#radical indigenous survivance and empowerment
A NATION IS A MASSACRE
Demian DinéYazhi’ & R.I.S.E.: Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment
Portland Biennial 2019
DISJECTA | Portland, OR
24 August - 03 Nov 2019.
Curated by Yaelle S. Amir, Elisheba Johnson, & Ashley Stull Meyers.
”Death and grieving for Indigenous Peoples is like a war zone—a space unlike any other far removed from the ‘stars and stripes.’ We are expected to die without news headlines or revolution, and in this way we expect nothing; we accept death. It’s a slow death, but with the same urgency as endangerment or extinction or invasion, or an asteroid the size of england or complete and inevitable economic collapse. Even in our survival and resilience, we come to the table ready to protect the most sacred of human rights.”
—Demian DinéYazhi’
With its political aphorisms, all-caps fonts resembling newspaper headlines, and graphic images, A Nation is a Massacre resembles activist agitprop first popularized by Soviet Russia in the early 20th century and later adopted and refashioned by artists in the wheat-pasting tradition, like Jenny Holzer and the Guerilla Girls. Unlike these artistic forebears, who excluded Indigenous womxn and other Indigenous communities, DinéYazhi’ focuses exclusively on marginalized groups, noting that ‘The details are gruesome and american and as patriotic as gun violence and mass murder.’ A Nation is a Massacre considers over 500 years of mass shootings and massacre, missing and murdered Indigenous womxn, queers, trans, gender gradient/nonconforming, and two-spirit folx, and numerous instances of environmental racism/injustice ignored by citizens of a colonized country.
(via exhibition text written by David Everitt Howe, Curator at Pioneer Works)
Installation shots from A NATION IS A MASSACRE at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY.
Photography courtesy of Pioneer Works.
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APPLY NOW + Share! Deadline July 1st, 2019. We are honored to announce the launch of our 2nd annual Artist & Poetry Fellowship benefiting Indigenous Queer, Gender Gradient/Non-Conforming, Trans, and Two-Spirit Artists & Poets. Please, share this with yr community, but more importantly, APPLY TODAY!
For link to application, email: [email protected]
(we will send you application instructions)
Eligibility:
I will be 18 years or older on March 9th, 2018.
I am affiliated with an Indigenous tribe and dedicated to an Indigenous community.
IMPORTANT: Page MAY NOT save automatically, so please save your answers on a separate document and submit with care. If you have any complications, please email [email protected]
Deadline ↔️: July 1st, 2019 at 11:59 pm PST.
Let this be an example to all Native art organizations, this is how you fund Indigenous Queer, Gender Gradient/Non-Conforming, Trans, and Two-Spirit artists/poets, by restructuring your orgs to make radical changes! You have had these opportunities! We will not do your labor for free! By making our communities a necessity, you will inherently enact revolutionary changes that should not have to be revolutionary within Indigenous communities!
Please, share this far and wide with your Indigenous Queer, Gender Gradient/Non-Conforming, Trans, and Two-Spirit art babes, poetic warriors, and stand-against-heteropatriarchal-bullshit rebels! On the Rez, beyond the Rez, beyond the border of male or female or homo/heterosexual! Let’s evolve and reclaim our Indigenous sexualities and gender systems! Let’s infiltrate our Native communities with Queer lust, passion, love, art, poetry, and ceremony!
Support R.I.S.E. Paypal us at: [email protected]
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High resolution 18″ X 24″ poster of an Apsáalooke badé, Osh-Tisch (1854-1929, on the left), and their wife photographed in 1877. “Decolonize Your Luvvv” honors Indigenous Queer & Trans cultures that were respected and honored prior to European-led Genocide, Heteropatriarchy, Religion, & Colonization.
The photograph shows Osh-Tisch (Apsáalooke translation: “Finds Them and Kills Them”), and their wife in 1877. During the time period the photograph was taken, Osh-Tisch was one of the last remaining Apsáalooke badés (which would be the Western equivalent on a Trans person), and was respected and accepted within traditional Apsáalooke culture. In spite of being married to a woman, as a means to maintain balance in Apsáalooke society, Osh-Tisch was not prevented from living their life out romantically with other men.
In background of the photograph is an inserted tile image of Marsha P. Johnson & Sylvia Rivera taken at the Christopher Street Liberation Day, Gay Pride Parade, NYC. June 24, 1973. Johnson & Rivera were veterans of the Stonewall Rebellion, founders of S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), and are honored as role models for contemporary Queer/Trans rights movements.
As with all our posters, feel liberated to print out, wheatpaste, repost/regram, and disseminate at will!
R.I.S.E.:
Radical
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Survivance &
Empowerment
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Dr. King spoke out against the genocide of Native Americans
by: Albert BenderDespite the yearly celebrations of Martin Luther King Day and African American History Month, it is probably little known what the great freedom fighter had to say about the horrific mistreatment of Native Americans by the U.S. In his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” writing about the origins of racism in this country, King strongly condemned the historic injustices inflicted on Native people. He wrote the following:
“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”
Woefully, Dr. King’s words still ring true to this very day in so many respects. But King’s poignant words on the tragic history of Native Americans are largely unknown in mainstream society.
Although King played the leading role on the cutting edge of the African American liberation struggle for social justice and equality, he was a fighter for all of the oppressed of this land. His birthday holiday this year brought to mind a story I was told years ago of how he assisted Native people in south Alabama in the late 1950s.
At that time the Poarch Band of Creek Indians were trying to completely desegregate schools in their area. The South has so many seemingly outlandish racial problems: In this case, light-complected Native children were allowed to ride school buses to previously all white schools, while dark-skinned Indian children from the same band were barred from riding the same buses.
Tribal leaders, upon hearing of King’s desegregation campaign in Birmingham, Ala., contacted him for assistance. He promptly responded and through his intervention the problem was quickly resolved.
Also, little known is that in the 1963 March on Washington there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota. Moreover, the civil rights movement inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and many of its leaders. In fact, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) was patterned after the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Re-reading Dr. King’s words I had to harken back in history to the fact that according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, by 1900 there were only 237,196 Native Americans left in the entire country - this from an original population that numbered in the tens of millions. In the words of one historian the outright massacres had ceased by then, simply “because there were just not that many Indians left to kill.” King rightly concluded that the genocide of American Indians was “national policy.” Indeed, on many reservations the story still circulates that as late as the 1890s a debate was held by the U.S. Congress to consider the outright military extermination of all remaining Native Americans. According to these accounts the only reason this nefarious plan was not carried out was because it would be too expensive.
But fast forwarding to the 21st century it must be seen that both the civil rights movement and the Native American rights movement have had a major impact on the U.S. and the world at large. Dr. King played an immeasurable role in these movements that roiled the status quo and marked a new stage of struggles that are ongoing to this day.
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R.I.S.E.
Radical
Indigenous
Survivance &
EmpowermentInfo:
http://www.burymyart.tumblr.com/
http://www.facebook.com/RISEindigenous
contact: [email protected]http://peoplesworld.org/dr-king-spoke-out-against-the-genocide-of-native-americans/
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As the President of Genocide and Settler Conquest plans to steal 321 acres of Indigenous land from the Mashpee-Wampanoag, let this be a brutal reminder that THIS IS NOT YOUR LAND. This is the very tribe that helped the colonizing Pilgrims survive. THIS WILL NEVER BE YOUR LAND!
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High resolution 18″ x 12″ map of the Historic Territory of the Indigenous Wapanoag from 1620. As with all our posters, please, feel liberated to share, repost, print, disseminate & wheatpaste at will!
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Artwork by: @riseindigenous
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https://facebook.com/RISEindigenous
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