WHAT IS THE DECOLONIZER?

THE DECOLONIZER is not respectable

THE DECOLONIZER is not reasonable

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be appropriated

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be bought

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be silenced

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be pacified

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be gendered

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be reformed

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be co-opted

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be consumed

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be policed

THE DECOLONIZER cannot be repressed

THE DECOLONIZER is not white property

YOUR DOMINATION stops here

THE DECOLONIZER is the Xicana

THE DECOLONIZER is the Black woman

THE DECOLONIZER is the Campesino

THE DECOLONIZER is the sex worker

THE DECOLONIZER is the prisoner

THE DECOLONIZER is undocumented

THE DECOLONIZER is the Ghetto

THE DECOLONIZER is the Barrio

THE DECOLONIZER is the Reservation

THE DECOLONIZER, by any means necessary

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What is THE DECOLONIZER?

THE DECOLONIZER
October 2015

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THE DECOLONIZER, OCTOBER 2015

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BRIEF HISTORIES: MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH

by Dubian Ade

via emanuelamechurch.org

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1816 in the midst of protests. White Methodists in Charleston announced plans to build a shed directly on top of a black burial ground. In response over 4,000 blacks decided to part from the white Methodist church and to establish a religious institution of their own. Under the ministry of Rev. Morris Brown and Denmark Vesey, Mother Emanuel came to be the epicenter of black religious life in Charleston.

The church was a target for white citizens and city officials. City and state ordinances prohibited black worship after sunset without the presence of a majority white congregation. White terror consistently descended upon Mother Emanuel. Service was routinely interrupted and dispersed. Charleston authorities accused the ministry of teaching blacks reading and writing, which was against state policy. By 1818, whites had stormed the church and arrested 140 freed and enslaved blacks in violation of the state's anti-literacy policy. Ministers were fined and given lashes.

DESPERATELY RUNNING FROM WHITENESS: RACHEL DOLEZAL AND PASSING FOR BLACK

Why would Dolezal go to such extreme lengths to escape her white identity?

by Paula Ioanide

via ABC News

I interpret Dolezal's move to pass as Black to be motivated by a number of factors. One of those factors has to do with the fact that whiteness is afforded numerous privileges, but moral authority is not one of them. That is, when it comes to pursuing anti-racist justice, white identity is rightfully suspected of potential fraud, co-optation, and of fleeing back into white advantage when the going gets tough. This does not mean individual white people can't genuinely pursue justice; it simply means that sustaining moral integrity as a white anti-racist activist requires a perpetual confrontation with the ways white embodied identity is virtually equated with (and continues to benefit from) the oppression of white supremacy. Dolezal's move into a Black identity sought to escape this burden of having to prove her commitment to anti-racism through actions rather than an embodied identity.

Most people forget that the structure of white advantages in the U.S. was obtained at a monstrous moral price. It was gained through the active and/or complicit processes of denigrating, excluding, and violating people of color. This moral price is regularly concealed in U.S. society through the perpetuation of systematic ignorance about the country's real history. Its cover-up requires a normative structure of denial and disavowal in most white Americans. Even with this systematic ignorance, many people somehow know and feel that white supremacy, and its entrenched association with white identity, is grounded in moral illegitimacy. This is unconsciously betrayed each time a white person preemptively states, "I'm not racist" long before anyone has accused them of racism.

DECOLONIZING OUR MENTALITIES ONE STEP AT A TIME

by Emilio Paqcha Benites

via Decolonization Wordpress

It is hard to believe but my culture, along with many other indigenous cultures around the world, continues to suffer robbery at many levels by the new colonial powers just the same way our ancestors did. Incalculable amounts of gold, silver, copper, diamonds and other material goods were among the first few things that were (and continue to be) exploited with little or no opposition and with little or no benefit to indigenous peoples.

A greater crime, which persists today is one much more valuable than any material goods. Since the beginning of the exploration conducted by European colonialists, indigenous knowledge was seen as inferior, archaic, backwards and non-worthy of development. Ironically, indigenous knowledge has been the equal victim of robbery and exploitation without any compensation for those who own it, which, by the way, is communal ownership. Obviously, this indicates that our knowledge was not as inferior as they said it was but it is this ideology which has kept us indigenous people from opposing this greater crime. Although in my culture, the past, present, and future are one, it is important to analyze them as separate in order to have a clear understanding of what is happening today with our knowledge and pride as well as the present robbery which we continue to be victims of.

Documentation has finally confirmed that the information presented by indigenous people for centuries is not a folklore or tale. In it, it says that colonial powers stripped away our pride and implanted shame and dependency. This was accomplished by following three stages of terror, which are still used today. The first stage was to simply kill Indigenous people for practicing their indigenous traditions and costumes. Once their labor was found useful, torture and terrorizing was implemented. Finally, if this did not do the job, conversion to the inferiority and superiority ideology were presented by schools, missionaries, anthropologists and of course by community members with colonized mentalities. Although the three stages continue to be used by those in power, the last stage is the greatest threat to indigenous pride and knowledge.

FILM OF THE MONTH: CONCERNING VIOLENCE

Concerning Violence

This 2014 documentary written and directed by Göran Olsson is based on Franz Fanon's famous 1961 essay "Concerning Violence." The film explores through archival footage the mechanisms for understanding Third-World decolonial struggles in Africa. Narrated by Ms Lauryn Hill, the film relies almost exclusively on excerpts taken from Fanon's landmark essay.

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Decolonizing Culture

THE DECOLONIZER
September 2015

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WRITER OF THE MONTH: TA-NEHISI COATES

Between the World and Me

In his latest work Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates gives a masterful personal and literary account of race in America. Coates writes of his experiences and realizations in the form of letters to his adolescent son. Powerful, griping, poignant, and timely, Coates writes during a era when black bodies become hashtags on social media outlets, and the violence of state policing is caught on mobile video. In great strides Coates comes to terms with the construction of race as a fixture of American empire.

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Decolonizing Culture

THE DECOLONIZER
September 2015

Read the full newsletter here »