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Colonialism

We Can’t Confront Fascism Without Addressing White Settler Colonialism

August 19, 2018 Jen Deerinwater, In These Times. , ,
The white supremacists didn't come to Washington, D.C. on August 12. They were already here, occupying the White House, capitol, Supreme Court and federal agencies. The white invasion brought white supremacy to Turtle Island, and people indigenous to this land have been suffering from it for more than 500 years. Washington, D.C. is the colonizer's capital—and the scourge of settler colonialism, and the racism and other ills it brought here, haven't been addressed by those in power. On August 12, 2017, white supremacist Jason Kessler's “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent and left many injured and one anti-racist activist, Heather Heyer, dead.

Agroecology In Puerto Rico: Building Alternatives To Colonialism And Capitalism

August 6, 2018 Staff, Resumen-english.org , , , ,
Jesef Reyes Morales: The movement is composed of different collectives that carry out regional work in the island. Collectives of agroecological agriculture, community processes, educational work, artistic initiatives – all these have been brought together under the Movimiento de Agroecología Popular. It was founded about five years ago and is quite a young movement. Our objective, in addition to taking forward initiatives for agroecological production, is to help in the process of the empowerment of our peasantry. They are a sector of society where we can see a lot of cultural resistance but it is still dispersed in other aspects. So currently, it is not a politically organized sector of society but it should be. We see agroecology as resistance in our territories with respect to our seeds and our culture.

[Act Out! 168] – Crushing Colonialism: A Conversation With Jen Deerinwater

July 12, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Act Out ,
Colonialism didn't just happen. It's still happening. Indigenous peoples weren't just here hundreds of years ago. They're still here. Jen Deerinwater joins us to discuss the colonial paradigm and how folks in the US perpetuate anti-native behaviors. As a two-spirit indigenous organizer and journalist, her unique insight and experience offers a decolonizing lens in a steadfastly colonized country. From meaningfully including native voices in our work to reading up on the histories and cultures of the peoples whose land we live on, we can decolonize and ultimately crush colonialism.

The Texas Counter-Revolution Of 1836

July 10, 2018 By Richard D. Vogel, Mronline.org , , , ,
Leaders on both the Anglo and the Mexican sides of the conflict in northern Mexico knew that the future of slavery was the issue at hand. Stephen F. Austin, the Missouri expatriate who arranged for Anglo immigration to Mexico in 1821, encouraged migration from the U.S. with generous land grants for heads of households, their wives, and children. Simultaneously he, himself a slave owner, promoted the extension of slavery from the southern U.S. into Coahuila y Tejas by granting 80 additional acres for every slave that immigrants brought with them.

Cherokee Nation Hosts Send-Off For ‘Remember The Removal’ Bike Riders

May 28, 2018 Levi Rickert, Native News Online. , ,
Tahlequah, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation will host a send-off ceremony for the nine young Cherokee cyclists who leave Tahlequah on Tuesday for the 2018 Remember the Removal Bike Ride. This year’s cyclists range in age from 18 to 24. They will meet eight cyclists from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina for a ride that begins in New Echota, Georgia, on June 3, and concludes around 950 miles later in Tahlequah on June 21. Cyclists follow the Northern Route of the Trail of Tears, spanning Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, to retrace the path of their ancestors.

The Apocalypse Of Settler Colonialism

April 10, 2018 By Gerald Horne, Monthlyreview.org , ,
The years between 1603 and 1714 were perhaps the most decisive in English history. At the onset of the seventeenth century, the sceptered isle was a second-class power, but the Great Britain that emerged by the beginning of the eighteenth century was, in many ways, the planet’s reigning superpower.1 It then passed the baton to its revolting spawn, the United States, which has carried global dominance into the present century.2 There are many reasons for this stunning turnabout. Yet any explanation that elides slavery, colonialism, and the shards of an emerging capitalism, along with their handmaiden—white supremacy—is deficient in explanatory power. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries nearly 13 million Africans were brutally snatched from their homelands, enslaved, and forced to toil for the greater good of European and Euro-American powers, London not least.

Six Months After Hurricane, Puerto Ricans Are Still Without Light

March 26, 2018 EL Jennings-Maldonado, We Act Radio. , , ,
Yabucoa is a municipality located in the southeastern part of Puerto Rico. On Wednesday September 20th, 2017 at 2 AM, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. Now, six months later, only 35 percent of Yabucoa has access to some form of power, which is provided by generators. Of this 35 percent, it is mostly comprised of municipality buildings (i.e. grocery stores, hospitals and local businesses), and the very few families who can afford a generator. A generator is used to run household utilities such as a few lights, a refrigerator (a place where medicine & food is stored), as well, if fortunate enough, a washer and dryer.

Western Sahara Calls For Independence In Historic Symbolic Referendum

March 9, 2018 Matt Meyer, Wagingnonviolence.org , ,
Early mornings in the desert are usually dry, dusty and warm — in the summer, sometimes excruciatingly hot. There was a bit of a wind on the morning of Feb. 26, one that carried a certain sense of foreboding: a nasty sirocco, or sandstorm, was apparently on its way. Still, there was also an anxious anticipation, as an historic resistance action was about to take place. On the eve of the 42nd declaration of a still-unrecognized Sahwari Arab Democratic Republic, and after 136 years of Spanish colonialism and Moroccan occupation, people from all walks and areas of Western Saharan life were about to assert themselves as a united people by voting in a symbolic but highly representative referendum for full independence as a nation. The people of Western Sahara were not waiting for colonialists, neo-colonists, or an unresponsive global community to grant them what they are in the business of building for themselves.

U.S. Commits “Acts of War” Against The Hawaiian Kingdom

January 23, 2018 Staff, HawaiianKingdom.org , , ,
President Cleveland ascertained that this “military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of the Queen, which at that time was undisputed and was both the de facto and the de jure government.

Colonial Rule Of Hawaii For 125 Years Puts Hawaii At Risk

January 23, 2018 By Andrea Freeman, TheConversation.com , , ,
The effects of a political overthrow that happened 125 years ago in Hawaii could not have been felt more vividly this month. The fear and distress that cast a shadow over the Hawaiian islands on Saturday morning during a false missile alert is part of the legacy of American occupation. And yet, resistance is as strong as ever. On the anniversary of Queen Liliukalani’s forced abdication, thousands march in peace to protest the illegal overthrow, honour the Hawaiian monarchs and celebrate Hawaiian culture and traditions.

7 Acts Of Native Resistance They Don’t Teach In School

January 11, 2018 Halee Kirkwood, Yesmagazine.org , ,
The history of people indigenous to the North American continent is often glossed over in education. We are badgered with the legend of Native benevolence to the pilgrims who landed on the East Coast on Thanksgiving. If indigenous history is covered, students are likely to hear a tragic but vague narrative of massacre, disease, and death, a narrative devoid of the specific political and tribal context that is vital to understanding the colonial and imperial relationship between Native communities and the U.S. This renders indigenous bodies invisible. This also contributes to the concealment of contemporary indigenous rights movements, some of which are happening right now. It is essential that we acknowledge the physical, economic, and psychological trauma that U.S. colonialism has inflicted on indigenous communities.

Thanksgiving a Celebration of White Barbarity

November 23, 2017 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com , ,
By Glen Ford for The Black Commentator - Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders” as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year – a pure glorification of racist barbarity. We at are thankful that the day grows nearer when the almost four centuries-old abomination will be deprived of its reason for being: white supremacy.

The Thanksgiving Myth Hides The Original Sin

November 22, 2017 Cliff DuRand, www.globaljusticecenter.org , , ,
By Cliff DuRand for the Center for Global Justice. As the founding myth of our nation, Thanksgiving conceals from view the ambiguous legacy of the country. Barack Obama has called slavery our original sin. But the historical fact is that slavery was our second sin. The original one was the taking of this continent and the near annihilation of its original inhabitants. The Thanksgiving Myth covers this over with a story of brotherhood and generosity. It induces a historical amnesia. Where does this iconoclastic look at Thanksgiving leave us? Was Henry Ford, right? Is history bunk? I have spoken of the Thanksgiving myth. What do I mean by calling it a myth? A myth is a made-up story, an invented narrative often hung on a few selected historical pegs. Certainly, any truthful history of our nation would have to highlight the reality of the theft of the continent from its original inhabitants and the genocide against them. After all, the settlers were colonists, convinced of their divine destiny. They did not win the land by brotherly love. We’re talking about colonialism.

Biocapitalism, Corporate Colonialism And Education Policy

November 14, 2017 Staff, educationalchemy.com , , ,
By Staff of Education Alchemy - In the last few years a lot of debate has been had over promise and perils of ESSA. Many education advocates argued we must embrace ESSA because it promised to reduce federal choke hold of high stakes standardized testing that was wielded starting with NCLB and ramped up further under Race to the Top. The promise of EESA seemed too good to be true. Why would the same people who devoted decades to dismantling public schools, creating avenues for defacto segregation, and privatizing a public system suddenly want to turn around and “do the right thing?” ESSA authors (Lamar Alexander) claimed that testing would take a “back seat” And it has. The argument in support of ESSA was “to restore responsibility to state and local leaders what to do about educational decisions. If a state decides to move away from Common Core, they don’t have to call Washington and ask permission—they can just do it.” And so many supporters of democratic public education “bought in” to the hype. Exactly what ARE states deciding to do instead? Those are the details we need to examine, and it’s vital (if we are really to reclaim public spaces and democracy) that we understand that there is a global paradigmatic shift occurring beyond the scope of what we already think we know or can anticipate. We must broaden our understanding of the end-game.

Who Will Save The World From Digital Colonialism?

November 8, 2017 Staff, mediadiversified.org , , ,
By Staff of Media Diversified - UN Sustainable Development Goal 9: strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020. Internet for everyone, and more internet in each of our lives, have become near universally accepted objectives. It might initially have seemed like we were getting everything for free but now we’re starting to realise it’s not the case; instead of paying in money we’re paying in data about us. What is the nature of the internet that is being proliferated as a social good? Is it a surveillance network for governments and advertisers to share? A tool of Western economic, social and cultural hegemony? A new sphere for the harassment of women, now with added reach and tracking abilities! Or are these just ethnocentric criticisms that fail to understand the multifarious internets of Southern societies, and how communities make use of them differently? What does digital colonialism mean? Does the combination of the digital and the colonial create something novel? Is it an extension of the colonialism of old using different tools? These were the questions that I asked experts, campaigners and researchers at this year’s Mozilla Festival, an annual London-based event that brings together those interested in an open internet.
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