Anna Shireman-Grabowski semi-professional assclown extra-ordinaire
A 2,977 flag memorial was ripped out of the ground in front of Mead Memorial Chapel shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11 by a group of five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site.
The flags — meant to commemorate each of the 2,977 lives taken in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — have been posted in the grass between Mead Chapel and the Davis Family Library annually in a joint effort between the College Republicans and Democrats for nearly 10 years.
Ben Kinney ’15, president of the College Republicans, spent two hours putting the flags outside of Mead Chapel on Tuesday night, and happened to be walking up the hill towards the chapel when he saw four females and one male stuffing the miniature flags into black trash bags.
“I got there just as they were taking the very last of them out of the ground and putting them in piles,” he said. “At first, I the group was comprised of College Democrats helping put the flags away before the rain rolled in, but then I realized what they were doing.”
Now the idiot chick has come forward to defend her actions. H/t Jeff Wilkinson (Corrected link)
Today I, along with a group of non-Middlebury students, helped remove around 3,000 American flags from the grass by Mead Chapel. While I was not the only one engaged in this action and the decision was not solely mine, I am the one who will see you in the dining halls and in the classroom, and I want to take accountability for the hurt you may be feeling while clarifying the motivations for this action.
My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power. Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism….
Today I chose to act in solidarity with my friend, an Indigenous woman and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who was appalled to see the burial grounds of another Indigenous nation desecrated by piercing the ground that their remains lay beneath. I understand that this action is confusing and painful for many in my community. I don’t pretend to know if every action I take is right or justified—this process is multi-layered and nuanced. I do know that colonialism has been—and continues to be—a real and destructive force in the world that we live in. And for me, to honor life is to support those who struggle against it.
Read the rest of her nonsense over at the link. But dear God is this woman dumb. Her response to Colonialism is to piss off people honoring their own cherished dead? How on Earth does that make sense?
UPDATE: Same link, the President of the University is not a happy warrior….
We live in an academic community that fosters and encourages debate and discussion of difficult issues. It is also a community that requires of all a degree of respect and civility that was seriously undermined and compromised by this selfish act of protest.
Like many of you, I was deeply disturbed by the insensitivity of this act. Destruction of property and interfering with the rights of others to express themselves violates the standards of our community. The College has begun a disciplinary investigation of this incident.
Category: Politics
I like this simple statement from one commenter:
‘Liberal activists are the bane of western civilization’.
Amen to that.
Typical retarded college student. Although, I was at a September 11th event at George Mason University, and the students were nothing but gracious, thankful, and decent
So somebody carries “the pain of genocide and colonialism” because their tribe lost the war against the BRITISH 200 years before they were born?
Well hell, in that case Will & Kate better come knocking on my door, hat in hand, with apologies and reparations for abuses committed against my Irish ancestors! So when can I expect that? Are you gonna hold a protest on my behalf in London? Oh, right, I forgot. I’m a white American, therefore whatever happened to my ancestors doesn’t count, but I need to atone for what happened to somebody else’s ancestors, because they have darker skin than me. Never mind the fact that my ancestors were completely unconnected to whatever happened to theirs.
If your grandparents were Holocaust survivors, or (like my wife) your family came here as refugees from Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge (communist colonialism at its finest), then maybe i could see your “carry the pain” argument. Explain to me how you carry that “pain of genocide” when the last person who actually experienced it firsthand died of old age long before your parents were born, especially now that you’re pursuing your higher education at a college I can’t afford.
This dumb bitch and her friend with the professional victim complex can kiss my entire ass.
How’s about shipping this fool to LA? She could protest the 9-11 Memorial in Lafayette.
I wonder if her oppressed “friend” is a fellow student at the school. If she is, holy shit! This place costs most of my annual salary to attend.
Sooo, with my Russian/Polak/German/Brit mongrel mix, I seem to owe reparations to myself, with the Polak double dipping from the German/Russian parts, and the Brit getting some German cash, twice.
It’s all so clear now, pay up motherf*ckers!
@56 I hope you are not bisexual as that could further complicate things. NTTAWWT.
Don’t you racist bastards know that war, slavery and rape never existed in the Americas until you damn Europeans came here?
All the Natives danced with Buffalos, only ate nuts and berries and farted potpouri.
We don’t want the Irish!!
@59 ‘Scuse me while I whip this out!
Stories like this have always made me wonder if people haven’t ever actually read up on what a serf really was. Mind you.. my ancestors were either knighted or pirates so we obviously decided to just take things rather than deal with the BS of it all.
So more idiocy, this time an attempted justification by the “offended native American” Amanda Lickers… |
Who obviously needs some classes in English Composition.
http://climate-connections.org/2013/09/12/vermont-protestors-remove-american-flags-at-911-memorial-in-act-of-solidarity/
At the local public high school, just outside the main entrance, is a flag pole. Atop it is Old Glory. Each year, at the base of the pole, a prayer is posted and students are invite to go outside and join in prayer. They are solemn and respectful and, to date, no one has complained. I just wanted to let you know that that these types of things still occur in our nation.
rb325th, what the FUCK did I just read…I know it was written in English, but the words made no sense.
Amanda Lickers…Window Lickers…same-same.
ANNA,WHAT A FOOL YOU ARE. AS A CREEK INDIAN,ALL INDIANS WERE HERE FIRST, BUT PEOPLE LIKE YOU WANT TO GIVE THE LAND BACK TO THE MEXICANS WHO CAME WAY AFTER US AND THEIR ANCESTORS, THE SPANISH BROUGHT THE FIRST BLACK SLAVES AND TRIED TO KILL OFF MORE INDIANS THAN OTHERS. NOW, YOU TALK OF TAKING LAND BY IMPERIALISM, GO TO EUROPE,ASIA,ETC AND TELL THEM TO GIVE THE LAND BACK TO OTHERS AS THEY WERE IMPERIALIST.MY UNCLES,GRANDPARENTS,DAD AND MOM WERE ALL IN THE US MILITARY AND FOUGHT FOR THIS LAND AND ARE HONORED AS REDSTICKS. WE ARE PROUD OF THIS LAND. YOU ARE LIKE THE PRINCIPLE OF OUR SCHOOL WHO TOLD MY NEIGHBOR,WHEN HER CHILDREN WERE MISTREATED BY BLACKS,THAT NOW YOU KNOW WHAT WE HAVE HAD TO FACE BY WHITES. SHE LOOKED AND SAID, WE CAME FROM SWEDEN 11 YEARS AGO AND NEVER DID ANY BLACK WRONG. YOU ARE PLACING SINS ON PEOPLE NOT BORN WHEN THESE THINGS HAPPENED,ANNA.
The fact that this act was perpetrated by a different indigenous person and “friends” that are not a member of the Abenaki tribe and without their consent shows that this was a shock protest and had nothing to do with the stated reasons. As Anna Shireman-Grabowski wrote in her “explanation”:
“Today I chose to act in solidarity with my friend, an Indigenous woman and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who was appalled to see the burial grounds of another Indigenous nation desecrated by piercing the ground that their remains lay beneath.”
Before Ms. Lickers and Ms. Shireman-Grabowski protest based on “their” outrage, thy should have at least talked to the tribe that they supposedly perpetrated the protest act.
@Olson Johnson we don’t want the Swedish/nordic
Yup. She’s a dumbass all right. 60K/year wasted proves that you can’t cure stupid.
ABENAKI RESPONSE
Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, called the vandalism “disgusting,” and believes the protestors were acting to promote their own political beliefs.
“We didn’t know anything about this and if we had we certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned it,” Stevens said.
He said that Abenakis do not publicize the locations of their burial sites in order to protect them, and that he has no knowledge of any such sites on the Middlebury campus. Stevens said that even if the site of the memorial had been a burial site, the American flags placed in the earth would not have been a desecration.
“Our burial sites honor our warriors and their bravery,” Stevens said. “Putting flags in the earth to honor bravery would not be disrespectful.”
Stevens served in the U.S. Army; his father fought in Korea and his son served in Iraq as a member of the National Guard.
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