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Date: 2025-02-07 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00000851

Social Activism
Occupy in USA ... Albuquerque

(Un)occupy Albuquerque Connects Corporate Greed to Fight for Native Land

COMMENTARY
It is very appropriate that the Occupy movement should start to identify with the fight to defend 'native lands' against 'corporate greed'.

This is an issue in parts of the United States ... but it is a huge worldwide problem that those in power have no interest in addressing, for reasons that are pretty obvious.

Modern 'rule of law' makes many obscene practices legal simply because the practices are profitable and the law-makers are part of the 1% that controls the way the laws are enacted. This has been the way of doing business for a very long time, but it needs to get changed, and those who have benefitted should be held to account in a constructive way.

About 60 years ago the United States was very noisy about the way the European colonial empires operated, and had a big role in making the case for independence for the 'colonies'. Now the United States and its 1% are very quiet about how the corporate empires have grown, and how they behave.

It is time for the way forward to take into account all of the 99%, and build a society where all the stakeholders are included in both the process of creating wealth, and benefiting from wealth creation.
Peter Burgess

(Un)occupy Albuquerque Connects Corporate Greed to Fight for Native Land

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

The 99 percent movement that’s swept the country has reached Albuquerque, New Mexico. But organizers there have decided to alter the “Occupy” name.

They are doing this out of respect for area’s indigenous communities, which have been forcibly occupied by the United States for centuries.

Instead, organizers are calling their protests “(Un)occupy Albuquerque” to connect corporate greed with the ongoing fight for indigenous land rights.

A sit-in participant in Albuquerque calling himself evergreen2 wrote a story on the DailyKos.com explaining how the term “Occupy” is not problematic terminology for indigenous communities.

“For many indigenous people, the term ‘Occupy’ is deeply problematic. For New Mexico’s indigenous people, ‘Occupy’ means five-hundred years of forced occupation of their lands, resources, cultures, power, and voices by the imperial powers of both Spain and the United States. A big chunk of the 99 percent has been served pretty well by that arrangement. A smaller chunk hasn’t.”

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On the DailyKos.com, evergreen2 writes about how they came to the decision:
Sunday afternoon, OccupyBurque spent a long, long time debating whether or not to change its name. Interestingly enough, the issue was not introduced by an indigenous New Mexican. Rather it was introduced by an international person, who said that the term “Occupy” was problematic for indigenous people of other countries who had also been “Occupied” by imperial powers.

Then a number of indigenous people of New Mexico spoke. They spoke with passion of how stung and hurt they were every time they hear the word “Occupy.” They spoke of how other indigenous people around the country also object to this term. They said over and over and over again that they want the term changed to “Decolonize.” New Mexico’s indigenous people want New Mexico and Albuquerque to be “Decolonized” and not “Occupied.” For them, their lands and people have already been Occupied, and thus what they want is for it all to be Decolonized.

As the American Independent notes:
According to the U.S. Census, 4.8 percent of Bernalillo County and 9.4 percent of New Mexicans identify as American Indian. Most likely that underestimates the proportion of New Mexicans with some connection to the Native American community: 3.7 percent of New Mexicans are of more than one race, and 47.9 percent of the state’s population is Hispanic, and both of those categories are likely to contain many people who are of at least some Native American descent.


Jorge Rivas is multimedia editor and pop culture blogger for Colorlines.com. A firm believer in the power of visual communications to inform and move people into action, Jorge uses multimedia presentations to help readers build stronger connections to stories. Jorge has covered the public housing crisis in a post-Katrina New Orleans, the effects of deportation on families, and brought live images of the President Obama's inauguration to Colorlines.com readers.

Reprinted with permission of Colorlines.com. Sign up to receive Colorlines Direct, a weekly email digest of key stories on Colorlines.com. You'll get award-winning news from our multi-racial team of writers covering hot topics and a broad range of issues from a racial justice perspective

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