varied ramblings

Poverty is one of the few social ills where throwing money at the problem really does seem to work.

Watching the “The Last Battle” was not easy. Not simply because it is the telling of actual events, that are still ongoing, that were horrific in nature, but because this gross miscarriage in justice reveals the brutal extent that man’s inhumanity to man can - and has - manifested itself through the that is coloniliasm.

This fight for justice in the ways in which the victims define it lays out a fact that so many of us are aware of - colonialism never really ended, and for as long as we stay silent about our pain, or silence those who still bear the marks of this gruesome period in our history, we malignantly assist those who are responsible for this in leaving the scars of the victims forcibly open and lacing them with the salt of inhumanity and immorality.

Filmed on two continents over four years, The Last Battle traces the story of a small group of elderly Kenyans in their successful fight to win acknowledgement of the abuses suffered at the hands of the British colonial authorities at the height of the 1950s Mau Mau emergency. 

With intimate and disturbing interviews, observational footage, photographs and archive, this revelatory and compelling documentary follows the legal case in London and lays bare a history that was deliberately hidden, allowing the central protagonists to tell the world, for the first time, their stories and what happened to them.

- Kevin Kriedemann

Dominican Republic: Valuing Haitian Labor Over Lives

Ever since European haphazard “discovery” of the Americas, violence has been an integral part in the construction of identity in colonial lands. Indigenous and African peoples enslaved, murdered and abused for the greed of nations still profiting since colonization ad nauseum. This same abject subjugation thrives among Afrodescendants to discriminate against one another.

On September 23, the Constitutional Court in the Dominican Republic issued a ruling that targeted and retroactively revoked the Dominican nationality of descendants of Haitians born in the Dominican Republic since 1929, rendering them stateless. Some never have stepped foot in Haiti and may not even speak the language. The Dominican Constitution recognizes, in principle, that ‘all persons born in the territory of the Dominican Republic’ are Dominican citizens but the September ruling denies this birthright on the grounds that children of undocumented Haitians are ‘in transit,’ which normally applies only to tourists or visiting diplomats, those remaining in the country for 10 days or less. How does this apply to generations of Dominicans of Haitian-descent?

Those in power constructed this powder keg environment but will never be affected by its explosion. It is the people simply trying their best to live and survive whom suffer the most and unfortunately this scapegoating, xenophopia and anti-haitianism isn’t new. It’s been ingrained from even before Trujillo-era politics and massacre, to the most recent decades and codified in policy. No documents and proof of citizenship, means no hope to millions of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians. The 2004 Migration Law 285-04 revoked birthright (jus soli) for Dominicans of Haitian decent, 2007’s Circular 017, prohibited civil registry officers from giving anyone with “suspect” documents copies of their birth certificate, 2008’s Resolucion 12-2007 restricted access to personal identity documents and authorized civil registry officials to suspend state identification documents if they are “irregular,” 2010’s New Constitution of the Republic denied citizenship to children of nonresidents and 2013’s ruling has already brought the death of one Haitian man and the expulsion of over 200 Haitians after they turned to the police for protection for fear of targeted violence. They tragically ran straight to the aggressors.

“White Teachers VS ‘Innercity’ Students: Deception in Media Portrayal”

So I spent many hours making this video for an education class……

http://readabookson.tumblr.com/post/31681971350

Tokyo Godfathers.

This my friends, is a masterpiece of a movie. Three homeless people, A runaway teen, a alcoholic father, and an ageing trans woman, are wandering the streets on Christmas eve, when they find a baby abandoned in a dump.  They decide to care for it, while they wander around trying to find her mother, meeting several oddballs on their way.

Directed my the great Satoshi Kon, this movie is a must watch for anybody! It’s hilarious, touching, and will have you at the edge of your seat by the end of the crazy journey! 

…Aaaaannd, now it’s on Netflix! If you don’t have it, you can also watch it here: http://www.goodanime.net/tokyo-godfathers-movie