About 170 members of the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul have threatened to commit mass suicide if they are evicted from their agricultural farm, Press TV reports.

This week, a Brazilian court ordered members of the indigenous tribe to vacate the Cambar’s farm immediately, but some 100 adults and 70 children said they would kill themselves en masse before leaving the farm, a Press TV correspondent in Brazil reported on Tuesday. 

The threat was made in a letter to the Indigenous Missionary Council, in which the Indians also said they would not abide by the decision of the court. The Indians say they are not going to leave the region they call tekoha, which means ancestral cemetery.

According to the court’s decision, the Indians must leave the farm and if they do not, the National Foundation of Indians (FUNAI) will have to pay a fine of approximately $250 per day.

“We Indians have the constitutional right to occupy our land. We will continue to fight,” Guarani tribal chief Vera Popygua told Press TV.

“We demand respect. Our people have been massacred; they have killed our leaders; and that is sad and unacceptable. We are an advanced society and living in the 21st century. This cannot happen and should not happen,” he stated.

According to the Indigenous Missionary Council, the suicide rate among members of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe has risen recently, to the point where one commits suicide approximately every six days because of the stress of the threat of being evicted from their land. 

In the letter sent to the court, the indigenous group demanded that the decision be overruled, saying they would not leave the land of their ancestors under any circumstances. They also asked the court to secure their right to be buried at the location, so that even in death, they would remain in their homeland.

Carolina Bellinger of the Pro-Indigenous Council of Sao Paulo said, “The rights of indigenous people of Brazil have been under fire for a long time.”

“And despite a series of laws that were created to guarantee their rights, the reality is something else. Brazil must obey international agreements and demarcate their land. Our Congress is slow, and Indians cannot survive until it decides,” she added. 

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible is a brilliant documentary and a must-see for all people who are interested in justice, spiritual growth and community making. It features the experiences of white women and men who have worked to gain insight into what it means to challenge notions of racism and white supremacy in the United States.

_________

If you are white, I highly suggest you take an hour to watch this documentary. It’s an oldie, but a goodie, and it touches on racism 101, the pathology of white privilege and the ideology of white supremacy (from a white perspective), including bits of intersectionality. Here’s a preview:

“We were talking about friendships, and those of us who are white are frequently interested in friendships… and this Latina said to me, “When you want to be my friend, you get up, you walk across the room, shake hands, [introduce yourself], and begin a relationship. When People of Color decide that they will again try to be friends with a white person, we are crawling…”—this is what this woman said, and I’ll never forget it—“we are crawling on our knees over the broken shards of relationships where we thought we could trust someone.”

“Being raised in a nice white liberal home… you come to understand racism like a lot of white folks—as this very obvious, overt manifestation of bigotry, and you don’t see yourself perpetuating that, therefore, you separate yourself from the problem even when you’re manifesting the problem.”

“What is the legitimate role of white folks in social justice and race in related to race issues and racism? How do we find a line… I mean in a legitimate, authentic work? My initial motivation when I got this job teaching was that I wanted to teach these white kids that they were racist. That’s another stage in white identity development—you want to blame your own group. In other words, it was a way I connected with some sense of purity in myself is by rejecting my own community, which is the white community, and we see white people caught in that. I had established my “goodness” by being imbedded in a Black community, Hispanic community, Asian, Native community, and I also demonstrate my distance from whiteness by rejecting my own group.”

“I think the main place that I was stuck was that I immediately expected People of Color to accept me once I had decided I was going to do this work, so as soon as I might go to a workshop and I might be one of only a handful of white folks, and I thought, “Well, doesn’t my presence here… you know, I’m a committed white person!” and I could feel the distress from folks of Color, and I was like “Uhh, I’m here. Think of all the other [white] people who aren’t here!”

etc.

UK: Nick Griffin Encourages Vigilante Action against Gay Couple

Story From "Gay Christian" at Tumblr.com

The leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, has posted the address of a gay couple on his Twitter account with a warning that a “British justice team” would turn up to give them “a bit of drama.” 

The couple were brought to the attention of the political leader when they won damages against a hotel owner after she refused to give them a room with a double bed because it conflicted with her religious beliefs. They were awarded £3,600 in compensation after their claim of unlawful discrimination.

Mr Griffin responded to claims that his Tweets were “disgusting and he should hang his head in shame” (Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron) and that he is “an odious hypocrite” (Labour MP Chris Bryant) by Tweeting “Why don’t left & gay activists confront Muslims instead of picking on meek & forgiving Christians? Bullies are always cowards!”