Anews Podcast 208 – 4.16.21

From The Anews Podcast!

Welcome to the anews podcast. This podcast is on anarchist activity, ideas, and conversations from the previous week on anarchistnews.org.

Sound editing by Greg.

Conversation and commentary by chisel and Greg. Mixing it up!

Thanks to Ariel and friend for doing the totw conversation: inspiration

Music:
1. Warren Zevon – My Shit’s Fucked Up
2. Kim Wilde – Sweet Inspiration

Two projects mentioned in TOTW discussion:

https://www.detritusbooks.com/

https://kinlanimutualaid.org/

There are 15 Comments

Great show! I enjoyed both segments, as usual.
The way they engaged with comments in the first segment -in good faith, giving them the benefit of the doubt and highlighting the valuable parts- requires a nontrivial amount of effort. If only the commenters return the favor in kind.
The TOTW discussion nudges to reconsider the inspiring qualities some of the things that anarchists might get desensitized to by being constantly exposed to them in the news feed, to value them and not take them for granted. Reminds me of that motivational self-help advice that says: action-> inspiration -> motivation. If merely reading these things is not enough to inspire, trying them yourself might lead to that.

Hello this is your much-despised anon 16:39 commenter here from the Settles on the Red Road thread.

Noooo I ain't butthurt... Noooooooo I don't hate you for being so insulting... I was only left on my appetite, as your demeaning reaction was hardly supported by any counter-argument I can clear identify.

If my comment is so abysmally stupid/misinformed, which it may be perhaps the case (I have been lauded for many of my contributions to this site, but you know anyone can be dead wrong at times), then it shouldn't be too hard telling me how/where I'm so out of place.

You want to properly define indigeneity, and I too believe that’s an important effort to make that indeed could have been made long ago.

This is another term that has taken a new meaning from its former latin etymology, which only means "to be originating from", which is blurry. Did this life form originate from a given place because it's born of roots that are from this place, or because it was just born there? Just as indigenous plants aren't plants that just reproduced somewhere... but sure I get the absurdity of comparing people to plants. But it's not me doing that; it's our commonly-imposed language. Indigenous is used as ontology for both plants and people.

"First nations" or "First people" would be a more accurate, exclusive term. But we have grown with the anthropological notion of indigeneity, that means the people who were there "before", or "first". https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo...

Let’s take someone who both is..

A- not from any Native ancestry (full or in parts),
B- living within or accordingly or even benefiting from a settler society

...while claiming to be Native. What would you call that, other than some pretentious poser?

And no I ain’t trying to represent Native people’s side in that. I represent only “my” side, the one of some rando Euro settler person. Would I like to be a native? Perhaps, but I won’t be a dishonest poser and pretend something that I’m NOT. It’s as simple as that. Not moralism, not ID pols.

It’s just looking at where I’m from, where I’m at, and recognizing, that I simply am NOT Native, damnit.

Or else... what other position is legit to you in here, Thecollective? People like these yuppie scum going to Hawaii and pretending after two years that they are Hawaiian coz they can say “Aloha”? I hope not.

SO WHAT ELSE IS IT? How to be Indigenous... without having ancestry among the First people of a region.

Why were the Euro settlers bringing their cattle brings you back to the very thing that defines them as settlers: they were not from this place, and knew initially Jack Shit about it. They were also functioning within the structures of proto-industrial plantation system (capitalist of course, but driven in parts by religion).

Today's society is functioning accordingly to the same pattern as theirs (the former Plymouth colony and Virginia Plantation); it is about imposing its views to the "external" world, while profiting from it, creating its own enclosed world. Where Native people have been adapting to the world around, while benefiting from its abundance. Hence, this fabricated world you're in, is still a settler society, based on the exploitation of resources, and formatting of the landscape. Like you know... the fucking antennas and cables used for this internet is based on it.

Have fun denying that, but maybe I'm just assuming things again...

I dunno why I was addressing "Thecollective", I'll retract that. Comment above is only in reaction to Chisel's and Greg's... reaction.

A few other typos, but whatever.

two things!

1. you're clearly worked up about this so not sure why you think denying it makes it anything but funnier? maybe you want us to laugh in your face? if you want people to be less hostile to your questions and assertions, change your rhetorical style a bit.

2. nobody is required to explain anything to you but if you honestly want to learn, you might start with how there isn't a single sentence answer to your question because it's a complex topic and no, that doesn't mean people have failed to explain it to you.

it only means you're not trying very hard to understand, likely because of my first point. you're being defensive instead of drilling down on the concept of identity, therefore, will continue to have a bad time and blame everyone else!

You ARE native whether you want to be or not want to be, it shouldn't be questioned, put history and Idpol behind you, go forward as your own chief, with your own totem pole.
Some advice, get a broom stich, draw a scary face on it, stick it in the ground where you live. I now declare you chief of the (fill in blank________) Tribe.
Now get a life chief!!

I participated in that discussion pretty intensely, so intensely that except for that last exchange where you got burned, all those comments about identity-defensiveness were mine! No exaggeration.

Chisel and greg don't have any more "authority" or "power" than any of the anons on this website. I appreciate that they went into greater depths concerning something submitted than they normally do. However, it is understandable that in this rare moment they only critiqued your response what somebody said:

"Really liked this article. It is too bad the use of the word "settler" has frightened some of you. What if we now pretend a different word, more amenable to discussion is being used? You do understand what is meant by this word, yes? Something like: one whose ancestors are not from this place. This applies to many of us then, without any stigma.

I know it can be hard for anarchists to be told they can't do a particular thing, that knee-jerk reactionary streak rearing its ugly head again, but maybe it is okay not to be allowed to do this one thing, you know, just this once.
Because, what do you know about the bio region you are residing on now, how long have you lived there, what does the air smell like after the first rain, who are your neighbors? I have parents and grandparents buried in the state I'm in, but none of them were born in this state. How many generations of my DNA recycled through the Earth does it take to become "from" a place? And how do we calculate that if the way one's ancestors lived in place never took into account the actual, you know, place?"

I thought your response to this extraordinarily condescending comment overall wasn't so out of line, if i were chisel/greg i wouldn't have framed the response the way that they did. The commenter, having argued with the person, was clearly talking about me, but the issue that the word "settler" does not frighten me, nor is this comment really accomplishing anything useful than hurling more implied insults:

"I know it can be hard for anarchists to be told they can't do a particular thing, that knee-jerk reactionary streak rearing its ugly head again, but maybe it is okay not to be allowed to do this one thing, you know, just this once."

Okay: so reactionary is a word that's thrown around pretty freely now adays. Historically, it seems to mean a right-wing defense of the status quo.

Also, i was not asking for anybodies permission to use an indigenous identity, as the last sentence quoted implies. The commenter you were responding to seems to think that part of being an anarchist means cart-blanche accepting being told what to do. I don't really blame this anon for that, as part of being a human implies some sort of control/manipulation. However, as i said before, the commenter they praised on the show was just as condescending as I was defensive...

"However, it is understandble that you got offended by their critique of what you said during this rare moment when they bring the discussions onto their podcast:"

Lol, a wierd new place we are entering, chisel and greg talking about anons...

"I participated in that discussion pretty intensely, so intensely that except for that last exchange where you got burned, all those comments about identity-defensiveness were mine! No exaggeration."

What discussion? Who got burned when? This is such weird confusing comment that makes you sound like a bot. Perhaps say which anons you're referring to, coz I don't see which persons you're talking about here.

it was a bit of comment drama under the essay "settlers on the red road".

this anon seems to intensely personalize discussions that affect millions of people as if they're being personally attacked? by the common use definition of the word settler?

it was pretty funny at first but then I got to thinking about how this is every single person on earth when their internalized ideology boat starts a-rocking on the waves.

it turns in to this larger thing where you'll see reactionaries (and most other people, in a way) suggesting shit like how "cultural marxists" invented new ideas and words that somehow undermine their entire sense of reality and that's why they really need to freak out right now because why are you doing this to them?!

WESTERN CIVILIZATION CAN NOT JUST TOLERATE YOUR EVIL WORDS!!!

Not sure you understand why some Native people identify with their cultural roots and belonging to these nations. Some of it, in Klanada, has obviously to do with the "Indian" official status as recognized by the colonial Ministry of Indian Affairs.

The less obvious aspect, recognized in anthropology, is a way to put someone into a deeper and more empowering cultural perspective of themselves and others -through culture and ethnic lines- something that Euro settlers don't have, beyond maybe religious groups or White supremacist bullshit. This is "culture as battlefront" perspective.

what makes you say I don't understand all that?

we were mostly talking about people who try to get around the fact that they're a settler, using rhetoric.

I think the word "settler" is a crude generalization to describe the diasporatic nature of population migrations within a finite geographic dimension.

No, it's "settler" as in "settlement", in reference to colonies within a particular colonial system. Also people that are establishing themselves in one area for sedentary living.

You can totally be a migrant without being a settler, as there's plenty of people without status who live in continuous transience.

it was about using the "indigenous" identity in a perhaps disingenuous manner, you would catch on to these things if you actually were any good at reading.

I AM INDIGENOUS TO THE FEW SQUARE FEET ENCIRCLING THE SPOT WERE MY PLACENTA WAS BURIED BY MY NEW AGE MOM MMMKAAAAAY?!!!

Add new comment