It's all about the land...

the story of land ownership takes place all over the world. Looking into Hawai'i (pictured above) will reveal the same patterns many other cultures have experienced throughout the world. 

I think a lot.
Always have.
When I was a kid and jumped double-dutch on Ocean Avenue, I couldn't help but wonder what was under the concrete. Funny for a child for whom it has been said was afraid to walk on grass.  That makes sense when you realize, like many other city kids, my first life experiences took place inside a carpeted apartment.
On my way to school I would always be fascinated by the trees that lined my Brooklyn streets. The ones that ran along Midwood Avenue, following me to school. I often thought about those who were there way before me, way before the way people before me, way before the people way before them.
My family always had an interesting relationship to everything around them. As immigrants, they could see U.S. policy from a critical perspective. They witnessed the U.S.'s military presence in their country. But they were also seduced by certain aspects of this new culture. For my father, it were the artists. For my mother, it was the promise of perhaps, easily-acquired goods. In those days, things were "hard" in Trinidad, meaning quite frankly, that although they were modeling the U.S. they couldn't quite operate like the U.S. Many Trinidadians would be angered at my saying this...I'm not saying that all Trinidadians lack this awareness, but when you look at the state Trinidad is in, with its corruption and C&C (carnival and church) those who speak with reason are quickly silenced.
Like Brooklyn, those who live in Trinidad are not its true descendants. Like Brooklyn, there are inhabitants who have struggled under the system, without looking back and deciphering a pattern. There was promise of it when Eric Williams became the country's first Prime Minister, but such promise waned under the riches of oil, corruption and just plain old wanting to be like what it looks like on t.v. But unlike Brooklyn, Trinidad has (I'm not sure if this is the case anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if this has changed) there is something called squatter's rights. This means that if you own a piece of land and do not use it for a certain period of time, if someone else builds on that piece of land and lives there for a period of time, that land is then theirs. This ensures that no one is without a means of producing their own food.
Colonialism is about land. People think when they hear about colonialism, it's about something  that happened a long, long, time ago. Put it this way: when I told an 8th grade class about the ideas of imperialism and colonialism, one student added, "That sounds like integration!" Most of us on this planet have been effected by it. The thousands of young Europeans whose battle from poverty continued outside thier original borders (Who owns most of European land? Who owns most of Britain's land? The questions and answer are all there for you to look into). Who is the biggest landowner in the world?  Why is it important to own land? The people who they encountered. The land that was conquered. The people who were conquered.
With companies like Monsanto vying to control the seed, to patent food and attempt to control the world's food supply through pretense of good, I say we've been getting it all wrong. It's not about race. It's not about gender. It's not about money. It's about land. And the very sick idea that anyone could ever own it.
Here is a writer from Cowbird who is chronicalling one such fight in India. The other day it came to me. You want to know what is really going on in the world? You want to see what matters? Look at how  indigenous people, poor people, continue to be treated throughout the world. That should speak volumes.