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Imagine A World Without Colonization
Lifestyles given by unrestrained capitalism demand submission to colonizers’ ideologies
Many say that White people built America. Advocates of this thinking are, of course, saying that the world is better off now than it would have been if White people, Europeans, had not colonized the lands now known as the United States. This is an extension of the White racial superiority that has been argued affirmatively in the halls of academia and government, within the Judiciary, and in the streets.
From the enslavement of Africans to this day, White racial superiority has been so successfully asserted that the beliefs and behaviors that have flowed from such thinking have fragmented families, communities, and individuals. Policies have entrenched pigmentocracies in many cultures and nations, making skin color a determinant of class, caste, and capability. White racial superiority has even become intertwined with religious dogma, making many believe that White people’s wealth accumulation is biblically ordained.
“And behind all this pain, death, and destruction, there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea, one of the church’s first theologians, called ‘the dung of the devil.’ An unfettered pursuit of money rules. That is the dung of the devil.” — Pope Francis
The dung of the devil is the nipple that keeps us suckling
Such arguments, that White people have made America great, stand upon several fake facts.
One, racial constructs are a myth. Therefore, there can be no White racial superiority. Geneticist and BBC presenter, Dr Adam Rutherford, clarifies. In How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference (August 4, 2020) he says, “We might categorise people as white, black or brown, but these visual variations don’t accurately reflect the genetic differences — or rather similarities — between us.” Meaning, at the intersection of genetics and color differences, there is no rationale for how we treat people based on skin color.
Two, the myth of White racial superiority has perpetuated colonization, which has been the principal means of Eurocentric nation building for over four hundred years. Genocide, enslavement, and inhuman cruelty have been driven by dogmatic beliefs that God has given Whites dominion over others. Those beliefs, coupled with unbridled greed, have resulted in societies of millions dependent upon the subjugation of billions. The souls of subjugators are eased, our sins assuaged, by beliefs that divine right, as dictated by genetics, pigmentation being a marker, are the reasons for the lifestyles from which we benefit.
“We might categorise people as white, black or brown, but these visual variations don’t accurately reflect the genetic differences — or rather similarities — between us.”
Three, the myth of White racial superiority produces what many call a “Pygmalion Effect,” also known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meaning, what others believe about us, we grow to believe about ourselves. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois called it living beneath the “veil,” which causes Black people to believe they are what White people think. Eugenics and other pseudo-sciences and ill-informed opinions were, and are, used to justify the racial hierarchy that places Africans, and their progeny, at the bottom of humanity’s intellectual and social order. Being bombarded generationally with this negative reinforcement has resulted in African Americans grappling with feelings of inferiority, low self-worth, and low self-esteem. Self-destructive behaviors and chronic debilitating health and learning disparities have also been made epidemic. Paradoxically, manufactured White superiority could not exist without African inferiority.
Gaslighting humanity
Even today, many people do not know or do not care that “race” is a modern-day invention created to justify genocide, subjugation, and enslavement. Now, the concept of “race” is so widely accepted that, for many, racial hierarchies and divides are a part of our way of life. It’s a highly functional, dysfunctional way of seeing and being in the world. Functional, in that our sight, through rose-colored glasses, makes the catastrophic mayhem that’s been inflicted on millions a rationally justified means to an end. Dysfunctional, as the greed, lust, and ego characteristic of unbridled capitalism are normalized.
With President Trump’s call for the reinstatement of Columbus Day instead of recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the years of learning “Columbus discovered America” stanzas are haunting. When and where I grew up cowboys were heroes, Thanksgiving celebrated Natives and Pilgrims sharing, slaves sang and danced, and Asians were content in servitude. Nothing was said about small pox laden blankets, the enslaved children sold away from mothers raped by masters, or the residential schools to which Indigenous children stolen from their families were brought, never to return. The lesson should have been about the impact of colonization upon Indigenous peoples, from their perspectives
Colonization is based upon deconstruction
Colonizers typically discarded the accumulated knowledge they found by tearing down structures (buildings, societal rules, norms), erasing belief systems, burning books and banning learning, rewriting other people’s history, and reorienting values to affirm that all that is good happened because of my arrival. European colonists regarded Indigenous people’s lands and resources as theirs for the taking and ownership, in perpetuity. Stewardship, under European domination, is no longer a community sustaining consciousness. The King assigns stewardship with the right of ownership given to loyalists. Resources are seen as inexhaustible and available for wealth building.
The conquest of the Maya provides one example. Many researchers document that Maya water management systems were transforming wetlands into waterways, fish farms, and aquaculture beds even before the height of Maya prosperity. They built reservoirs that were self-cleaning, filtration systems using materials they would have had to travel great distances to obtain, and harvested rainwater while using underground aqueducts to capture, store, and distribute water to crops and communities. The Maya’s achievements are still coming to light as their advancements outdistance anything the Spanish had known before.
Likewise, the Aztecs’ land and water management system made their capital city, Tenochtitlan, a shining jewel. Chinampas, as they were called, was an unparalleled feat of engineering that reclaimed shallow lake beds for the development of floating gardens, small inhabitable islands, aquaculture, and fish farms. Grand causeways, well-kept and well-organized streets, shining houses, and statuesque temples awed the Spanish.
Yet the Spaniard’s admiration for the civilizations they found did not displace their greed or lust. They not only conquered the Aztecs (1521) and the Maya (1517 to 1697), but the diseases they carried killed untold millions. Sadly, they discarded the Aztecs’ chinampas in favor of draining the lake (Texcoco) surrounding Tenochtitlan (now known as Mexico City). Now, Mexico City is sinking and running out of water.
Conquest and capitalism are choices?
Why did Europeans not cohabitate with Indigenous peoples rather than colonize them and their land will forever be beyond my knowing. Well before Europeans discovered trans-Atlantic seafaring, many Indigenous people in these lands knew of foreign visitors. Visitors who did not come to conquer or capitalize upon the resources they found. And did not the Moors occupy the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, and parts of Sicily for almost 800 years without colonizing these lands?
I can find no references that label the Moors as colonizers. It also does not seem that the Moors had high greed and lust motivations. They did not chase gold or abundant wealth. Nor were they prone to interbreed or engage in the kind of female abduction behaviors of Europeans during the Middle Ages. It seems they cohabited with people on the Iberian Peninsula rather than seek domination and erasure.
Ironically, many scholars and lay historians believe that the quality of life for many Europeans improved significantly during Moorish occupation. Prior to Moorish occupation, only the upper class was permitted to be educated, particularly in France and England. Under Moorish occupation, even slaves were given an education. And women were not chattel as many in the world believe, they participated in Moorish society and governance.
The Moors chose to build upon and advance the knowledge of the people and cultures they found on the Iberian Peninsula. The arts, architecture, science, and land management flourished under Moorish occupation. The Moors demanded no conformity to Islam. People pursued their own faiths. Their communities were Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish, coexisting in relative harmony.
Life changed so much for the better for many Europeans that some chose to align themselves with Moorish customs and beliefs. Aside from a few conflicts and border wars, the Moors were more like occupiers who governed. Perhaps that’s why it was so easy for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to expel them and the Jews.
Al Fin: Have White people made the country great?
Now, it is true that in a relatively small amount of time (1776 to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America’s Gilded Age, as it’s often called), the U.S. became a global economic and political leader. Expansive industrialization, wealth accumulation, innovation, and philanthropy followed enormous wealth and political gains. Even though we could argue that the country advantaged itself greatly by the enslavement of millions, the theft of land and resources, and the exploitation of workers, it cannot be argued that the quality of life given to most U.S. residents, wealth distribution aside, fairly quickly far surpassed that of most people living in the rest of the world.
So, what do you think? Have White people made the U.S. a great country? And if yes, has the price of greatness been worth it?
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