Who Wins the Prize for Being the Most Victimised?

It's really stressful living in a country where the original sin of genocide and land theft hasn't been addressed, which is then overlaid by the atrocity of slavery, which is then overlaid by convict deportation, which is then overlaid by false promises of equality, freedom, justice and liberty for all... so much dysfunction... and so much jostling for the role of "most damaged victim"...

In my opinion, the ONLY people here who need justice and restitution right now, are the original people living in this land, on this continent... the rest of us arrived as immigrants and we all - of every skin colour - have huge privilege, taken/bought on the backs of that indigenous suffering, displacement and genocide... 

Deal with/heal that original sin/wound and much of the other victimising/victimhood will fade away...

Let me say up front, that I recognise and own my status/privilege as a white formerly middle class woman with the advantage of a good education... having owned that, and at the risk of being vilified, I'm going to admit that I can't be bothered finding my way through the maze of which race in this country, on this continent, on this planet, has been the most victimised...

I totally get that since I left The Netherlands/Holland as a child, I have been an immigrant to four countries and lived well in each, which comfort was paid for by the suffering of the indigenous people who had been colonised in times past; in some of those countries the first colonisers were white... in others, they were brown or yellow skinned...

I know what its like to be an outsider... coming into a country, speaking a different language, not knowing the customs, being of a different class... being teased, bullied, "oppressed" by other whites - yes, racism DOES exist within groups sharing the same skin colour...

and... I totally get the pain of the wounds inflicted by the colonisers... and wherever possible, reparations and restitution should happen...

and... this whole tendency to oppression thing is something it seems all humans on the planet have within themselves, individually and collectively... there's black on black oppression, yellow on yellow, white on white, brown on brown, 'red' on 'red' oppression... I've seen it, everywhere I've gone... In Singapore, for example, until recently it used to be white on yellow, yellow on brown and brown on brown... now that most of the whites are expat business people, not colonial rulers, it's yellow on brown, brown on brown...

and... we've been doing it since the beginning of gathering together in groups... check out the history of human interaction - conquest and colonisation - on every continent...

so, at some point, don't we have to give up on holding on to it all, because, really, aren't we ALL guilty?

I think I have just laid myself open to criticism from less privileged people, that "it's OK for you, you're white and at the top of the pyramid"... and yes, theoretically I am quite high up on that scale... My skin, gender and education get me privileges that other people might not have... AND... at the same time, poverty hurts my child as much as it does a child of any other skin colour... being an outsider, a minority anywhere is hard for any child of any colour or creed... how are we ever going to heal any of this if we don't find some commonality somewhere?

and just to prove the point, this article crossed my path today, highlighting the sad fact that this separation and bigotry is happening currently, amongst Native American people: On Card Carrying Indians and Those Indians Who Don't

 

The Oppression Of Children...

Via my friend Conny Jensen:
 

"..they cannot survive without you. It is a question of life and death!.. Instead of making them more alert, more aware, more alive, more reflective, instead of making them more mirror-like, pure, you make them full of ideas...layers and layers of dust.  And then it becomes impossible for them to see that which is.  They start seeing that which is not and they stop seeing that which is."


This is bondage. But everybody is living in bondage, because everybody who brought you up wanted to have power over you, to enjoy the mastery over you.

 

And children are the most helpless people in the world, the most exploited class.

 

It is not the proletariat who are the most exploited class, it is not women who are the most exploited class.  It is the children who are the most exploited class -- and so helpless. 

 

The proletariat can revolt -- they have revolted in Russia, in China and in other communist countries. The women all over the world are making efforts to revolt, but it is impossible to imagine how children will revolt.

They are so helplessly dependent on their parents, they cannot think of any revolt. And unless revolution happens in them all other revolutions are going to be superficial.  The basic conditioning, the basic imprisonment is created in childhood when the child is so helpless that he has to accept whatsoever conditions you put upon him just to survive." 

~Osho

 

 

Wow... extra WOW as I consider which of the two temporary housing options I should take up - have to decide THIS MORNING...

 

One keeps the boy more in his already fragile comfort zone, the other opens new doors for us both...

 

I am veering towards the second...

You Know You're Living...

... in a fascist police state when:

I said "You need a degree to get a good job", so he went into debt to go to college, while I got rid of the jobs; he protested #soipeppersprayedhim

I took his job away - sent it overseas - and then when his family lost their house, he protested, #soipeppersprayedhim

He proclaimed "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" #soipeppersprayedhim

He wanted to complain about tuition increases #soipeppersprayedhim

He hadn't had a shower in 3 days and was living in a tent, for chrissake #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "MIC CHECK!" #soipeppersprayedhim

JP Morgan Chase gave me $4.6 Million to do their bidding #soIpepperSprayedHim

They were gathered together having a teach-in #soipeppersprayedhim

They set up a library and were reading books! The nerve! #soipeppersprayedhim

Those kids were way too peaceful... #soipeppersprayedhim

They said they didn't like it when we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Riot Police but closed public schools #soipeppersprayedhim

They were chanting about corruption #soipeppersprayedhim

They were sitting on the grass with their arms linked #soipeppersprayedhim

He questioned Bernanke's ability to create money from nothing, #soipeppersprayedhim

Somebody looked at me funny #soipeppersprayedhim

I was handing out fliers to people as they walked by #soipeppersprayedhim

Someone shared an idea that was different than mine #soipeppersprayedhim

He was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask #soipeppersprayedhim

He said they wouldn't let his special ed kid go to their charter school #soipeppersprayedhim

He said it was time for the rich to share their wealth #soipeppresprayedhim

He said he wants real change in government #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "They only let white kids go to that charter school" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "My kid doesn't know how to speak English so they wouldn't let him go to their charter school" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "CEO's making 435 times the amount of the average worker is too much for one person" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "Bill Gates granted billions to charter schools, but the state cut public education budgets, closed schools", #soipeppersprayedhim

He said he works two jobs and can't pay his bills when I told him "go get a job, take a bath" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "It's the poverty, stupid" when they told him his public school was failing #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "I do my job every day, why doesn't Congress do theirs?" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "We all have a right to a free and public education" #soipeppersprayedhim

He said "You can't put an idea in jail." #soipeppersprayedhim

She was 84, he was in a wheelchair and their friend was very pregnant #soipeppersprayedhim

  

 

Occupation...

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil OBEDIENCE. 

Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their governments and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. 

Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. 

Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

~ Howard Zinn

My fellow activists in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and everywhere...

I recommend that we all put our different foci aside temporarily, and concentrate on replicating what is going on in New York right now...  in cities all over the world!

After all - everything that we are working to change, stems from the oligarchy that has its power base (in the US) divided between Wall Street and the Capitol...