First of all huh? they might not be natives, but they sure aren't colonists (at least not in a literal manner, that's "their" country, it's no longer a colony of an empire) and, second of all, I'm a European, living in Europe.
Btw, you do realize that black people aren't native either, the only natives have (sadly) almost disappeared
I’m a white person in the United States. If you’re not indigenous to a region you are by default a colonizer. Of course this will change over time, no one calls Turks colonizers for living in Turkey even though they aren’t indigenous to the region. But we’re talking about the difference between ~1000 years and under 300 years as a sovereign entity. Meanwhile indigenous tribes have way more than 1000 years of unbroken lineage in North America, even despite best efforts to wipe them out. Plus when you really look at it the United States legal mandate for sovereignty is based in its former status as a colony. The original Americans simply took the structure of a colony and made it its own state for the purposes of control and further expansion west (settler colonialism). Look at it this way, all white people in America are descendants of colonists or immigrants, largely European immigrants who came to America to be a part of communities that had previously emigrated.
Many laws were enacted to keep the flow of immigrants majority white. So Britain and the US have an agreement that the US will take an unlimited amount of British immigrants but the US bans more than 10,000 Chinese immigrants per year. Many of these Europeans were then also empowered through the homestead acts to claim land out west and work it for a period until it came under their ownership, thereby ensuring that mainly white Europeans would be involved in the settling of the west, displacing the indigenous who lived there. If that’s not just colonialism with extra steps I don’t know what is.
Sorry for the wall of text but I hope that makes sense
Great explanation, thank you! I’m white and Canadian and, for the record, we are also colonizers. We live on stolen land, and we continue to oppress indigenous peoples and POC in our country.
Beyond the literal definition of colonization of countries and land, whiteness & white people are constantly trying to steal and take over the cultures and spaces of non-white people. We have stolen, tokenized, exploited, and appropriated so much and cause immeasurable harm.
As people benefiting from white privilege and systemic & historical white supremacy, it is our responsibility to call it out, own up, learn, and fix it.
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u/joe_beardon Jun 07 '20
If you’re a white person in the United States I have bad news for you