonework. You can visit towns they controlled and see where, after the Inca arrived, the layers above them in stonework are more solid, more durable, and don't use filler between stones. And the layers after the Spanish arrived revert back to pre-Inca methods until modern construction.

The Inca pantheon is astrological in nature - sun moon stars kind of stuff all relating to a notion of the universal harmony of a spiritual divine trinity. The Aztec god was a death god, feared by those they attacked - talk to locals in Mexico City who are of Mestizo or fully Native blood and you will not hear kind words about Aztecs. The nature of human sacrifice among the Inca was very different than that among the Aztec, though it did still exist and in a few cases there were large sacrifices, but still smaller than say - some of the single day body counts of the French Revolution's attempts at putting down 'counter revolution'...
(Essentially... by the standards of the 1500s the Inca were an enlightened people with mostly decent notions of human dignity - but from a modern light they were very flawed, but even by the standards of the 1500s the Aztecs where an apocalypse cult surrounded by people they were butchering who were in open revolt when Cortez showed up late to the party. One of the reasons it took the Aztec king so long to address Cortez was that he was fighting off maybe 5 or 6 different revolts that had not yet found someone to unify behind...).

 

Aside: the Inca flag is the same flag as the LGBTQ movement uses, though originally there was also a design painted inside the Inca Flag - it came about in a rebellion against the Spanish about a century after conquest, but still flies over cities like Cuzco (the Inca capital) in the high mountain parts of Peru today where my family is from.

One of the things I notice when I speak to native people in Mexico and Peru - the Mexicans NEVER call themselves Aztecs (I've met Mexican Americans who do though, older or radicalized ones mostly), and at least in my encounters always called themselves Mexican first, something else later. But the Peruvian natives will call themselves Inca and refer to Peru as 'the government', 'the country', but never with a 'my' or 'our'.

The image of Cortez is... complex... among Chicanos... reviled and celebrated at the same time. In Peru the conquistadors are national heroes highly celebrated and you'd better think twice of voicing another opinion unless you're in the mountains and know who your audience is.

I've met a ton of City Peruvians who insist on having people call them Spaniards... Some of them quite obviously Mestizos desperate to pass as not being 'brown'... Fortunately most of those were older 'boomer generation' folks...

 

So yeah... Mexicans... are Mexicans... not Spaniards nor Aztecs nor Toltecs... though some might be Apache instead (I know we have at least one Apache member of this community who can speak to this better - but Apache and Mexico did NOT get along well in the 1800s if I recall right).

Edited June 27, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Pussycat Catnap]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

I suggest police reform because that's one part of the problem with "easy" solutions, and will save a lot of lives regardless of racism, classism, and more- meaning we can easily get everyone on board for it on both sides of politics and race and everything else.

Well we 'should' be able to get everyone on board... but these days we can't even get people to agree that wearing a mask is NOT a sign of being a devil worshiper waiting to be sacrificed to the 5g death ray machines... ( Trevor Noah vid, watch to about the 4:21 mark: https://youtu.be/v_bfQoxexr8?t=219 )...

So um... yeah...

[bleep] just got unreal...

But yes - it should be an easy thing to do, and is a very good place to START...

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[L3r0yj3nk1ns]

Interestingly there was a pretty comprehensive study done about the idea that white police are killing blacks in higher numbers and that race is institutionalized as a result of this  https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877   Looking at that study, the conclusion was that idea is just not true. 

[Luna Bliss]

40 minutes ago, L3r0yj3nk1ns said:

Interestingly there was a pretty comprehensive study done about the idea that white police are killing blacks in higher numbers and that race is institutionalized as a result of this  https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877   Looking at that study, the conclusion was that idea is just not true. 

There's a lot of debate around this particular study and many scientists are critical of its methodology. Even the authors concede to a mistake in the way they characterized the study. You can read more about it here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/the-debate-around-police-violence-and-racial-bias

In any case, bad study or not, one should never use only one study to base beliefs on.

 

[FairreLilette]

9 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

(it took me about an hour of editing to write this one, so my thoughts may have ended up out of order)

 

Don't ever call a Mestizo a Spaniard. Don't make that mistake with a Mexican either.

I am from the Bay Area, but also grew up in LA and the Central Valley - the Chicano / Chicana community is in many ways my community; the folks who always mistook me for one of theirs, and who police assumed I belonged to. I know exactly what I refer to when I saw I live in land stolen from Mexico - because I know who the Mexican people are. We, them and I both; are 'brown' and not 'white' or 'red' for a reason. Even a full Indian Mexican will refer to themselves as a Mexican or a brown person before they refer to themselves as red - and for reasons that outsiders would do well to not keep trying to deny or erase.

I had it best described to me by a fully-Native Mexican and native of Mexico City when I was there a few years ago; Cortez didn't bring a conquest nor a liberation, but the birth of a new race. It couldn't have happened anywhere else nor at any other time nor with any other set of individuals. Both in the unique character of Cortez, and in how hated the Aztecs were by the actual locals to the region - for the Aztecs were themselves only recent arrivals from the north.

 

Now... In addition to being tusán; I happen to be part Inca as well - and that's a VERY DIFFERENT TOPIC than being Mestizo Mexican because our interactions with the Spanish were radically different.

Neither Inca nor Aztec were actually ever in the parts of Mexico that were stolen by the USA. Inca were several thousand miles to the south - some may know that I have stated that I am part Amazon - because they forget that the Amazon goes into the high mountain Inca territory, and the ethnic group that the Inca belong too spreads down the mountains into territory controlled by Brazil. Other people keep moving our borders on us... something my Chicano friends can relate to... (see my prior reference to Aztlan and when you google it, read the articles about the modern day "radical" movement, not the historical meaning).

The Aztec were a brutal short lived empire (a little more than a century and most of that time they were a vassal of another kingdom, they only came to power I think 3 generations before Cortez arrived) in the region directly around what is today Mexico city. In the last maybe 2 decades of their existence they conquered out to the west and east coasts and held some sway into Mayan territory - and only a little further north. The locals hated them. Cortez had an insane number of local allies. The famous moment where the Aztec killed somewhere between 20,000-80,000 people in the span of 5 days in the very spot that Cortez finally defeated their last king, happened only a few years before he got there - it was a desperate last ditch measure to stop revolts but had the effect of only fueling the fire of more revolt.

 

The Inca by contrast were in power for centuries (I think - need to double check this), and were a coalition that came about as a trade empire. The Conquistadors that attacked them did have some native allies - but those were more like people pressed into service because by the time the Spanish got there, most of the people in the region had already managed to get accepted into the coalition. A lot of it was built on the idea of sharing masonry technology - the famous Inca stonework. You can visit towns they controlled and see where, after the Inca arrived, the layers above them in stonework are more solid, more durable, and don't use filler between stones. And the layers after the Spanish arrived revert back to pre-Inca methods until modern construction.

The Inca pantheon is astrological in nature - sun moon stars kind of stuff all relating to a notion of the universal harmony of a spiritual divine trinity. The Aztec god was a death god, feared by those they attacked - talk to locals in Mexico City who are of Mestizo or fully Native blood and you will not hear kind words about Aztecs. The nature of human sacrifice among the Inca was very different than that among the Aztec, though it did still exist and in a few cases there were large sacrifices, but still smaller than say - some of the single day body counts of the French Revolution's attempts at putting down 'counter revolution'...
(Essentially... by the standards of the 1500s the Inca were an enlightened people with mostly decent notions of human dignity - but from a modern light they were very flawed, but even by the standards of the 1500s the Aztecs where an apocalypse cult surrounded by people they were butchering who were in open revolt when Cortez showed up late to the party. One of the reasons it took the Aztec king so long to address Cortez was that he was fighting off maybe 5 or 6 different revolts that had not yet found someone to unify behind...).

 

Aside: the Inca flag is the same flag as the LGBTQ movement uses, though originally there was also a design painted inside the Inca Flag - it came about in a rebellion against the Spanish about a century after conquest, but still flies over cities like Cuzco (the Inca capital) in the high mountain parts of Peru today where my family is from.

One of the things I notice when I speak to native people in Mexico and Peru - the Mexicans NEVER call themselves Aztecs (I've met Mexican Americans who do though, older or radicalized ones mostly), and at least in my encounters always called themselves Mexican first, something else later. But the Peruvian natives will call themselves Inca and refer to Peru as 'the government', 'the country', but never with a 'my' or 'our'.

The image of Cortez is... complex... among Chicanos... reviled and celebrated at the same time. In Peru the conquistadors are national heroes highly celebrated and you'd better think twice of voicing another opinion unless you're in the mountains and know who your audience is.

I've met a ton of City Peruvians who insist on having people call them Spaniards... Some of them quite obviously Mestizos desperate to pass as not being 'brown'... Fortunately most of those were older 'boomer generation' folks...

 

So yeah... Mexicans... are Mexicans... not Spaniards nor Aztecs nor Toltecs... though some might be Apache instead (I know we have at least one Apache member of this community who can speak to this better - but Apache and Mexico did NOT get along well in the 1800s if I recall right).

Oh, good grief.  

The Spanish Missionaries conquered the California territory in order to take over the native American Indians residing in California territory at the time to "Christianize" them.  

I don't think you have a clue about your own history, not to mention the Spaniards were paid 15 million dollars for California in the 1800's.   Mexico had already won it's independence from Spain at the time California was purchased from the Spanish Missionaries.  

Have you read anything about your Spanish heritage at all?  Yes, as a mestizo, it merely means you are mixed and possibly with European.  The ancient Aztecs and Incas were murdered and their gold stolen.  The Spanish conquistadors may have taken some as slaves but that is not even fully known.   The other word you eluded to in your first post about the ancient Aztecs is a myth.  It's a mythological belief because the Aztecs were murdered.   And, upon further reading the ancient Incas were murdered also.  Some may have been taken as concubines.  The Spanish took everything and their lives too.  

The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U.S. state of California. Founded by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize the Native Americans, the missions led to the creation of the New Spain province of Alta California and were part of the expansion of the Spanish Empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America.

Following long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Spanish America, the missionaries forced the native Californians to live in settlements called reductions^{[citation needed]}, disrupting their traditional way of life. The missionaries introduced European fruits, vegetables, cattle, horses, ranching, and technology. The missions have been accused by critics, then and now, of various abuses and oppression. In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives: to convert, educate, and transform the native peoples into Spanish colonial citizens.

By 1810, Spain's king had been imprisoned by the French, and financing for military payroll and missions in California ceased.^[3] In 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain, although Mexico did not send a governor to California until 1824, and only a portion of payroll was ever reinstated (ibid.). The 21,000 Mission Indians produced hide, tallow, wool, and textiles at this time, and the leather products were exported to Boston, South America, and Asia. This trading system sustained the colonial economy from 1810 until 1830. The missions began to lose control over land in the 1820s, as unpaid military men unofficially encroached, but officially missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of land holdings until the 1830s. 

Edited June 27, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

12 hours ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

than you will never rest for it will never come.

for as long as anyone has anything more than someone else, there will be dissatisfaction and anger towards that person and will be based upon their color or ethnic or religion or political or economical status.

until all are equal in everything across the board it will never end.

You're missing the point here. There is no permanent arrival for any person or group -- staying free will always be a struggle -- the tension between the individual and society is ongoing. All we can do is help ourselves and others as much as possible when too many knees are on a neck, creating more injustice than what we're willing to tolerate as a society.

There's too many wasted lives where people don't get a chance to know the joy of being alive due to being oppressed by others, or because they never developed the resources to feel truly alive. Nothing could be sadder than this lost potential and opportunity to appreciate life, and nothing can be more joyful than to rise up again in the struggle to know love, or to help another do so.

When Death Comes -  By Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

– Mary Oliver
 

[Paul Hexem]

8 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Well we 'should' be able to get everyone on board... but these days we can't even get people to agree that wearing a mask is NOT a sign of being a devil worshiper waiting to be sacrificed to the 5g death ray machines... ( Trevor Noah vid, watch to about the 4:21 mark: https://youtu.be/v_bfQoxexr8?t=219 )...

So um... yeah...

[bleep] just got unreal...

But yes - it should be an easy thing to do, and is a very good place to START...

Well yeah, there's always going to be crazy ones out there, but as someone that frequents conservative/republican (gun owner) forums, I can say that the police don't have many fans over there either. The reasons are a little different, but they'd like to see a lot of change too.

Frame your message in the correct way, and police reform will truly be one of the few topics that the majority of people will agree on. Which is why it's such a great start- It's a perfect chance to ask "If we can agree on that, what else can we agree on?"

[Ceka Cianci]

10 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

I want to share something with you that when I first came across it, had me soaked in tears..It is so full of diversity from the instruments to the people from all around the world that came together and never even left where they were to make it..

For me I was just looking for the song itself from the Stones, but got so much more than I bargained for..

I clicked on it out of curiosity and it became a powerful experience.. The more it went on the more I cried from feeling so inspired and a feeling of hope and direction..

I never really paid that much attention to the words of that song before..But when I first seen and heard this version of it and picked up on their message..It was like a direct connection that was gushing right into my heart and mind that overwhelmed me..

I was 25 years old at the time, fallen out of faith in a religion that I had put so much of myself into, that I had came to grips with, that it had lied to me my whole life and feeling so lost and alone without a belief in the world anymore..Then still trying to pick up the pieces of the worst violent attack of my life a couple years earlier..Then there was just everything else piled on top of that that the world throws at you every day..

I started watching and seen this man on a dock playing his guitar and thought,he was going to do the song.. Then it changed to someone else and it just kept happening and before I knew it I was just overtaken by it and feeling a peace that I needed to feel so badly..

Things and moments come a long and change your life that we never see coming until they hit us.. Some take time to see, but some are like a bolt of lightning in a bottle..

I had been closing things off with my family for a long time before this and getting worse and more cold to them and anyone,even my husband, just as my grandmother had done to us and my grandfather, from the things she experienced in her years she spent in the boarding schools.. I didn't want that to be me and seen I was on her path..

But I turned so hard towards my family afterward this..It was something they had been trying to get me to do for years..

I know this wasn't speaking directly to me, but it did..

Because of them and because of learning from them and from the places I search more about where I came from..That gives me the power over those that feel they have the power over me and us..

I feel fortunate that I can pin point at least one turning point in my life that if it didn't come along..who knows what would be happening right now..

I just wanted to share the moment because it's fortunate that it is something that can be actually shared rather than just spoken..

Also,I immediately donated to them as well and still do..I still cry through this song,because it has power they made it powerful.

 

 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

7 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

You're missing the point here. There is no permanent arrival for any person or group -- staying free will always be a struggle -- the tension between the individual and society is ongoing. All we can do is help ourselves and others as much as possible when too many knees are on a neck, creating more injustice than what we're willing to tolerate as a society.

There's too many wasted lives where people don't get a chance to know the joy of being alive due to being oppressed by others, or because they never developed the resources to feel truly alive. Nothing could be sadder than this lost potential and opportunity to appreciate life, and nothing can be more joyful than to rise up again in the struggle to know love, or to help another do so.

As expected you would say something similar to this.

The hopeful optimistic way of thinking. Which is very unrealistic and dangerous.

There is no free, it is just a myth.

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, L3r0yj3nk1ns said:

Interestingly there was a pretty comprehensive study done about the idea that white police are killing blacks in higher numbers and that race is institutionalized as a result of this  https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877   Looking at that study, the conclusion was that idea is just not true. 

 

31 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

There's a lot of debate around this particular study and many scientists are critical of its methodology. Even the authors concede to a mistake in the way they characterized the study. You can read more about it here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/the-debate-around-police-violence-and-racial-bias

In any case, bad study or not, one should never use only one study to base beliefs on.

At the end of the day, the hard numbers show that more white people are killed by police, and black people kill more white people than vice versa as well. That's straight truth, from the FBI's 2016 numbers. It's one of those uncomfortable truths that nobody likes to admit.

On the other hand, it can't be denied that racist people are drawn to positions of power, and that POC in general have it tougher.

[L3r0yj3nk1ns]

Correct Paul, and thats why i entered it into the conversation. Its unfortunate there some in our society that can only view absolutley everything through the lens of race. I think logic can dictate that if you look for race in everything you will definitely find it. The moment you parrot a phrase like " A white man killed a black man" you are falling prey to that ugly mentality of viewing absolutely everything through race. Evil actions have a root cause 100% of the time, when attribute that root cause immediately to race instead of absolute evil in one humans heart, your stoking that view. What would happen if every interaction with every single human was based on content of character and not color of skin? What if I promise to never call you black and you never call me white?  Please remove the ideology of group identity and focus on individual identity and individual responsibility.

[FairreLilette]

46 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

As expected you would say something similar to this.

The hopeful optimistic way of thinking. Which is very unrealistic and dangerous.

There is no free, it is just a myth.

Yeah, sadly, pretty much but it's worse.  People are just pawns for a time; a means to an end which usually equates to wealth.  In today's world all the government needs us for is to be consumers.  They don't have any other purpose for us.  

Companies can get workers to work for pennies a day and meals overseas.  The big business owners in America don't need us; humans are expendables to the wealthy and the powerful.   The more money we can help big government and business achieve is how we are valued.   Men are more valued because of their muscles; they may make up the military and the wealthy people's protection.  

Edited June 27, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

** A beautiful story of transformation and freedom  **

That's an amazing story, thanks for sharing it, and I'm glad you were able to turn your life around. I've read about those boarding schools for Natives and the damage done. One of my favorite movies depicting this is "The Education Of Little Tree"....did you see it?
It's so easy to just follow a conditioned path set forth by those before us, especially when those paths are set by those who nurtured us as children. It's so hard to transform the pain and embody love instead of hate. I like this short poem by Mary Oliver, describing her transformation to such a degree that she calls the darkness given to her "a gift".

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

― Mary Oliver

I do believe that the greater the box of darkness, the greater the gift once one is able to transcend the pain. I've noticed that often those who went through the most pain in life are the ones motivated to do the most good in the world.

I never actually listened to the words of Gimme Shelter, but they are great aren't they?  I'm always amazed how a song, a poem, or any kind of art really can touch me to the point of major change. And I like how your family was able to play a part in helping you transform too. Shelter, we all need shelter at times. The musicians say:

"Gimme Shelter" is a track we have wanted to record for years. This song expresses the urgency we all face to unite together as a planet and offers us wisdom with the words, "War, children, it's just a shot away... Love, sister, it's just a kiss away".  It really is that simple.   We dedicate this song to all the lost, homeless and forgotten people in this world.  It is in the shelter of each other that the people live".

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

"Gimme Shelter" is a track we have wanted to record for years. This song expresses the urgency we all face to unite together as a planet and offers us wisdom with the words, "War, children, it's just a shot away... Love, sister, it's just a kiss away".  It really is that simple.   We dedicate this song to all the lost, homeless and forgotten people in this world.  It is in the shelter of each other that the people live".

War or a kiss.  Can we get there?  I surely hope so.  Can't this world just declare a truce already?  I feel there is enough land here for everyone.  

Speaking of 'shelter', "Shelter From the Storm" is the first song that really got me listening to Bob Dylan.  Such an amazing man, Bob.  

 

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

 

Songwriters: Bob Dylan