According to hexbear: All americans are settlers who should settle a different country to atone for the crimes of their forefathers...
According to hexbear: All americans are settlers who should settle a different country to atone for the crimes of their forefathers...
He called me a setter and a nazi out of the blue, and I asked him if he slanders everyone or if he has a reason for saying that about me, then he replies with this legendary quote:
If you’re Amerikan, then you live in the bowels of the single most brutal settler-colonial entity to exist in the modern era. “Settling” is not a once-and-done action; it is a constant state as long as you are on settled land.
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As a white American descendant of colonial settlers, they're not entirely wrong, it's just that their anger is misdirected. It should be directed at those in power rather than regular people. It's unreasonable to expect all descendants of colonial settlers to leave, but it's not unreasonable to ask them to be aware of their history and how the systems of power and control that were put in place then are still going strong today.
Given I can't see your original comment they were responding to I'll reserve judgement regarding whether what they said is reasonable.
Honestly it all is ludicrous. You absolutely should know your history but trying to hold every white person in existence liable for the actions of people who died long before we were all born is silly. You can't change the past you can only make the future. You might as well blame my dog for the suffering of the past. It accomplishes nothing. What's worse is that some people have developed a complex about the history especially if they of a race that was harmed historically.
Don't blame people alive today for mistakes and cruelty of the past. That is unfair to everyone involved.
You have to be careful not to go too far in the other direction as well. We may be blameless for atrocities that were committed by our ancestors but we do bear some responsibility to address the lasting effects of those atrocities and to oppose the continued settler-colonial project of which we are still part.
And don't take this the wrong way, responsibility does not equal guilt. Every US citizen is not guilty of invading Iraq, for example, but every US citizen does bear some responsibility to oppose the systems of power that allowed such a thing to be done in our name.
I can't say I agree but I respect your opinion
Yeah, but then people use that logic to deny that there are structural inequities that need to be fixed.
Thanks I was making a comment much like yours where I was being compassionate towards an Israeli who was conscripted at 18 like 20 years ago and didnt want to hurt anyone and worked as a secretary, and who seems traumatized by the experience, and who is very outspoken about the Israeli genocide...
She's a victim of the machine too, and her hands are mostly tied, so I think that its unfair to say she's a bad person for being in the IDF
i'm curious though. what about prisoner states?
were the prisoners considered colonists, or just the lords considered colonists?
It might surprise you that the prisoners weren't the ones in charge of any so-called prison colonies.
i'm not challenging you. just asking questions, since most white folk in australia are called settlers despite the majority having ancestry from prisoners.
I don't know enough about the history of Australian colonization to speak authoritatively about it. If I had to guess I'd say that those who found themselves on the wrong side of the British empire's laws were given some kind of choice and found the option of being sent to settle Australia preferable to whatever alternative was presented. In that sense they could be considered settlers, but it could possibly have been a choice made under duress.
That being said it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to hear that they were similarly brutal towards the aborigines as settlers in America were towards the native Americans. History is complicated and there is no black and white, but there are rights and wrongs and it's important to recognize that while genocide can be explained, it cannot be excused.
well said