"Academia is a site of resistance, not liberation" w/ Mohamed Abdou 

This man is the true essence of an educator. I wish he was my professor!

This was so deeply enriching and heartening, thank you so much Alhamdulillah

I have lived in five american cities. In each one at some time a mostly black neighborhood was cleared or razed by a collaboration between the largest university, developers, the police, and city government. In other places this has been achieved simply with money and corruption. In one the chain of events led to the aerial bombardment of a residential neighborhood. Universities are no engines of uplift, tho good people may do good things within them. The rest of us have been familiar with their violence forever. I am of course happy to share any details with anyone. Five cities. Philadelphia, Athens Ohio, Charlottesville, Ann Arbor, and Dallas.

I needed to hear his message today.

Thank you, Dr. Abdou. ❤

With what he talks about, he reminded me of The crisis was sparked by the proposed expansion of a golf course and the development of townhouses on disputed land in Kanesatake that included a Kanyen'kehà:ka burial ground. Tensions were high, particularly after the death of Corporal Marcel Lemay, a Sûreté du Québec police officer. Eventually, the army was called in and the protest ended.The Kanesatake Resistance, also known as the Oka Crisis or the Mohawk Resistance at Kanesatake, was a 78-day standoff (11 July-26 September 1990) between Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) protesters, Quebec police, the RCMP and the Canadian Army. It took place in the community of Kanesatake, near the Town of Oka, on the north shore of Montreal.There was a long history behind the crisis at Oka. The Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) had been pressing for recognition of their right to the land since 1761. Almost immediately after Britain conquered New France, the Mohawks of Kanesatake wrote to government officials in Britain. They described living under unfavourable rules that threatened their livelihood. They contested their right to the land and asked to be freed from the authority of the Sulpicians, a Roman Catholic order that had been granted the land by King Louis XV in 1717. The Sulpicians had also begun selling the land to White settlers. The British ignored these demands.The Kanyen'kehà:ka continued to contest their right to the land over the next 150 years; each attempt was rejected. In 1851, they petitioned Lord Elgin, governor general of Canada, asking him to recognize their right to the land. The request was denied. In 1859, the Province of Canada gave the Sulpicians official title to the land. In 1868, the government of the new Dominion of Canada denied that the Kanyen'kehà:ka original land grant reserved land specifically for them. The federal government later classified Kanesatake as an “interim land base” and not a reserve. It therefore was not covered under the Indian Act. ( See also Indigenous Land Claims.) What happened in Canada, Can happen elsewhere. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/oka-crisis

My brother teaches at Columbia. As far as I am concerned he works for Blackrock and the IDF. I would wonder every day why his name, his face, is completely absent from forums such as these... but I know why. The money, the second home, the basic alignment of liberal values with militarist, racist, corporate values, all of which he would angrily deny. But at a certain point... I don't talk to the residue of my family anymore because they are just part of this, through and through, and I have seen the cognitive dissonance and self delusion from the inside. Done with it spiritually and intellectually, no escaping it politically, it is everywhere as your guest so thoroughly elucidates.

These outspoken people are essential to remaining parts of a sane society.

Last comment i promise. I just have to say thank you. I have been talking this stuff all over the place, with other activists, every time it is relevant. We have to see the big colonial picture and understand that if we want liberation, then we want BIG changes around land and property, not liberal socialist bandaids.

Thank you Jen & Nick for this extraordinary teach-in. All my love and respect to Dr. Abdou from Cairo, Egypt. Very proud of him and going to read his work. Learning is always the first step. With great teachers who learn from their students too, everything is possible.

"...because people in power, are archetypes of animosity," is, accurate, memorable, and alliterative, twice. Thank you, Dr. Abdou.

I have some weird, convoluted feekings, about Saul Williams, making a feature-length film, about hand-mining toxic minerals, in the DRC (Neptune Frost), while using modern digital equipment, having purchased, watched, and commented on it, on my own mined-mineral-containing device. I happened to see Saul Williams, speak, and deliver some slam poetry, at Parrish Auditorium, in 2009, having read the event published in a newspaper, on break from working in a dish room. A social work student, asked him to perform Amethyst Rocks, and he said "No." After the event, waiting for my Mommy or Daddy to get me, I overheard Mr. Williams, asking about where to find a lical vegan restaurant. Of course, in 2009, that would not have been Hamilton. So, it sounded like he was headed to Clifton. I suppose, I am simyltaneoysly cursed and blessed by having daily-inter-city travel, and global travel,off the table for me, in early life,except for occasional family inter-state, or, once, to Canada. in 1997, off the table. So, going to Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, or Northern Kentucky, is a big deal, when it happens, and I appreciate ir, but, also, the perceptions that result from mostly being in Butler County, might result, in unecessarily maladaptive attitides. When the closest a band I actually like, and can afford to see, is in Columbus, or Michigan, that's saying something. About personal choice and responsibility, petsonal taste,and structures. I wouldn't like, what I like, without some values, however, some if it is identity politics, virtue-signalling, sour grapes, Catch-22, etc.

Also, first comment thought of, last comment made: Morrill Act, sounds like Morlock. I woke up one morning, in Dec 2023, literally the day of, or the day before, the Dakota mass-hanging, that took place, after Lincoln pardoned some, commuted 1 or 2, and hanged the other 38, because, of raiding activity, that took place,, becase a businessman lied, about delivering food, after people ceded their land,and communities were starving. 1862. Same year, as the Morrill Act. I don't know, about any possible truth about involvement in sexual violence, and killing unarmed people. It's like, Marie Antoinette, probably never really said "Let them eat cake." However, that businessman, I give the benefit of the doubt, did say, "Let them eat grass."

On the subject of growing Za'atar, as mentioned early on, in the video I have been wondering, if any Sumac species native to, or otherwise capable of existing in balance SW Ohio ecosystems, have berries good for using as a spice. I know, generally, sumac is supposed to grow around here. Also, I am not sure how unsuited Osage oranges really are, for human consumption. However, maybe there is sane way, to make Jakfruit cold hardy, or, grow it in indoors, controlled conditions, when are where possible. Mulberry; Osage orange/Bois d'arc/Bodack; Breadfruit, and Jackfruit, are all family Moraceae, if I spelled that right. I have a joOn the subject of growing Zatar, as mentioned early on, in the video I have been wondering, if any Sumac species native to, or otherwise capable of existing in balance SW Ohio ecosystems, have berries good for using as a spice. I know, generally, sumac is supposed to grow around here. Also, I am not sure how unsuited Osage oranges really are, for human consumption. However, maybe there is sane way, to make Jakfruit cold hardy, or, grow it in indoors, controlled conditions, when are where possible. Mulberry; Osage orange/Bois d'arc/Bodack; Breadfruit; and Jackfruit, are all family Moraceae, if I spelled that right. I have a joke, about Sans Arc, and a potential for generosity to turn into a tragedy of the commons. Not sure how to word it, so it's actually funny. Just being pretentious, at this point. My grandmother, Idola, or Dodie Burch, born Idola Cecil, in Kentucky, moved to Hamilton. OH, and married a man, serving in the US Navy, in WWII, who was from a tobacco farm, in Owsley County, KY. He died, in 1977, so I never met him. She bought bushels, of apples, and peaches, and pecans, when I was a kid. I don't know from where. She told me, about making Hominy corn, in an oil drum over a fire. Hominy, is nixtamaluzed wholw-grain corn, and can be stored wet, canned,or dried. Probably, a good number of stones, in campsites, where corn has been a human food, have dips eroded in, from people traveling, with dried whole grains, and grinding it at camp, as needed. I live by the exact same. CSX train tracks, I spent almost my first 5 years of life, in the cape cod my paternal grandparents moved to, after their two oldest moved out, when my parents lived wirh her. Then, we moved to our own house, for just our nuclear family, including my little sister, closer Lincoln Elementary, than Fillmoore, on the West Side, and closer to the Miami River. My gransma retired into a house right by the same tracks, on the other side, whete Highland and Armo (not to be confused with Armco) intersect made a sun room addition, and an old-person-accessible bath tub, behind the (small, small as an apartment kitchen, strangely) kitchen, which used to look out into the back yard. Those tracks, now torn up, now going to be a bike and pedestrian trail, cross over Highland Ave. In Middletown, they cross over Charles Street, between where Tytus Ave, and Reinartz Blvd, instersect Charles St. I wonder, about soil contamainstion, toxic chemicals, heavy metals, that close to train tracks. I didn't learn much farming technique, from, Grandma Dodie, however, I did get the what is now marketed as "neuroaesthetic," tactile experience, of getting to help harvest, and snap and pull strings out of greeen beans, with her. I wonder, some, if pollutants contributed to her Alzheimer's. She ate some Standard American Diet SAD foods, e.g., breaded Gorton's breaded frozen fish sticks, and, sweetened reduced-fat cow's milk yogurt. Yet, on a daily basis, she seemed to eat such a plant-centered, significantly whole food diet, it's just one of those things. Regarding growing food in-ground in Ohio, is is offered, to mail in a combined sample of soil cores,to test, the basic cost is $25. If contaminants are found, the EPA is supposed to help clean it up. I am most likely going to container garden, in my own space, and volunteer, and eventually work at places that do in-ground growing.

Ohio University in Athens OH is a good example of land grant theft as the basis for a university town.

thank you for this. that said, that one selective view of islam. it's like saying christianity is all about love and forgiveness...

Is north African arab states, iraq, syria, levant colonial settler societies too? I mean, after 7-8 century arab conquests))) You see, it works in both ways.

Anyone can google lands conquered by Islam.

talk about cultural appropriation...Abdu, stop culturally appropriating Judaism.

First of all, The crusaders were the liberators of the Christian people that ware colonized by the Islamic Khalifate