Every single week for the last 21 weeks upon #Gadigal land, there have been thousands upon thousands (sometimes easily tens of thousands) of people gathering in support of a #ceasefire in #Gaza and calling upon the Australian #Albanese government to stop supporting #Israel in its #genocide.
Every Sunday in Hyde Park at 1.30pm,* we've listened to #Aboriginal speakers, #Palestinian speakers, #Jewish speakers, politicians of various stripes (though neither of the major parties, of course, as they both remain complicit in support of the government responsible for most of the slaughter), elders who lived through the #Naqba, teenagers organising #StudentStrike4Palestine, community leaders, poets, faith leaders and more, with perhaps 75% of the speakers being women, and almost all being people of colour (most of the exceptions being MPs).
*Except when #NSWpolice has dictated otherwise, giving priority to (much smaller and only) occasional pro-Israel rallies and forcing a shift to Saturday a couple of times, under threat of #PoliceViolence.
Then we've marched (or rolled) with flags, banners, signs, drums and (loud!) voices: Arab, Aboriginal, African, Anglo, Asian and more; from those too old to walk (in wheelchairs) to those too young to walk (in strollers).
Oral #stories as #Indigenous#histories: How long can stories be passed down by word of mouth? - New research suggests that #Aboriginal#Tasmanians' oral tradition tells of geological events and astronomical conditions stretching back 12,000+ years.
I'm a disabled Indigenous queer person who exists on Jobseeker, which means almost 50% ($269/week) below the poverty line ($489/week).
After living in the same house for almost 10 years, I recently had to move as the new landlords decided to renovate so they could increase the rent.
Moving has cost me over $4000, and ended up putting me almost $2500 in debt.
I didn't get rent assistance for the first 6 weeks of living here because they lost my lease copy and they're refusing to backpay it. So I started the first 6 weeks here adding over $180 a fortnight to that debt as well.
I'm in a new house with a new landlord, and am barely able to make rent at the moment, let alone cover bills and food.
I hate asking, but please consider helping if you can - I'd be super grateful.
Another day, another unflattering portrait of a public figure, and this time, the Streisand effect is in play too. TIME magazine reports on Australia's wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart, and her attempts to get a painting of her removed from the National Gallery of Australia. The portrait by Vincent Namatjira, an Aboriginal Australian artist, is part of a series in which he uses humor and exaggerated features to portray the rich. “People don’t have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, ‘why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people? What is he trying to say?’” he said in a statement shared with TIME. The gallery, to which Rinehart is a donor, is not backing down, saying it “welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays.”
"Abolish Criminology presents critical scholarship on criminology and criminal justice ideologies and practices, alongside emerging freedom-driven visions and practices for new world formations.
The book introduces readers to a detailed history and analysis of crime as a concept and its colonizing trajectories into existence and enforcement. These significant contexts buried within peculiar academic histories and classroom practices are often overlooked or unknown outside academic and public discussions, causing the impact of racializing-gendering-sexualizing histories to extend and grow through criminology’s creation of crime, extending how the concept is weaponized and enforced through the criminal legal system. It offers written, visual, and poetic teachings from the perspectives of students, professors, imprisoned and formerly imprisoned persons, and artists. This allows readers to engage in multi-sensory, inter-disciplinary, and multi-perspective teachings on criminology’s often discussed but seldom interrogated mythologies on violence and danger, and their wide-reaching enforcements through the criminal legal system’s research, theories, agencies, and dominant cultures.
Abolish Criminology serves the needs of undergraduate and graduate students and educators in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. It will also appeal to scholars, researchers, policy makers, activists, community organizers, social movement builders, and various reading groups in the general public who are grappling with increased critical public discourse on policing and criminal legal reform or abolition."
The National Centre for #Truth and #Reconciliation and the #Aboriginal Peoples Television Network will host a 90-minute multilingual #commemoration event on #Parliament Hill Sept. 30, the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
If you're Aboriginal (actually, if you're Black, Indigenous, a Person of Colour) you might want to vote in the #referendum early.
Considering that the #VoiceToParliament question is the only thing we're voting on, it's likely that the entrance to polling places are going to be lined with racists spewing their hatred of us.
It's ok to protect yourself and go vote early to dodge them.
You'll be asked if you're eligible for early voting - just say yes. They shouldn't ask you specifics, but if they do, just tell them you're travelling on Saturday (travelling is a valid reason to vote early).
Opinion: Why the birthplace of the Western #Apache religion shouldn’t be destroyed by a #CopperMine
by Luke Goodrich
February 6, 2024·
"A federal court is poised to decide whether a #NativeAmerican#sacred site will be destroyed by a massive #copper#mine. Mining proponents claim that destroying the #SacredSite is necessary for the development of #GreenEnergy. That claim is both factually wrong and morally repugnant. And recent polling shows that the vast majority of Americans agree with what the constitution requires: #Native sacred sites deserve the same protection as all other houses of worship.
"Since before European contact, #WesternApache and other Native tribes have lived and honored their #Creator at #OakFlat, or 'Chi’chil Bildagoteel.' The site is the birthplace of Western Apache religion and the site of ancient religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else. Because of its religious and cultural significance, Oak Flat is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been protected from mining and other destructive practices for decades.
"That changed in 2014, when several members of Congress, supported by #corporate#mining#lobbyists, slipped an amendment into a must-pass defense bill authorizing the transfer of Oak Flat to a foreign-owned mining giant. That company, #ResolutionCopper, announced plans to obliterate the sacred ground by swallowing it in a mining crater nearly two miles wide and 1,100-feet deep, ending Apache religious practices forever. That was no surprise given the company’s sordid history dealing with #IndigenousPeoples. The majority owner of Resolution Copper is #RioTinto (the world’s second largest mining company), which sparked international outrage in 2020 when it destroyed a 46,000-year-old rock shelter with some of the most significant #Aboriginal artifacts in all of #Australia.
"The Apache and their allies, represented by my firm, the #BecketFundForReligiousLiberty, have been fighting in court to ensure that such an atrocity won’t repeat itself at Oak Flat. After initial court rulings against the Apache, a full panel of 11 judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reheard their appeal last spring. A decision on whether the government can execute the land transfer is expected any day.
"Resolution Copper and its backers want the public to believe that building the mine is essential for developing #renewable energy. Extracting the copper beneath Oak Flat, they say, will help to build batteries necessary for powering #ElectricVehicles and thus fight #ClimateChange. In other words, we have to destroy Oak Flat in order to save the planet.
"These claims, however, are false — and they are specifically designed to obscure the physical and cultural destruction the project would wreak on the land.
"The mine will destroy the #environment, not save it. It is undisputed that the mine will swallow the ecologically diverse landscape of Oak Flat in a massive crater, decimating the local #ecosystem. It will also leave behind approximately 1.37 billion tons of '#tailings,' or #MiningWaste, which, according to the government’s own environmental assessment, will pollute the #groundwater and scar the landscape permanently. And the mine will consume vast quantities of water at the time it is most needed by drought-stricken towns and #farmers.
"Supporters of the mine are also at odds with the majority of Americans. According to this year’s Religious Freedom Index, an annual survey conducted by Becket, 74% of Americans believe that Native sacred sites on federal land should be protected from mining projects, even when the projects are purportedly pro-jobs and pro-environment.
"That conclusion is both sensible and humane. America can transition to renewable energy without blasting the cradle of Western Apache religion into oblivion. And it should. For too long, our nation has made excuses for taking advantage of #IndigenousPeople and their land. Indeed, our nation drove the Western Apache off Oak Flat and surrounding lands in the 1800s precisely to make way for #MiningInterests. It shouldn’t repeat that #injustice again.
"It is past time to protect Indigenous sacred sites from further destruction. Basic fairness and our constitutional commitment to religious freedom require no less. And, happily, most Americans agree."
I'm a disabled Indigenous queer person who exists on Jobseeker, which means almost 50% ($269/week) below the poverty line ($489/week).
After living in the same house for almost 10 years, I have to move because the people we rent from want to renovate.
It's going to cost $3990 just to move, not including the new bond and rent for the new place, cleaning costs for the old place, and all the other incidentals.
I hate asking, but please consider helping if you can - I'd be super grateful.
Settler Reply Guys spending more time arguing about how it's not fair they're expected to do something about the referendum results.
Settlers using "we haven't been told by Aboriginal people what to do yet" as though their racism and white supremacist colonialism is our problem to fix.
Settlers pulling out the "you people" phrase in the replies.
According to the study, “The apparent absence of pottery in Australia, as noted by early and more recent European observers… both reflected and was used to support, racist social evolutionary hierarchies characterizing Aboriginal societies as lacking cultural complexity.”
In an area just 90 x 90 cm, archaeologists found 82 pottery shards that are 2,950 to 1,815 years old.