Protesting Demagoguery (Nany Kayo)

This is being moved from the Further Discussion forum to here for coordination purposes.

For those of you not following what is going on in Further Discussion under the thread "Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread" a heated exchange has erupted between one person (Nany Kayo) claiming to represent all Native Americans/American Indians and just about every person of North American Aboriginal descent. The views of Nany are best summed up in the following quote from post /352/01/312352/69.html#post2365997



To counter this type of exclusionist behavior and to demonstrate to the academic community to which she has infested that Nany does not in fact represent all Tribes, I am organizing a non-disruptive protest to take place during the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference on Friday 29 March, during the Panel discussion which Nany is part of at 0930 SL Time at ISTE Island.

I encourage anyone of Native American/American Indian/Hawiian Islander descent and those interested in Native People's issues, or those who just get annoyed at being trolled in the forums by this type of behavior to join in.

The protest will be respectful, I am not seeking to be disruptive to the conference, merely to make a presence known, and to let Nany's behavior be highlighted.

If you wish to join in, please IM me in world. I will be setting up a group on Wednesday or Thursday to coordinate and will get invitations out. I will also be supplying T-Shirts for protesters to wear with the message that Nany does not speak for us.

If you wish, also think of some though provoking questions to ask the panel about how exclusionist behavior is counter productive to empowering people in virtual worlds.

I understand what is going on, I've been following the thread, but moving it here is not a good idea. You are starting a thread aimed at a specific individual, and in what can be perceived in a negative context, both against forum rules.

I can't say I approve of either this thread or the topic.

I'd protest your protest.

I don't like those posts a bit more than you do, but a staged protest seems rather childish. Instead, I'd attend the discussion and make some polite remarks from an opposing viewpoint.

Patasha,

After receiving a request this morning I have reviewed the statements made in the other forum. While Nany's comments may have been a little too direct, I do not feel that they are necessarily out of place, just simply out of context which is unfortunate.

Below I have pasted a copy of my response from the other forum. I do encourge people to participate however focusing in the individal rather than the issues is not a good way to get a point across. Personally I would say to please give Nany a fair chance to represent her opinion and if it differs from yours on the __issues__ then by all means raise a question.

Thanks,
Kevin Feenan
VWBPE General Chair
[email]ktfeenan@knomaze.com[/email]
Ph: 613 276 1911

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The forum in question is Friday at 9:30am at ISTE Island and I would ask that regardless of issues of representation brought up here that you please do not take this arguement into the Conference with the expressed purpose of disagreeing with a single individual. The forum is about Non-Profits, not who speaks for whom. While I encourage people to come by I would ask that in attending the sessions to please stay on topic.

The issue of representation is often a thorny one in that those that stand-up to be counted are the ones that typically get noticed and have control over agendas especially when others don't know about, or don't show up for, the committee meetings. All you have to do is look at your local city government to see how true this is.

I doubt however that anyone would argue that lack of representation implies consent to speak on behalf of any particular demographic, nevermind every demographic. At the same time however specific individuals are certainly more qualified to render an "expert or qualified opinion" than others when no one else is available to give voice to those who aren't fairly represented.

In the case of this panel, there are only 5 individuals representing a multitude of voices within the Non-Profit arena. It is unlikely that ANY of the individuals on the panel could be said to speak on behalf of all demographics for which they are peripherally associated. That is simply the nature of a discussion panels and how they generalize sometimes even very broad categorizations of peoples and cultures.

Nany Kayo is representing one such qualified opinion. Within the Panel, she is the “subject matter expert” as no one else on the Panel has the associated expertise in this field as she does. Does that means she speaks for every possible demographic that defines Native American Culture – of course not. As an SME in this field however her opinion carries more weight within certain topics area as she bring a unique perspective to the discussion that the other Panelist are not qualified to render.

Beyond this – people are always free to disagree with what is brought up and said by ANY of the panelists. As participants in the process - you yourselves - have multiple opportunities to raise questions at the conference, blog, twitter, plurk, facebook, youtube, stickam, hold meetings in Second Life, put comments in the discussion area on our wiki or within the SL communities forums which can expand on the pros and cons of the opinions rendered as part of the panel.

I would highly encourage people to do exactly that through __constructive__ interaction focusing on the issues rather than the individuals. Because at the end of the day – its really the issues that are going to stimulate discussion and debate, not necessarily who said them.

A little too direct? See the problem I have is Nany is actively disenfranchising any American Indian who bothers to state an opinion that does not match hers. You tell us to give her a fair chance to state her opinion. Yet she calls any Indians who disagree with her fakes, skanks, etc.. Perhaps you should read some of her posts in the other thread a little more carefully. Should you not be encouraging her as a participant of your conference to likewise give others the chance to express their views? The panel she is on is about accessibility, yet her actions again her fellow Indians shows she not interested in creating access, she's interested in self-promotion as "THE EXPERT" on all things American Indian to the point where she actively attempts to discredit any Indian with a different point of view.

The planned protest is not about shouting her down or disrupting the conference, it's to let people like you understand that she is not THE EXPERT she claims to be.

Patasha

What's being Native American got to do with Adult Content in SL?

From what I can recall, the person in question suggested that public displays of slavery be included in the definition of Adult Content, and used that connection to bemoan the treatment of Native Americans.

edit: I may have mixed up things a bit, there were a LOT of posts in the locked Adult Content threads and I'm not going back and sorting out a timeline. Slavery is what kicked things off in the current thread though.

no one speaks for me. no one. i will speak for myself, thank you very much.

you see these sort on the internet all the time, I'm X and we all believe such-n-such.
presumed validity by proxy... old, stale, and never true

last time I checked the only things the Cherokee Nation could agree completely on was 'we got screwed, and still get screwed.'

now if someone wants to claim to represent some group (and really, ALL Native American peoples? come on) then I wanna see credentials from the group (membership ain't enough) that say X person is our representative in Y matters.

otherwise it's all BS and has been accurately called.

I'm a native, and I think you're playing into into someone inflated self importance. ignore nit wits. thanks for reading.

Shes' an absolute fruitcake on that official LL Adults comment thread....insulting just about anyone around. Anyone whose into Gorean GP shouldn't venture onto that thread until she's left the building.!

You couldn't go back to the locked threads if you wanted to. The are gone.

/me is looking for forum moderators and and only encounters tumbleweed and crickets chirping.

The posts have been deleted? Come to think of it, I noticed that at least one in the current Adult Content thread had disappeared too.

I read that thread..Hate and anger will not be representing my families bloodline..
I am 100% Chiricahua Apache Blood..
I don't carry hate in my pocket and i refuse to be carried in hates pocket..
You get nowhere fast using hate and anger..
that is all i have to say about it.

I'm not a big fan of Goreans myself, but I really don't mind them as long as I'm not being dragged into their RP, outside their zone.

sure slavery is bad, but comparing historical slavery to roleplay is just silly and pointless. I'm guessing (because I can't be arsed to look) that she played the AmerInd's were slaves too, card? I really wish that would stop. it's tired, it's old and it's over. (even if it IS fun to watch someones head explode after they say something like "you wouldn't understand, my [X-generation ancestors] were slaves" and you reply with, "yeah? mine too"

Oryx.. absolutely nada, nothing, 0%. American Indian was thrown up as her shield to deflect critism about her draconian ideas of dealing with the good ol' smut some of us are happy to wallow in *looks up with an absent-minded smile as she thinks non-PG thoughts*.. not really sure where the logic was on her part about that. When other's came forward saying "ummm.. we're Indian and we like to get giggy with it." thread went into a tailspin for a day or so as the flamewar went into hyperdrive.

Things are cooling off now it seems. Actually most people who have responded have basically told me to chill the f* out. So I'm guessing my plan to conquer the world will be put on hold. But that's okay, tomorrow night I will come up with another plan for me and Pinky to try to implement.

Patasha

Yeah, LL locks valid discussion threads that they started in an effort to pretend to talk about stuff - and yet they are nowhere to be found on in this thread that is specifically calling out another person.