Ep. 11: Against the Academy: Voices Countering the Academic Industrial Complex
In this show we hear from host Edxi Betts and our guests about their experiences within the Academic Industrial Complex and discuss the ways they navigate, disorient, and seek to abolish institutional colonial education systems.
Guests:
Bre Byrd (she/they) is a writer, performer, plant enthusiast, and PhD student in the Department of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her poetry is a deep dive into memory, grief, race, and relationships to the natural world. Their current body of work engages questions around the “Anthropocene,” apocalypse, and sustainable futures through the lens of African Diaspora, Native/Indigenous Studies, and Black Feminisms. Bre’s writing is influenced by the vision within Zapatismo un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos/a world where many worlds fit and hopes to write her way towards it.
Pilas is a street artist associated with Sin Fronteras 1312, which is a crew that can be anything from a street theatre duo to a 8 piece experimental musical ensemble. “Displaced from our own homelands due to US proxy wars and extractivist industries, we carry the responsibility of continuing the struggle against colonization, imperialism and global capitalism.”
Amrah Salomón J. PhD is a writer, artist, activist, and educator of Mexican, Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham descendant, and European ancestry. She is a co-founder of Rez Beats Indigenous youth performance project, a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice, a member of the O’odham Anti Border Collective, and her work has been published in both academic and literary publications in the United States and in Mexico.
@oodhamantiborder
@defendoodhamjewed
Cashapp: $DefendOodhamJewed
Paypal.me/DefendOodhamJewed
Venmo: @DefendOodhamJewed
Anthony Choice, host and regular contributor of Indigenous Action.
Hosts:
edxi betts is an Afro Blackfeet Indigenous trans feminine Pinay multi media insurrectionary artist & organizer. Her work entails political education while providing material support to oppressed & colonized communities. Creating art/media for the sake of propagating resistance culture, counter narrative and collective liberatory projects that spark discourse, sources of healing, critical thought, dialogue, and direct action. More info & support: www.linktr.ee/bettsurevolt
About the podcast:
Indigenous Action is an autonomous anti-colonial broadcast with unapologetic and claws-out analysis towards total liberation. We feature radical frontline Indigenous voices and dig deep into critical issues impacting our communities. So take your seat by this fire and may the bridges we burn together, light our way.
Subscribe, like, share on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Play. Check us out on the channelzeronetwork.com.
Email us at IAInfo@protonmail.com.
Indigenous Action recently supported @abolition.yumacounty (on Instagram) at the “US-Mexico” border. They are a crew of radical femme and queer folks who provide essential supplies to Indigenous people and other asylum seekers who are kept in holding with nothing but what they walked up to thousands of miles with. They also offer confidential pregnancy release support. Please $$$upport and volunteer if you’re in the “Yuma” area. Venmo: @ycabolition, Cash App: @YumaCountyAbolition
With Title 42 ending on May 11th, (a xenophobic policy that gave the government power to rapidly expel any migrant, without giving them a chance to make a case for crossing legally, including to seek asylum), Biden has made no attempt at immigration reform as he promised on the campaign trail, “I can only imagine what it’s like to see someone in your family deported. To me it’s all about family. Beginning, middle and end. That’s not going to happen in my administration. The idea you can’t even seek asylum on American soil. When did that happen? Trump. It’s wrong.”
These policies are well within Biden’s power to remedy, and yet, HE HASN’T. He’s had 2 years to prepare for the ending of Title 42 to introduce new policies that he claimed “offer hope and a safe haven to refugees.”
What we’re seeing now at the border is heinous. Shelters and detention centers at and near capacity. Hundreds of people turned away every day. Just last month, a fire at a detention center killed 40 people.
In 2022, more than 890 migrants died in border crossings, and that is only of the deaths that have been reported. To paint an even broader picture, since 2021, there have been 13,480 reports of murder, torture, kidnapping, rape and other violent attacks on migrants and asylum seekers blocked or expelled to Mexico under Title 42.
The time is now to stand up against xenophobia. Let us be free to roam and free to rage wherever we please!
Brief report back filed by anonymous.
Occupied Kinłani, May 5, 2023 — Tonight a fierce crew held a vigil and rally then took to the streets of occupied Flagstaff on the national day of awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit, and trans relatives. Family members and friends of Arielisa Bryant & Nicole Joe spoke about the injustices they had faced at the hands of law enforcement. Others shared their stories with five families speaking out about their missing or murdered relatives. Speakers connected the desecration of sacred sites as violence against the land being violence against our bodies. After a moment of silence (which was turned into a moment of rage), the group headed through the crowded streets. Intersections were held. A round dance was done. Chants echoed, “No More Stolen Sisters!” “No Justice No Peace, Fuck the Police!” and “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe!” while relatives of MMIWG2ST spoke. At one point the group stopped near where Vanessa Lee was found (2018) and created a memorial. After the action, the massive red dress banner that was carried through the streets was dropped.
This action came as U.S. Secretary of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland prepares to hold a “Not Invisible Act Commission” hearing in Flagstaff on May 9th at a so far unannounced location with little community outreach. The commission is filled with cops, judges, and politicians who seek to further colonial policing and laws over Indigenous lands. Haaland is also complicit in allowing the Willow Project to proceed which furthers resource colonial violence that is directly linked to #MMIWG2ST.
A 2017 study from the Urban Indian Health Institute found that so-called Arizona has the third-highest number of #MMIWG2ST in the country.
That study reported a total of 506 known cases in 71 urban cities across the country and 54 cases were identified in Arizona.
In memory:
Ariel Bryant, found deceased 2019 outside of Kinłani.
Vanessa Lee, found deceased 2018 in the Rio De Flag downtown Kinłani.
Nicole Joe, deceased on christmas day 2017, her ex was ultimately found guilty of second degree murder.
Loreal Tsingine, shot in 2016 five times by Winslow police officer Austin Shipley.
And all those missing and murdered relatives!
As you rest in power, we will rage!
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