Just about everywhere in the US was taken from someone. And almost always a marginalized individual. All the way back to the native americans. It how human be human apparently.
Probably Europe too. It just played out over a longer time, which made it less pronounced, and more forgotten.
The more recent the theft the more it features in our indignation. Palestine > Americas > Europe.
This doesn’t mean by the way that what happened in the Americas or Palestine is any less bad. Colonizers are eager to say: “look it happened before, look it happens elsewhere.” But fuck them.
In fact it makes their crimes worse. Every time lessons are not learned the responsibility increases.
It only strengthens the case for the universal fight to redistribute what had been stolen.
Thieves, murderers and rapists. Absolute scum of the earth. They must be fully ostracized.
“My country’s history is one of manufactured suffering. I was a boy when the Tudors burned any food the rebels under O’Neal might think to eat. We starved, everyone starved. Mouths on the dead stained green from chewing nettles. You get resourceful in a famine. My parents died early. Left me and my sister catching rats. The rats ran out quick. Fed my sister on my blood. It kept her alive an extra…two weeks. I didn’t sleep for three days to protect her body from the starving till the ground thawed. I cut out her kidneys and buried her. Fat cap on them like a pea. I haven’t eaten a single meal since, my mind didn’t go to that bite. It was the last thing I ever did because I had to. I control my life now. Every bite.”
-Abijah Fowler in Blue Eye Samurai
Also, later in the show:
That first line has stuck with me though since I first heard it. “My country’s history is one of manufactured suffering.” That could be about any country in the world, and it would still ring true in some form or another. The worst monsters to ever walk this planet have all been human.
Just about everywhere in the US was taken from someone. And almost always a marginalized individual. All the way back to the native americans. It how human be human apparently.
Probably Europe too. It just played out over a longer time, which made it less pronounced, and more forgotten.
The more recent the theft the more it features in our indignation. Palestine > Americas > Europe.
This doesn’t mean by the way that what happened in the Americas or Palestine is any less bad. Colonizers are eager to say: “look it happened before, look it happens elsewhere.” But fuck them.
In fact it makes their crimes worse. Every time lessons are not learned the responsibility increases.
It only strengthens the case for the universal fight to redistribute what had been stolen.
Thieves, murderers and rapists. Absolute scum of the earth. They must be fully ostracized.
“My country’s history is one of manufactured suffering. I was a boy when the Tudors burned any food the rebels under O’Neal might think to eat. We starved, everyone starved. Mouths on the dead stained green from chewing nettles. You get resourceful in a famine. My parents died early. Left me and my sister catching rats. The rats ran out quick. Fed my sister on my blood. It kept her alive an extra…two weeks. I didn’t sleep for three days to protect her body from the starving till the ground thawed. I cut out her kidneys and buried her. Fat cap on them like a pea. I haven’t eaten a single meal since, my mind didn’t go to that bite. It was the last thing I ever did because I had to. I control my life now. Every bite.”
-Abijah Fowler in Blue Eye Samurai
Also, later in the show:
That first line has stuck with me though since I first heard it. “My country’s history is one of manufactured suffering.” That could be about any country in the world, and it would still ring true in some form or another. The worst monsters to ever walk this planet have all been human.
It may rightly be how those humans were. We can be different.
When do we think we can say we knew better?
I’ll let you know if we ever get there.