The Haunani-Kay Trask _We are not happy Natives_ interview is online.

Posted by Drittens.

This video interview was originally released almost 25 years ago on CD-ROM; finally here it is on the internet:

www.pinkyshow.org/projectarchives/2024/2/19/haunani-kay-trask-we-are-not-happy-natives-education-and-decolonization-in-hawaii

It’s an “old” interview now, but everything Dr. Trask was fighting for in 2001 has only become even more critically important today. I sincerely hope many people will watch & read the whole thing, and allow themselves to reflect deeply on what she is saying.

We want to send a special thank you to Tim Sakamoto at in-D press for making this project possible, and also for allowing us to re-present these materials online. Kēhaulani Pu'u, Shane Pale, and Healani Sonoda - all ex-students of Haunani-Kay Trask - graciously allowed us to include their commentary. We also want to thank media revolutionaries Joan Lander and Puhipau of Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina, who gave us permission to include the footage of Haunani-Kay Trask’s January 17, 1993 sovereignty speech at ʻIolani Palace. They’ve actually helped us out many times over the years, always so much generosity and kindness.

After working on these January & February projects, I really feel like I’m ready to re-think what it is I should be doing with the last part of my life here on Earth.

Book: _Elements of Indigenous Style_ (2018, Gregory Younging)

Posted by Drittens.

I don’t usually recommend books because, well, what’s the point? It’d almost make more sense for me to make a list of which books I think people should avoid. Anyway.

It’s kind of shocking that I didn’t know this book existed until about a month ago - Elements of Indigenous Style, by Gregory Younging (1961-2019). This is part of the summary from the back cover:

“Elements of Indigenous Style offers Indigenous writers and editors - and everyone creating works about Indigenous Peoples - the first published guide to common questions and issues of style and process…”

Depending on who you are, you’re probably thinking right now, “Wow I really need that…” or maybe “Wow that sounds so boring…”

If you think you might need this book, then yes, I promise you need it even more than you already imagine. And if you think it’s probably boring, you’re going to be thrilled at how wrong you are as soon as you start reading it. It’s not only exciting because of how useful it is, it’s also fascinating because of how the author chose to present the information. It’s filled with excellent teaching. I’m learning so much about colonialism, history, epistemology, writing, and more. I send my sincere gratitude to Dr. Younging for this important treasure.

We don’t have any good bookstores around here. I had to walk almost 200 miles to get this book. Totally worth it, though.

New video: 100 Years of Planetary Caregiving

Posted by Drittens.

I just posted the new video. So far I think we have 8 videos in this series; I’ll be posting them soon. (We discuss the final version of each one as a group before they get published online.) Anyway, I hope you like it. I think this is the first video we’ve put on the internet in around 10 years? Comments are always welcome!

In other exciting news, our PINKY SHOW STORE received its first order! Thank you Pam!

Japan notes : Bunny self-narrative on schooling

Posted by Pinky.

One of the things I was doing in Japan was organizing the thousands of pages of notes that Bunny and I had written or transcribed on the subject of education. Although we had been working on our book for quite some time, much of the material has yet to be organized properly and there's even some sections that still require more thinking and clarifying. I'm confident I'll do a good job putting everything together and eventually I'm sure I'll get it published, but to be realistic now that I'm doing most everything by myself I'm guessing this is probably going to take a while. It's a big job because this book will have not just words, but also many drawings and illustrations and photos. But it will be fun to read. :-)

Anyway, in the meantime, I'm really enjoying re-reading some of Bunny's materials. I'll try to remember to post some of them here in this diary from time to time. Here’s an unedited transcription of some Bunny-talk:

"When I was young I was very violent. Basically I had this idea that I could solve any problem with some kind of violence. If someone made me upset I'd quickly find myself yelling at them. If someone looked at me funny I'd just bite or punch them. Even if, say, my tape recorder wasn't working properly, I'd just shake it hard. Obviously I wasn't getting great results from all this. So after a while I found myself thinking that there had to be a better way; the anger and violence thing wasn't working for me. This is around the same time I decided to become a teacher. For a little while I was a teacher in schools - did you know that about me? Anyway, that's what I was doing - "teaching" - until slowly I began to realize that the school system that I was a part of, is actually itself one of the most important components in the transmission of the Logic of Violence - society-wide violence, state violence, structural violence - violence on a much more massive, broader scale than anything I could've ever been able to achieve alone - as a single, violent individual so to speak. When I began to understand how schools are used for conditioning the imagination, and that I'd actually become a functionary, a tool, within this supremely violent system - and that everyday I was doing my part to actively promote control and subjugation, that's when I decided that I had to get out. I had to remove myself as a first step towards freeing my mind and body of the kind of habituated thoughts and actions that a violent civilization demands of its captives..."  ~Bunny

They shot Cous Cous for being a lion.

Posted by Kim.

Today I read a newspaper story about how at a California zoo, a lion escaped from a small cage and killed a young zoo worker who was cleaning up nearby. Apparently he killed her instantly by hitting her head with his paw, breaking her neck. I feel sorry for the young woman who died; her father told the news reporters that she loved big cats. But I also feel sorry for Cous Cous (that's what the zoo people called the lion), who was shot "after the animal couldn't be coaxed away from [the woman's] body." [ link ]

According to the BI article, this is a photograph of Cous Cous. He was 4 years old.

This is interesting: "Officials at another big cat sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Fla., told The Associated Press last year that at least 21 people, including five children, have been killed and 246 mauled by exotic cats in the United States since 1990. Over that period, 254 cats escaped and 143 were killed." [ link ] 267 people getting mauled or killed is awful. But this is also awful for all those big cats, even the ones who somehow managed to escape without getting shot. Are they still alive? What are they eating now?

Zoos as we know them should be abolished. Big cats and lots of other animals I know don't want to live in animal prisons.

People argue that zoos are educational. But lots of things are educational. I'm sure visiting a functioning slave-plantation would also have lots of "educational value.” But I don't hear lots of people saying "We should have that!"

Other people say that zoos do important work like saving endangered animals from extinction. That's great, people absolutely should do that kind of work, especially since human beings are often the reason why so many animals are extinct or barely clinging to survival in the first place. But why is a zoo such a great format for this kind of work? People think helping refugees of war or victims of famine is important too, but we don't have exhibition-style zoos for them to live in while they "receive help".  If you wanted children to think more deeply about how important it is to have love and compassion for their elders, what would be the best way to accomplish this? Would it be to make them pay money to watch a few representative old people for a few minutes getting fed or having their diapers changed?

Animals are awesome and I can understand why people like to look at us. But this isn't a good enough justification for captivity; it's just a convenient excuse for not having to come up with more imaginative solutions to problems that concern animals. And when people are unimaginative usually animals or plants or the environment are always the ones who have to suffer the biggest consequences.

f you really want to educate people to love and respect animals, there are many better ideas than zoos. Which reminds me - I also don't like animal theme-parks like Sea World, which I went to one time just to see what it was about. It was horrible, like if you paid money for the privilege of going into a prison to see what poor people are really like, behind the safety of bars. Stupid, stupid idea.