A Root of Racism

Shusli has been letting me in on a rather heated discussion about race and land on a forum in which she is a participant. There are a few folks who take the stand of your regular institutional racist. That stand is usually, "What about me [the white American male]?" This is an argument that comes in many forms in discussions about race and is designed to step away from any true discussion on such using alleged superior intellect of alleged civilized society. It is manipulated, twisted, and folded into whatever form best suits the situation for any person wishing not to truly discuss race and racism. (It might make them feel uncomfortable, not that those who experience racism would feel uncomfortable being of lesser value than...well...you know). The ideas that come forward in such discussions like not wanting to deal with reparations to blacks nor the fact that the U.S. is all stolen land from the Indians, is meted with intellecutual discussions legitimizing these events. This goes from left to right. Not all folks of white decent believe in the same manner as those who enjoy perpetuating such arguments. Many white folks are rather persistent in acquiring justice for Blacks and Indians, etc. However, in discussions of race, there are always those folks, usually white males, who want to bring the discussion back to them. It was best displayed in a Ward Churchill lecture at Reed College, a school I informed my daughter she will NOT be going to even if she gets a full scholarship. Ward brought up the fact that legally some 60% of the land in the U.S. belongs to the indigenous. A young white male student stood up and upon explaining his fears of deportation and other such bullshit just came out and stated plainly and openly..."WHAT ABOUT ME?" Not what about my family, friends, and all other such folks, just "WHAT ABOUT ME?" Here I will tell all you white folk and others who believe is such BS this...What about us? This young fella was dealing with his fantasy of not wanting to be treated like his folk treated us and why he has such enormous privilege that he does not want to lose (Reed is not a cheap school).

That said, I am reading a Pulitzer Prize winning book called "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum. I guess I'm reading it because of the yet unused U.S. Gulag system set up by King Dick and co-King George and definitely not discarded by the Obama administration. Because of the discussion Shusli has been having on the forum of which she is a participant, I read her this quote from the book:

"In 1912, a best-selling German book, German Thought in the World, claimed that

nothing can convince reasonable people that the preservation of a tribe of South African kaffirs is more important for the future of humanity than the expansion of the great European nations and the white race in gerneral...it is only when the indigenous people have learned to produce something of value in the service of the superior race...that they can be said to have a moral right to exist."
(from "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum, pg. xxxv of the introduction)

Sound familiar? Sound like America? Sounds like America to me? It is institutional in America. It is a basis of the framework of the founding fathers and deeply ingrained in those who benefit most from the privileges they have in this alleged nation. It also sounds like Austrailia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, and pretty much all colonized nations. The indigenous are not important to the framework of the white society unless they can produce something useful to the white society. The "extermination" (using the words of American founding father Thomas Jefferson, beloved American alleged hero) of the indigenous races of folks in America is just a natural extension of the master race, white.

Do not play the blood quantum bullshit game with me either. That is a colonizers definition of Indian. It was done that way in order to further destroy our nations here in what is currently known as the United States. The Nazi's defined "Jew" by their blood quantum, an idea, oddly enough, gained from the U.S. (as well as birth prevention programs of the Jews were gleaned from the sterilization programs of Indians in the U.S.). I am not Indian by your definition. My wife, Shusli, is not an Indian by your definition. We are Indian...PERIOD! This is our land...PERIOD! Our land is currently occupied by a brutal force which gained its power through a bloody and horrific genocide that continues to this day with a kinder and gentler hand.

If you wish to discuss these things on this post, don't come here with your "What about me?" bullshit. Let's have an honest discussion of race and racism. Don't give me your superiority light bullshit of "race is a construct of the mind and thus those of lesser races...er...I mean non-white races are really oppressing themselves..." Doesn't work here. Take that discussion to the blacks incarcerated in prisons, the Indians incarcerated on the reservations, into the self-segregated neighborhoods throughout all major cities in America.

Whaddya say? Wanna have a real discussion on race and racism?