Afew days after Christmas, Mark Zuckerberg shared a series of photographs
of his family at their $100m, 700-acre property in Kauai. The Facebook
CEO and his wife “fell in love with the community and the cloudy green
mountains”, he wrote, and decided to “plant roots and join the community
ourselves”.
Two days later, Zuckerberg’s lawyers filed lawsuits against hundreds
of Hawaiians who may own an interest in small parcels within the
boundaries of Zuckerberg’s estate. The “quiet title” suits, first
reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser,
are used to clarify the often complicated history of land ownership in
Hawaii and can result in owners being forced to sell their land at
auction. In some cases, defendants are even required to pay the legal
fees of the plaintiff – in this case, the world’s fifth richest man.
Zuckerberg’s lawsuits have prompted a backlash from locals who place
the billionaire within a long, painful history of western conquest and
Native Hawaiian dispossession.
“This is the face of neocolonialism,” said Kapua Sproat, a law professor at the University of Hawaii
who is originally from Kauai. “Even though a forced sale may not
physically displace people, it’s the last nail in the coffin of
separating us from the land.”
“For us, as Native Hawaiians, the land is an ancestor. It’s a grandparent,” she added. “You just don’t sell your grandmother.”
“fell in love with the community”
proceeds to sue community with the intention of leaving them homeless
I hope his wife murders him
My grandparents are from Kauai and my grandpa wants to mow his ass down. Mark Zuckerberg is disgusting.
Afew days after Christmas, Mark Zuckerberg shared a series of photographs
of his family at their $100m, 700-acre property in Kauai. The Facebook
CEO and his wife “fell in love with the community and the cloudy green
mountains”, he wrote, and decided to “plant roots and join the community
ourselves”.
Two days later, Zuckerberg’s lawyers filed lawsuits against hundreds
of Hawaiians who may own an interest in small parcels within the
boundaries of Zuckerberg’s estate. The “quiet title” suits, first
reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser,
are used to clarify the often complicated history of land ownership in
Hawaii and can result in owners being forced to sell their land at
auction. In some cases, defendants are even required to pay the legal
fees of the plaintiff – in this case, the world’s fifth richest man.
Zuckerberg’s lawsuits have prompted a backlash from locals who place
the billionaire within a long, painful history of western conquest and
Native Hawaiian dispossession.
“This is the face of neocolonialism,” said Kapua Sproat, a law professor at the University of Hawaii
who is originally from Kauai. “Even though a forced sale may not
physically displace people, it’s the last nail in the coffin of
separating us from the land.”
“For us, as Native Hawaiians, the land is an ancestor. It’s a grandparent,” she added. “You just don’t sell your grandmother.”
“fell in love with the community”
proceeds to sue community with the intention of leaving them homeless
I hope his wife murders him
My grandparents are from Kauai and my grandpa wants to mow his ass down. Mark Zuckerberg is disgusting.
FULL STORY: Failing Canada’s First Nations Children
[video, 33 minutes and 11 seconds run time]
“Canadian kids from isolated communities forced to move away from their
families – just to go to school. For more info, please go to www.global16x9.com.”
FULL STORY: Failing Canada’s First Nations Children
[video, 33 minutes and 11 seconds run time]
“Canadian kids from isolated communities forced to move away from their
families – just to go to school. For more info, please go to www.global16x9.com.”
Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach
Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.
This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.
Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.
That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England.
Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.
Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first.
Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach
Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.
This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.
Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.
That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England.
Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.
Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first.
Celtyradfem 