OB’s Decolonize to Liberate will be showing the film “Two Spirits,”on Friday, June 8th, at 6:00 PM.  Showing this film on the night before the annual Boston Pride march allows DTL to honor a young transgender American Indian whose life was tragically lost and also to discuss the intersection of oppressions in the context of colonialism.   http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/two-spirits/film.html.

Filmmaker Lydia Nibley explores the cultural context behind a tragic and senseless murder. Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he ‘bug-smashed a fag’. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition – the ‘nadleeh’, or ‘two-spirit’, who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits. Through telling Fred’s story, Nibley reminds us of the values that America’s indigenous peoples have long embraced.

Meetings of the Decolonize to Liberate Working Group are held at the First Parish in Cambridge, 6-8PM, easily accessible from the Harvard Square T-stop, on the corner of Mass Ave and Church St., enter through the far door on Church Street and ring the bell at the inner door for entrance.

PLEASE PASS THE WORD ON THIS EVENT!!    decolonizeboston.org

Come to the film, then attend OB’s Popular Assembly, which runs from 7:00 to 11:00 PM, at Boston Common.

Occupy Boston’s Anti-Oppression Working Group
invites you to join us to view the video documentary

RACE:  THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION

Monday May 28, 2012
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Community Church of Boston
565 Boylston Street  –  Copley Square

Let us gather, as the Occupy Boston community, and observe Memorial Day with a radically different approach!

Rather than “memorializing”, let us gather to unleash ourselves from our collective historical amnesia.  As we watch sections of the documentary, “Race:  The Power of An Illusion”, we can learn about and reflect on the underlying social, economic, and political strategies that built an entrenched system of racism and classism in this country.

Together, we can grow to better grasp and understand the deliberate and intentional actions that have been taken over the years … actions that grew from and reinforced beliefs of white supremacy and privilege … actions that, to this day,  disproportionately channel advantages and opportunities to white people.

 Let us gather, as a community, to recognize and honor the cost that racism has extracted from this country since the first moments that white colonizers claimed a land that wasn’t theirs.

Let us strive together to shift the conversations and organizing that we engage in to build a more just and equitable society that has an “up-front”, authentic awareness and commitment to dismantling racism in our own movement and beyond.

On Thursday, May 24^th, a delegation from Boston, including members of SEIU Local 615, Boston University students and Occupy Boston activists, will be traveling to NYC in search of Richard Cohen, CEO of Capital Properties and Board Trustee of Boston University.

Why? Because Capital Properties owns and manages the Park Square Building at 31 St. James Street in the Back Bay of Boston, and on May 11^th, executed its decision to displace a union cleaning company with a non-union one, effectively laying off 20 union workers, many of whom had worked at the building, for over 10 years.

The group will be leaving from SEIU, 26 West Street, at 8:00 AM, Thursday morning. From there it will travel to Capital Properties headquarters, located at 111 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, and then to Richard Cohen’s house. It will return to Boston by 10 PM.

For those staying home, come rally at 31 St. James Street (by Arlington Street T), at 4:00, in support of the janitors.

For more information contact bkuss@seiu615.org  414.429.8512, or dlamoso@occupyboston.org