[color=purple][size=16]OMG Bob's here! It's:[/size][/color]
[color=gold][size=36]Best of babble 2010[/size][/color]
Remember that awesome thing that person said that time? Post it here!
Some of my fondest memories of 2010:
When will white people stop making movies like Avatar? and Avatar: An Extension of White Supremacy
The prospect of curing disability dangles a medical carrot in front of the disabled, a carrot that the vast majority of us will never be able to eat, while showing us that our bodies are inadequate, broken and ugly. Rember how gorgeous the Na'vi bodies were? How gray and indusrial his gimpy life was? He was in prison. Inside his Na'vi body, he was free. This is a bad message to send.
Ultimately, we'll have to change as a society, which Avatar legitimately imagines we won't. If we don't change, we'll spread our imperialism across the galaxy within a few million years, unless a more technologically advanced species stops us.
I think that it is questionable to dissmiss criticism of pop culture as if it is some holier than thou crowd. It's ok to question what is popular. It is healthy to do so. When millions of people go see a film like Avatar and declare it to be anti-oppressive, anti-colonial, anti-American or anti-war it is important to expose the fact that the movie is a simple re-do of a colonial narrative.
And so on...
Kahnawake FN evicting non-Natives (and II and III)
This isn't too complicated and there's no need to be so delicate. The Indian Act band council, which is not a FN government but rather an administrative branch of the federal Department of Indian Affairs, is enforcing the racist Indian Act against overhwleminingly poor "non-status" Mohawks, and a few people who have too little Mohawk blood (many of whom are the parents of Mohawk children) because it lets them appear to be fighting colonialism while they are actually doing no such thing, ever.
They are a Nation of people whom have never given up or capitulated their soveriegnty. Just as our govenrment has the right to define who are Canadian, and then expell those who are in our country illegally, Kahnawake people have the right to decide their own citizenry and likewise demand illegal aliens leave. We may not like it but we have to accept it. It is their business and has nothing to do with us.
So then the question becomes, what makes you FN? Or Inuit? Or Metis?Is it only blood, is it only cultural, or is it somewhere inbetween?
There are Metis in Alberta who are more full-blooded than most Mohawk, but they do not consider themselves FN, they are fiercely Metis. The Mohawk are a proud people, who work hard to maintain their traditions and revitalise their language...does having mixed blood make them weaker or less culturally strong? Is outside blood the threat, or is it the loss of culture, and do the two always go hand in hand?
and on and on...
Best thread title ever (by West Coast Greeny)? Maybe. Plus a kickass letter by Corky Evans to start it off. But perhaps the jury is still out on the content of the thread itself.
James Trek II: The Wrath of Kwan
So what's your favourite? Post it here.
N.B. The hope here is for the good kind of nostalgia, not the bad kind. Don't start fights!
Signed,
Bob 2010
