Also keep in mind that every Indigenous community has different views on colonialism and the land and sovereignty issue. Some really just want to be left alone on their historical territory, others actively want to work with non-Indigenous people living on and around their ancestral land, and everything in between with tons of nuance. There is no singular “Indigenous attitide” on this though there does tend to be similar schools of thought. The most important thing in decolonization is to listen to all of them and respect their wishes.
For fucks sake… 1st off, whether or not this qualifies as a “meme”, it doesn’t fit the accepted norm of what most people expect to see when they click on “memes”
Secondly, and this may sting a little, but peace as we know it is a relatively new thing in world history. I’ve seen a multitude of other comments here proclaiming all those other genocides were okay because they were thousands of years ago. It’s that “in my lifetime” mentality that just fucking grinds my gears. Through thousands of years of history, one genocide is cherry picked and held up as the worst ever, and the citizens who"benefitted" from it are supposed to pick up the tab? My ancestors weren’t Spanish or English, and my family has been here for about 130 years having come from Germany in 1890. How much of the tab am I supposed to pick up?
Fact of the matter is, the only constant in human history is war. We’re in a (relatively) peaceful era now, and that’s taking into account Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Palestine, and probably another 20 or 30 wars I’m not up to speed on because I’m American and our media doesn’t seem to actually inform us on world events from countries we don’t buy shit from.
Human history is not really a constant war, but that is how Americans have been taught history: as a sequence of wars.
What’s relatively new are the concept of mass conscription, economic warfare, and total war. The ability to enact war and destruction on a global and constant level is new. The brief cessations in conflict aren’t peace, you’re right, but it is also a newer concept that we are constantly in a forever war.
While I mostly agree, I never said constant war, but where I will disagree in a sense is, the prospect of total annihilation would have been a factor millennia ago had the technology been there. Pick your era, the Romans, the various Chinese dynasties, the English, etc… if they had the means, they would have likely used it, having zero regard for the impact it would have later, mostly due to a poor understanding of the technology. I do believe, at least between “the big three”, meaning the US, Russia and China, nuclear war is an extremely potent deterrent to all out war. It’s the “kids who want to be in the club” that worry me, everyone from NK to Israel. It sucks, but the atomic cat is out of the bag in a world we’re all forced to live in, and the polarization of politics and other bullshit only work to drive that wedge deeper and push us closer to… bad shit.
Sure. I get what you mean: greek antiquity has records on the decision to exterminate an entire island of people. The capacity is absolutely there.
But I think a better perspective here is human history is one full of technological and social advances that resolve and prevent conflict. Even, yes, that unbagged atomic cat. It can be power for civilian use or it can be a bomb to burn their shadows into the concrete. War is when the actual prize of humanity: civility, breaks down.
I agree with your points, and yes it’s a better perspective, however, that’s not the world we’re living in. There are some who are hell bent on wiping out continents of people due to any number of reasons ranging from beliefs to the exploitation of natural resources merely for financial gain. I really wish we did live in a world where the word “nuclear” invoked thoughts of clean(er), abundant and cheaper energy vs it invoking dread at the prospect of total annihilation.
I’ve seen a multitude of other comments here proclaiming all those other genocides were okay because they were thousands of years ago.
Where did anyone say it was okay because it was longer ago? Please point me to it, because I read the entire thread and did not see this once.
The genocide of native new worlders is historically unprecedented and that is fact. I highly doubt that genocides on the same scale, magnitude and horror are commonplace throughout history. I would urge you to support your claim with evidence or examples if you are going to repeat it, otherwise it is entirely baseless.
How much of the tab am I supposed to pick up?
However much it takes to bring up the status of the natives to what it would have been had they not been massacred and expelled, and undo the propping up of Western civilization on their backs. If you’d like more specific examples, I’d be glad to give them to you. Just ask.
As I’m too stupid and it’s to early for me to do these inline…
Your 1st point, here’s one, had to scroll about 1/8 down the page for. Granted it doesn’t explicitly say it was “okay”, the point stands:
“China/Russia/Europe are largely inhabited by people whose ancestry traces back 1000s of years to the same region. That’s very different from North America, where most natives where killed (either through disease or “policy”).
That’s not to excuse their past behaviour (Europeans started the genocide in North America), but it’s still very different.”
As you also wanted to be pointed to a source for genocides on the same or larger scale throughout history, allow me to search Wikipedia for you:
As to point 3, who exactly determines who is responsible and who will benefit from this paln to raise up America’s indigenous population to their proper station? Are 1st generation immigrants from Ghana going to be required to pay up? How about Natives who’s ancestry dates back to a tribe that exterminated another tribe? Surely that should also qualify as genocide?
And as to point 4, we, in the west, as I did point out I was American, are in a (relatively) peaceful time, which implies that throughout history it has not been, but I guess I need to spell it out for some people.
At the end of the day, you’re not looking to be enlightened or to learn anything, your post was directed to completely discount my points, or to “troll” I will admit I was getting heated reading some of the off the wall bullshit I was seeing, but superlatives aside, I stand by everything I’ve posted. I apologize if you TRULY didn’t know about other genocides, or if your worldview has jaded you to the point where you don’t initially see posts that clearly illustrate what I said, at least in the abstract, and you took the time to go back and reread them and allow it to sink in.
Feel free to pick apart this post, too. Nothing is more entertaining in a meme thread than for 2 idiots, myself included, to argue about genocide.🙂
Your first quotation is not about someone excusing a genocide because it happened a long time ago. They are saying that unlike the US, the current inhabitants in those regions can be traced back to the inhabitants thousands of years ago. Which means there wasn’t a major genocide or displacement of people. I am not endorsing this statement btw, I don’t know enough to confirm it. But it is not a condonation of genocide. It is in fact remarking that a genocide similar to what happened in North America did not happen in those other regions.
As you also wanted to be pointed to a source for genocides on the same or larger scale throughout history
You provided me a list of genocides on Wikipedia. None of them match the genocide against native Americans. Your link proves my point.
I guess I need to spell it out for some
I didn’t ask you to paraphrase or restate your point. I asked you to prove it or provide evidence. But I never expected you to be able to anyways, so don’t worry about it.
The phrase “That’s not to excuse their past behaviour (Europeans started the genocide in North America), but it’s still very different” effectively translates to “Even though this happened, this is worse”.
If you bothered to look at that list, you’ll note the mention of the California Genocide of 1846. Reported casualties between 9,492 and 16,094, with other estimates as high as 120,000. Absolutely fucking horrible and a black mark on American history indeed. However, there are 31 other genocides on that list that are higher in number, with three of those even happening prior to California-
I guess it depends on how you define “genocide”, but since Wikipedia is generally using the accepted definition, I feel pretty safe in going with what they say.
And I did lay out proof, you’re just too caught up in whatever ideology to see it. Feel free to rebut, down vote, cry or whatever makes you feel better, but my point was the world is a horrible place, and terrible things happen to all kinds of groups of people. The “meme” that started all this IS a cherry picked reference to people who were wronged (I’m not disputing they were wronged, but so were… insert any other group of people here). Throughout history, most civilizations are founded on the conquering of another. As horrible as that is, it’s a fact. And after the fact, many of the remaining conqured are treated horribly. Also a fact.
Lay out some real numbers, cite an authoritative source (sources) and then we can talk. Until then, I hope the best for you and really wish we could get past this bickering bullshit. Life is too short, and trying to pin the sins of one’s father on the current generation isn’t solving shit. Work toward bettering peoples lives without having to exact revenge from people who didn’t have fuck all to do with it.
Oh, I stand corrected. A link to a Google doc. Should probably submit that to the Wikipedia article I linked as clearly thier information is flawed. You win an internet today.
And it’s written by a person, with an agenda and bias just like everyone else. Have a tough time taking anything seriously from someone affiliated with Ward Churchill.
The book is well sourced with tons of evidence. If you can invalidate their evidence, I am happy to hear. Otherwise, please drop this discussion. It’s not a good look.
You don’t have to apologize to me. If he’s someone who would collaborate with Ward Churchill, he’s got a clear agenda. My source for that was looking him up on Wikipedia, as I had no clue who he was. I’m not going to do the effort of sending you a direct link to the article, so feel free to do it yourself. And grant us all the fact that someone who writes a book has an implied agenda to sell the book.
And every time you start a post with “Source?”, it’s a bad look.
I’m going through the sourced materials in the American Holocaust book, (great title, by the way! not divisive at all!), and considering the sources, it’s pretty obvious Stannard has an agenda, he’s a “cultural materialist”, an offshoot of cultural Marxism. But you knew that, you just didn’t think I’d look 😉
Anyway, with as far as I’ve gotten, I can surmise the sources, the majority of them at least, point to textbooks published by “Berkley; University of California press”. Seems a lot of anti-American sentiment comes out of Berkley. Just to appease my curiosity, I’m going to look deeper into this fellow, who, funny enough, cites his own works as well. That’s pretty douchey
Thanks for being open minded and reading through! Even if it’s through a biased eye and a bit of a snarky reply, I still appreciate it. I hope that you open up and consider the sources presented with an open mind.
I’ll be looking forward to your assessment when you’re done, and I’ll do my best to receive it with an open mind as well.
It’ll be a while before I can read further but I do intend to read all of it. In my biased opinion so far, i reads like a propaganda piece, the words seleceted in some of the passages are used to elicit a response, but maybe I’ll see differently as I continue. I do have a question, when you say “genocide”, are you also including open conflicts? It’s my understanding of the word that it would not, but I want to make sure, especially when numbers are involved, that we’re using the same metrics.
Saw that no one brought up this important piece of info, so here we go. According to the law of the land established by all the natives who lived on the land before the settlers came (the same natives who also wiped out neighboring tribes and inslaved them as to work the land the invading tribe took) Anyone who killed the people holding a piece of land before they arrived were then the rightful owners of that same land until someone else came to kill them or the laws changed. If anything the settlers did something no other group did during their time. They came to a land that wasn’t their own, and followed the laws of that land in such a way to incorporate themselves into the group living on it. Don’t really care who does what with this, but this thread wouldn’t be complete without this info.
Between 2012 and 2016, the “Starlight tours” section of the Saskatoon Police Service’s English Wikipedia article was deleted several times. An internal investigation revealed that two of the edits originated from a computer within the police service
Remember to reference primary sources for this reason!
Are there any good resources to learn more about the vast tribes the North American continent was home to? I’ve always felt ignorant to the rich history and connection with the Earth that the tribes held and passed down.
Not sure about the accuracy of the top map, but it looks like that format could be a great educational opportunity.
On a lighthearted note, if you’re from the bay, give Café Ohlone a visit! I had the pleasure of meeting the two head chefs at an event where they cooked for the audience. They showed how candy cap mushrooms, acorn flour, and a duck egg could be incorporated into a brownie mix. I can’t speak for the actual restaurant, but it was delicious what they made :)
Unfortunately, not really for the majority of tribes. What we so know is that by the time Europeans had made real efforts to expand westward in North America, The Great Dying had already killed 75-90% of the native population.
Basically, North America had already endured around 200 years of civilization and population collapse starting in 1450. So even what the tribes know about themselves has to be viewed in the perspective of a people who had just lost 90% of their population in a few generations.
People forget that from the time Christopher Columbus arrived to when Europeans began expanding past the Appalachia is a span of 300 years. That’s longer than we’ve been in a country.
American expansion would not have been possible without hundreds of years of what is basically a Continent wide apocalypse. Culture just doesn’t survive that level of sustained trauma unchanged.
When it comes to extant tribes, many of them have web pages with info about them. The depth of information varies from tribe to tribe, I think typically encapsulating whatever the tribe feels comfortable sharing publicly. However when it comes to extinct tribes, much of what you’ll find will probably be spotty and questionable, as what is known is likely the result of archeology and accounts from nearby tribes.
It’s really frustrating how difficult it is to learn about the native cultures as someone on the outside. It gets glossed over in school and what you hear in pop culture is often heavily skewed or butchered to put on a good show for the audience. Then, because of how much of it gets butchered, chopped and screwed, the people who actually know the real stories become understandably protective and reluctant to share them. It’d be nice if there was a central, wikipedia-like site run by the tribes where you could learn about their stories and traditions.
The Canary Effect is an amazing documentary about the genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America. It is free on YT. It was where I first learned how brutal the reality was and how devastating to the population. It also shows how it meets the UN definition of genocide. Amazing how we are raised in the US and this is not only ignored in history class, but is instead framed as Indigenous people living happily in Spanish missions and having Thanksgiving with pilgrims.
If you get a chance to read about John Trudell, he had a fascinating life. He was the spokesman for the American Indian Movement when they occupied Alcatraz in protest of the US breaking their land treaty. The government did not stop terrorizing him and his family after that. There’s also an amazing documentary about him but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. I think it may just be called “John Trudell.”
Both of these will make you walk away angry though.
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