Hey all,
I’m currently developing a Marxist-Leninist analysis of settler colonialism, especially in light of the situation in Palestine, and am going to read Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai for the first time. Before I do I was just curious what other comrades think of the book and its analysis? It seems a pretty controversial text among many online Marxist groups, to whatever extent that matters, but as an Indigenous communist I feel having a clear and principled stance on the settler question is important for all serious communists. I’m not sure if I’ll agree with Sakai specifically, but since I generally agree with the opinions of y’all, I was curious as to your thoughts on the book.
Y’know where I apply my belief and optimism, friend? To the idea that one day, we’ll have a nation of our own, carved out of the guts of Amerika, hand in hand with our indigenous comrades. I have none for those who descended from this nation’s original settlers. My organizing is explicitly with the colonized.
I constantly watch the descendants fail to put their bodies on the same wheels and gears we’re forced to put our bodies on, day in and day out. I see them let Black bodies get slabbed out by pigs. I see them let Black children get stripped of their mothers and fathers, their parents condemned to carceral slavery, and those children mandated to a foster pipeline that will inevitably see them in the same prisons, likely abused beforehand. I see them let Black would-be professionals get stripped of their inroads to the same successes that the whites are practically hand-gifted.
You’ll have to forgive me for not putting my faith in any of that; because I don’t see the settlers en masse adopting decolonial thought. The sheer vast weight of Amerikan cognitive dissonance will break at least 80% of them before they get there.
Speaking as Latino person, that hope is one of the only things that keeps me alive. And in a slightly dark but bright side-ish way, we don’t need every settler to adopt decolonial thought. Just enough to have an army.
And even then, we won’t be the only army. We will have international allies (including victims of Amerikkan imperialism on this continent and abroad).
I totally agree, I just think it’s best to avoid pessimism. “Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will” and all that.
Very valid; I just had to explain the method behind what some would no doubt see as madness. You’ve tended to have a fairly level head on your shoulders as long as I’ve seen you post.