Sexual violence and Conquest

[sqbr]

**Possible trigger warning!**

The discussion of rape started in this post by cerata has expanded to include the voices of WOC, GLBT people etc, since the dynamic of rape as it effects them is marginalised by the usual way these discussions go (hello intersectionality).

There's a bunch of stuff on linkspam (Posts start here, wider discussion afaict starts about 2/3 into the 2nd post) I particularly recommend On rape culture and civilisation by shewhohashope and Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, a talk by Andrea Smith on her book "Conquest" (which the library system doesn't have so this will have to do :( ) It's centered on America but definitely worth watching for non-Americans.

Here some of the specific issues she mentioned in enough detail for me to
google:

• Converted Radioactive Waste Used to Fertilize in Oklahoma
  
• Forced sterilisation in America
  
• Marshall Islands radiation exposure
  
• Boarding School Healing Project As with the Stolen Generation, huge rifts and disfunction were caused by indigenous children being stolen from their parents and raised by the state.
  
• Why WOC cannot just trust the police/Prison industrial complex to help fight sexual violence (She didn't mention this article in particular, I just had it saved)
  
• Women of colour against domestic violence Centering the fight against violence against women on WOC rather than seeing them as a secondary sidenote.
  
• Stuffed and Starved (Again, she didn't mention it specifically, but a lot of the same ideas came up)
  

Random notes:

• A movement funded and controlled by it's own constituents is not the same as a non-profit organisation controlled and funded by a foundation.
  
• "To know": has aspects of sex and violence and power. Cultural appropriation turns people into objects for consumption. Non-native people are disappeared and white people get to "inherit" their stuff.
  

Since I got intimidated by the length myself: the first ten minutes or so is introductions and a drum ceremony, the talk's about 40 mins then there's (quite interesting) Q&A for 20 mins and another drum ceremony. It's a very watchabletalk, I don't usually have the patience for this sort of thing.

Since these sorts of discussions easily get derailed and I'm really not up for the sort of heavy moderation the topic requires, comments are screened and I'd like you to think VERY carefully before replying. Specifically, I'm not interested in any criticisms of the speech from people who haven't watched it all (and am probably not going to be open to them even if you have), or anything not totally on topic. Feel free to make your own post and if you like link to it in the comments.

Comments

[rainbow]

i've not followed all your links, but thank you for linking to the boarding house project. that's a subject chris and cats were very active in years ago when the body worked and i'm really glad it's getting more attention. they knew one elderly lady who'd been taken from her family as avery little girl, beaten if she spoke her own language, and suffered rapes and other abuses at the schools, all in the name of giving her a "better life" and teaching her to "stop being a little savage". in her 70s she still suffered from it.

stuffed and starved looks intreseting; i'll have ot look for it.

i wish i had more spoons so i could try to read more of your links.

[sqbr]

My grandad was taken from his (white Canadian, but Ukrainian speaking) family and put in an orphanage and it totally messed him up, he was angry and bitter and paranoid his whole life until he got Alzheimer's and seemingly forgot it all (yay?) So whenever I hear about this sort of thing I think of my grandad, and I think about it happening to an entire people (several entire peoples) and am all angry and sad and..nng.

[rainbow]

I am so sorry your grandad went through that as well. *hugs offered*

[sqbr]

Thanks.

(nb I'm actually a bit weird about hugs, even virtual ones, but I appreciate the sentiment :))

[rainbow]

You're welcome.

(I will do my best to remember that; and that's why I *offer* them to ppl I don't know well, since that way they're so very declinable with no offense to either side, hopefully.)

[sqbr]

That's an admirable sentiment.