Richard Oakes, born on this day in 1942, was a Mohawk indigenous activist and leader within the Red Power movement, playing a prominent role in the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island from 1969 - 1971.
Oakes promoted Native American studies in university curricula and is credited for helping to change U.S. federal government "Termination" policies (policies regarding assimilation of indigenous people into the culture of the colonizer) of Native American peoples and culture.
In 1969, Oakes led a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island with LaNada Means, approximately 50 California State University students, and 37 others. On January 5th, 1970, Oakes' 12-year-old daughter, Yvonne, fell to her death from concrete steps. After her funeral, Oakes left the island.
In 1972, Oakes was shot and killed in Sonoma, California, by Michael Morgan, a YMCA camp manager. Allegedly, Oakes violently confronted Morgan, and Morgan responded by drawing a handgun and fatally shooting Oakes.
Oakes was unarmed when he was shot. Morgan claimed he acted in self-defense, and was acquitted on charges of voluntary manslaughter.
"We do not fear your threat to charge us with crimes on our land. We and all other oppressed peoples would welcome spectacle of proof before the world of your title by genocide. Nevertheless, we seek peace."
Richard Oakes
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Hot take: i dont think arts should be a job but while were in capitalism we should do whatever to not work for evil corp or body destroying labor.
In socialism. It still wouodnt be a job but people would have enough free time to pursue art to the point where it doesnt matter if you get paid or not. Id like to imagine all the people working for evil corp or doing other useless labor would be used to fix the broken planet.
All time under communism will be free time
Prolly not but itll be much more lopsided to good things
As someone who mostly agrees but sits on the "arts should be a job" side, I can't help but point out the amount of time and dedication some of the arts take. I do think also that without the looming terror of surrendering yourself to the capitalist machine, there would be fewer people as immediately interested in an arts career tbh. Those people who have the monomania to do art for a job are not after the same things as the person who would keep art to their free time.
I think time and dedication art making will be drastically reduced as most people will be doing it when theyre very young, most people will be able to art much more proficiently earlier on.
Im not sure if i follow the rest of the argument/idea
I'm not sure if I buy the idea that if skill and efficiency goes up, time spent on art will go down. Some people are out there doing art because it's simply the only thing they do. A general increase in art proficiency will, I think, result only in the quality of art going up, but that's good thing on its own.
The rest of the argument was just a way of saying that my guess is that if the number of prospective artists went down, it would be because doing art would no longer be viewed as a way to escape from the grinding misery of most wage labor.
Oh yea i agree i think, i think alot of art will just subsume into being a normal human being and being solely just an artist wont make sense to many people.
Maybe being solely an artist will be looked down upon in a communist society
That is funny to imagine, even if it would be a bit harsh. But at the same time, while I'm pretty naive about such things, I can't help but wonder if the opposite might happen. In a truly, best-of-all-worlds communist future, I feel like properly deployed automation could lead to less work overall for everyone, with art and the furthering of it across communities becoming what people fill a lot of their time with.