went to the launch of this awesome publication the other night. the painting on the cover you may recognize as local artist extraordinaire Jeska Slater's portraiture, part of her project Young Artist Warriors, a project that "wishes to reveal that our paintbrushes, microphones and chisels are the new weapons against cultural oppression and racism."
You can find out more about this incredible empowerment project at http://youngartistwarriors.blogspot.com/
the launch of this journal was full of music, I was bummed to have missed rapper N3mo, who you can also find on the youngartistwarriors blog, but I was really moved by a beautiful rendition of a song sung by a man native to Hawaii, he had a voice that really cut through into another world. And there was harmonica playing, poetry and story reading, and more song. I was reading pieces of the journal as I dyed some weavings today, and really enjoyed what I read... some honest shit.
I was especially fond of Hayden King's piece entitled Reflections on the Utility of Color & Possibility of Coalitions (or Are White People Evil?)... He starts out with a poem from Leslie Marmon Silkoe's book "Ceremony" :
The wind will blow them across the ocean
thousands of them in giant boats
swarming like larva
out of a crushed ant hill
They will carry objects
which can shoot death
faster than the eye can see
They will kill the things they fear
all the animals
the people will starve
They will poison the water
and they will spin the water away
and there will be drought
and people will starve.
quite true though tragic prose, I just was reading yesterday that the mercury count in Grassy Narrows is higher than ever... and the Tar Sands continue to pollute every living being in their radius, not to mention steal the water for miles around just to turn that sand into oil...
King goes on, though, to clarify what he believes, which is not that white people are evil, per se, for who are white people, what is identity, etcetera etcetera, but that the mentality that came with colonization and that maintains itself in "those who express their fear, ignorance and arrogance openly...and the more benign, oft allies" aka the people who tolerate but do not value other ways of life, stories, histories. . . he suggests we all get brown in our minds. I kinda loved it. He refers to a question posed by Leah Whiu "what affinity can we share with white people if they refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for their colonialism?" and goes on to acknowledge the potential to build coalitions and to work together with those whites who acknowledge that responsibility. he quotes Harold Cardinal, telling whites wanting to work with natives to either "get Brown or get lost". essentially, strive to understand our perspective and critically reflect upon your own, or just go away.
I recommend this journal, as this was only one of many thought provoking essays and I hardly even fleshed it out. not out to blame anybody, what i have read in this journal is all about expression, moving forward and working together towards that goal. this second issue is focused on the Oka crisis.
