Originally published on the main blog on January 22, 2017: Rejection of the Race-Based Agenda in Favour of the Common Struggle
The roots of many (if not most) white people in North America involve the escape of murder by the state, genocide by the state, or mass deaths due to starvation, overwork, poor conditions, and lack created by the state. The current race-based agenda in North America - constantly repeated and reinforced - generally paints white people of European background as privileged colonialists who came to North America with the intention of displacing native people for their own benefit and profit. This is an incorrect representation of reality in many instances, as many white Europeans were forced to emigrate to North America due to the terrible conditions that had been created in their ancestral countries. Many white Europeans came to North America as refugees. As I've written about before in this Jupiter in Libra article ("Jupiter in Libra: Bringing it All to the Table"), many white European communities are dealing with the trauma and resulting dysfunction of these experiences without the benefit of having their histories fully acknowledged in the accepted history books. The root causes of this dysfunction (alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty, rootlessness, overwork, domestic violence, relationship breakdown, mental illness, emotional disturbance, etc.) remain invisible in most cases. Just a few examples of genocidal practises against white Europeans by the state or power establishment include: the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Great Purges and gulags of Russia and Poland, the Irish potato famine, the Highland Clearances of Scotland, and the English enclosures. World Wars I and II can be viewed in a similar light as state-directed mass slaughter and displacement of mostly Caucasian people. Common people being murdered, pushed off land, or forced into starvation and deprived conditions by the state has been a widespread practise throughout history, creating common roots among people of many different races and backgrounds. It is these common roots - most often erased in the race-based political discourse of the day - that provide the strongest foundation for resistance and necessary change today.
We're All in the Same Boat Now So We'd Better Get To Paddling By Willow from Willow's Web Astrology We were once indigenous people, too. Dispossessed from our land, too. Native language stolen from our tongues, too. We were pushed off, burned out, forced into starvation or urban slavery - a slow death sentence handed down by those with means. Forced into workhouses and gulags Either murdered quickly or left to perish slowly From cold and damp and overwork and filth and bugs and vermin and hunger and lack Forced to give up our ways, too, to be useful to them, to make profit for them, to bend our souls, our natures, to fit their machine(s) For many, to come to this new land was not a choice. "Emigrate or die" is no choice. Sent on ships not seaworthy and many sank Conditions so poor many did not live to see land again No monetary value for us, less worth than livestock or commodified slaves, So no one cared if we lived to see the other shore. Deprivation and early death on this new land, too brutal to sustain us, too heartsick and homesick to resist it. So don't call me a "white European colonialist." Don't try to make me feel guilty for the crime of surviving. Don't tell me I'm on land I have no right to exist on, As if I somehow need your permission. I'm here. I'm sovereign. And my roots go just as deep as yours. My heart aches for a place to belong and for the old ways, for freedom, just like yours. The Sun, the Moon, the seasons as my timepiece, The intuitive call as true authority. They teach us your history (their version) while we are severed from our own. Our history stays invisible, while you spit their words at us: "white European imperialist" And teach the partial story being misrepresented as truth Common roots covered over with convenient black-and-white agendas The genocide has happened a thousand times before To every colour of skin The land has been taken, revoked, stolen, and with it our survival, our peace Set adrift on a sea of anomie, searching for a place to belong Addictions to numb the heartsick and soulsick, The gnawing knowledge that we may never again feel at home. So if you want to fight corrupt power alongside each other With long, parallel roots acknowledged, If you want to make a better world for all, I will stand with you. But if you want to overpower my voice, my history, my truth, If you want to misrepresent who I am and where I come from, If you want to take my right to a place on the land (just like they do), You're on your own. If you want to paint me as white imperialist scum, you are really no better than they. Your rhetoric will crumble and your power will desert you, Under the awesome, undeniable force of the real story, Under the drive for full acknowledgement and justice, currently being denied. So reconsider this whitewash of history, this convenient erasing of roots, this partial truth declared to be whole. Understand the common experience, the common struggle that is fought to this day, to this minute, to this second. Overturn the denial of common roots. Overturn these cheap slurs against those whose only crime is surviving the systemic violence they bring down on all of us. Overturn their easy answers and over-simplified histories Or take your place as just one more overlord, As just one more chapter in their false historical line, As just one more boot in the face. The full spectrum is cracking open, And the time is now To stand for justice for all.
Nice share