The Tale Of Lilith

Eat the rich? What are the Panama Papers, and why they are important.

The Panama Papers were the leaked 115. million documents that the Panamanian-based law firm Mossack Fonseca gathered that revealed secret shell companies and bank accounts that had been established by the most wealthy politicians and celebrities to either avoid taxes, sanctions or illegal business dealings. Either way, the documents details information dating back to 1977, when the firm was founded, and was released back five years ago, in 2015.

NO. 2

The documents were released by an anonymous source through an unauthorized disclosure, and reported that the owners who belonged to several countries including the U.S, Britain, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia; the offshore companies were registered predominantly in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Bahamas, Niue, Samoa, and the Seychelles. The Panama Papers were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and it was analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists where close to 400 respective journalists, coming from over 100 news organizations from 76 countries, worked for a year to uncover that the offshore investments were associated with close to 140 politicians, or connected to their families including leaders from Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Iceland, Britain, and prominent officials in China. Both Prime Ministers Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson of Iceland and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan resigned, in 2016 and 2017. The firm in question, denied any wrongdoings in it’s handlings of the investigations, and claimed that all dealings in it’s shell companies were perfectly legal, but that didn’t stop Panama’s police to raid the firm and arrest it’s founders on chargers on money laundering, where they spent months in jail.

NO. 3

So, what does this mean? It means that the rich have too much power, especially politicians. Amongst millennials, we have this claim to ‘eat the rich’ because we understand that it’s easy to become corrupted by the very things poor people never will have. The privilege to have, buy and afford whatever you desire on a whim. There are no consequences to your actions if the average person doesn’t know what you did, or how you did it, was illegal. These people have the money and the power to fix the world, to end global hunger, to fix homelessness, and to create a better plan to combat climate change, but they decided to keep their money to themselves out of greed and the illusion of power. I, as a young millennial, had not known about the Panama Papers, and this story came out in 2015. But that doesn’t mean that nothing happened to combat it. In late 2018 the U.S Justice Department indicted several people’s associated with the schemes, billions in stolen assets were returned to their citizens, and 82 consecutive countries changed their laws to crack down on the stolen wealth hoarding the papers revealed. And it was all thanks to the journalist who led the investigation: Daphne Caruana Galizia from Malta, who had a personal blog called Running Commentary. She was murdered October 16, 2017, and her work is what laid the groundwork for the Panama Papers, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to her and the other hundreds of journalists who worked to change, and better the world.

If you are talking about the human tragedy and climate disaster impacting Hawai’i ONLY in relation to tourism or your (postponed) vacation plans . . . therein lies the problem.

Hawai'i is not an "eat, pray, love" trip nor is she a cultural theme park.

Hawai’i is a collection of communities with deep indigenous roots and ancestral identities (many queer + colorful) that American + European colonizers once attempted to eradicate.

In the present day, empire-builders and colorblind colonizers are attempting to gentrify and commodify these ancestral spaces, not to benefit the indigenous, diaspora, and immigrant folks (folx) who steward and preserve those waterways and lands, but to protect the interests and properties of billionaires on vacation

Afronaut Note: This is not a discussion about policing language or shaming folks in your neighborhood who are sharing vacation pictures or lamenting their travel plans. This is about expanding our horizons to center decolonized, ancestral, and communal spaces. Imagine if after the Japanese tsunami (2011) or Hurricane Katrina (2005), people shared vacation pictures and complained about having to cancel their graduation trips.

Original post from @seedingsovereignty

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"Our culture has to be the core of our mana." Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask (1949 – 2021)⁠

A leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement & a fearless leader.⁠

Her memory is needed during these times. ⁠

Support the People of Hawai’i

I understand, but all of the horror in the movie was because the main character had schizophrenia, 24 personalities to be precise. Trauma does terrible things to people.

isn't it insane though how schizophrenic people are viewed as violent and dangerous by the majority of society when in reality schizophrenic people are nearly 14 times more likely to be on the receiving end of violence than to be the perpetrators...

Blog #1 : my definition of being alone

I should have started this, this week, but today I feel like I should write this down. Or at least write it here so I don't feel alone. And that is my problem, I guess. Going to a small college was supposed to be a good thing for me, a way to make friends. And I did, for the first two weeks I came to Wells. But they promised we all would go out to eat, and they all drove off without me, texting me 'Sorry'. Did I mention that we all live in the same floor? As if I didn't have enough problems, today, a Thursday, November 1st, my stupid teacher, who's only job is to ease freshmen into the stages of college. Whatever that means. Anyway, he asked me, flat out in class, if 'don't you have friends?' Leaving the rest of the class to snicker and whisper just pound enough for me to hear, answer for me, 'No.' I assured my mother that I would be fine like this, but I'm not. That I'm here for my education and that's that, but that's just an excuse, and a dumb one at that. I feel like I haven't left the Bronx. Cause that's where I'm from, and if you don't have a mean face, you look vulnerable, and my face hasn't been like that in four years. The four years I've been in high school. But I don't think I've let it go. And that may be my problem, having a stone face.

I love this movie. The book was great too #perksofbeingawallflower

Why do I have to thank Thor?! I just wanna know!

Human hearts are not made of stone. Thank Thor. They can break, and heal, and beat again.

- Cressida Cowell “How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale”

You know what's wrong with this? I could totally see this happening. Like, they and all the avengers and Loki reading the books. Except Loki is with the four of them, and laughing maniacally ( EHEHEHEHE) when Steve and Tony look at Thor like this

Did You Know the Natural History Museum held human remains?!

NO. 1

Robert Peary, the famous adventurer, and explorer traveled to Greenland around 1897. There, he studied Inuit survival strategies and proved that Greenland was an island. But this isn’t about him, but about the group of Inuit descent he deceived to become famous. This is about Minik Wallace, a small boy that grew up in America because of Peary's lie.

NO. 2

Robert Peary invited the Inuit to the Natural History Museum. A group of six was chosen to go: Minik’s father, Quisk, was a renowned hunter, then the shaman Atangana (ca. 1840–1898) with her husband, renowned hunter Nuktaq (ca. 1848–1898), their adoptive daughter Aviaq (ca. 1885–1898) and the young adult Uisaakassak, the fiancé of Aviaq. The adults did not understand the purpose of the trip, but some wanted to travel. They were told that while in America, they would receive gifts, tools, and weapons. Not to mention the promise of being able to return back to Greenland after. Instead, when they arrived in September in New York, they were exploited like objects and specimens. The museum staff did not house them in a safe environment but instead made them stay in their basement. In the light of day, over 2,000 people paid for tickets to see the Inuit group. Truly, the new world was not what they expected it to be, and Peary did little to help them. Four of the group succumbed to tuberculosis, including Minik’s father, and were taken to Bellevue Hospital, and died, unfortunately, leaving Minik alone.

NO. 3

On February 17, 1898, Minimik's father passed away. Minik begged for a proper burial for his father with the traditional Inuit burial rites. The museum staff staged a fake burial, filling the coffin with stones for weight, and placing a stuffed body inside. They performed the burial for Minik’s benefit. The staff stole the body to research, and studying the dead would be impossible if their 6ft in the ground. The body of Quisuk was de-fleshed and his skeleton was sent to the Natural History Museum for display. William Wallace adopted the boy and raised him like his own son, but got fired from his job in 1901. In 1906, he found out from a newspaper that the skeleton of his father was being displayed. In Wallace’s own words, "He was coming home from school with my son Willie one snowy afternoon when he suddenly began to cry. 'My father is not in his grave,' he said, 'his bones are in the museum.' "We questioned him and found out how he had learned the truth. But after that, he was never the same boy. He became morbid and restless. Often we would see him crying, and sometimes he would not speak for days. "We did our best to cheer him up, but it was no use. His heart was broken. He had lost faith in the new people he had come among."Minik, with the support of his adopted father, urged the museum to give back the skeleton of his father.'' The museum staff denied his many requests to reclaim his father’s bones. They evaded the questions of having Inuit skeletons displayed in the gallery. Minik was never able to reclaim his father's bones.

 NO. 4

In 1909, Minik returned to Greenland as an adult, but felt more alienated there than in the U.S. Minik had forgotten his native language and had to learn how to hunt. "Why am I no longer fit to live where I was born? Not fit to live where I was kidnapped?" "Why am I an experiment there and here, and tormented since the great white pirate interfered with nature and left me a helpless orphan, young, abandoned, 10,000 miles from home? I don't think both ends and the middle of the Earth are worth the price that has been paid to almost find one pole." Minik returned to live in the states again in 1916, but caught the influenza flu. He died on October 29, 1918, and it wasn’t until 1993 did the body of Minik’s father and the remains of the others were returned to Greenland for their burial. Read Give Me My Father's Body: The Story of Minik, the New York Eskimo to honor Minik, his father, and the comminity of Polar Eskimoes.