I live in New Zealand, and like so many other countries it gives me a strange view of the USA. I’m familiar with so many things that are alien to my life. As a child I read of twinkies and home room. As a political blogger I read of primaries and supreme court appointments. But there’s much I don’t really understand. Sometimes that ignorance is a hinderence. There are things I’d genuinely like to know ((like why aren’t the left doing a nut about the law and order-ness of the latest supreme court judge. It seems to me that the right threw a tantram about that female judge who didn’t get nominated and they got someone they liked more. Whereas the left says “Yay she’s a centrist.” Amp has tried to explain this to me, but I don’t understand)) But sometimes this difference means I see things that people more immersed may miss.<\/p>\n
On Womanist Musings<\/a> Renee began a post: “The original sin of the United States is undoubtedly slavery.” ((Personally I’m not sure about the use of ‘original sin’ as a metaphor, not just for theological reasons (I don’t know enough about the theology of original sin), but that I think the personification of nations naturalises them in a way that is unhelpful.)) It’s not true, the original sin, the origin sin, of the United States is colonisation. I’m not making an argument of primacy, or importance. Just of chronology. Statements such as this render colonialism, and native Americans, invisible. It invokes the idea of the colonial idea of Terra Nullis, where there were no people before colonisation, and no sin before slavery.<\/p>\n I read a lot of American feminist blogs, and I’m always surprised by the silence around colonialism (and I know Renee is Canadian, which makes this even stranger to me). On an intellectual level I understand the factors that tend to mean that American progressives spend less time thinking and talking about colonialism than New Zealand progressives do. But I don’t grok it – I can’t imagine it – I’ve no idea how it changes your political worldview. ((I say this not to say I’m a great example on Maori sovereignty, but just that it’s a thread that I can’t imagine politics without.))<\/p>\n So I thought I’d ask left-wing commenters from America and Canada, what role colonialism plays in their political analysis and understanding of their country and it’s history and racism.<\/p>\n Edited to Add: Just in case there was any doubt, I fully agree with Renee’s point about reparations for slavery in the post that I linked to. The line I quoted is the only line that I take issue with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I live in New Zealand, and like so many other countries it gives me a strange view of the USA. I’m familiar with so many things that are alien to my life. As a child I read of twinkies and … Continue reading