Chris

Posted Sunday, May 19, 2024

22d

INFJ

Virgo

8

7

Defining Decolonization

How do you define "decolonization"? I feel a lot of settlers imagine mass deportations, which says a lot about how they still view the world. For me, decolonizing means de-centering outside influence and reclaiming our birthrights, including tradition. Of course, reclaiming tradition is an empty gesture if we have no control over our land and are still experiencing genocide. Treaties remain broken or totally unfulfilled. Europe, the U.S. & Canada would be bankrupted if they actually had to pay the communities they've enslaved, exploited and stolen from. Since creating an ethnostate like Israel is also problematic, we have to find a midway point. So many bells can't be unrung, like carving Mt. Rushmore as a way of defacing a sacred site-- so we have to figure out a way forward that attempts to correct myriad wrongs while also not creating some new form of injustice. People want race relations to be as simple as Black and white, but it's much more complex and nuanced than that. Native Americans were enslaved by European colonizers before Africans were brought here; free Black men from Spain owned Native Americans just like Black slaves had to accompany their Cherokee masters on the Trail of Tears. Not to mention Buffalo Soldiers getting medals for killing us and the Declaration of Independence still saying it doesn't apply to us "savages". I guess the first step to decolonization is for people to accept history and understand that our circumstances are rooted in the past. It's not really that complicated to wrap your mind around that, but it feels like if our society can't come to agreement about what romantic love is, we'll never agree on what "equality" means. (edited)