Decolonize This? Properly Defining Settlers
Part 1 of 2

Conscientization 101 Decolonize This Pt1 - Kwame Ture
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael; June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998)

 

I want to talk about European settler colonies because, again, we’re dealing with land. A settler colony is an area of land where the European leaves Europe, comes to that area and takes over the land, and dominates the traditional owners of the land. My wife is from South Africa. South Africa is a settler colony. Europeans changed the name of Zimbabwe to Rhodesia, change the name so that it appears as if they have always belonged there. Because if they say they’re Rhodesians and they come from Rhodesia you never question it and it appears as if they are the traditional owners of that land …. But, my brothers and sisters, more importantly for you and for me, we must come to understand that America and Canada are settler colonies. You have been white-washed into believing that there was such a thing called the American Revolution. There was never such an animal. It was just sons fighting their parents for who’s going to take the loot. George Washington was born in England. He was fighting to control this piece of land. He wasn’t fighting a revolutionary fight. Revolution overturns systems, destroys, it’s bloody, it knows no compromise. What system did they overturn? None. They had slaves and they were taking this land from the red man …. After committing genocide, they changed the name to America. When you call them Americans, you make it sound as if they belong here. You do that because you want to call yourselves black Americans and you want to feel that you belong here too. But if we analyze history and if we agree that revolutions are based on historical analysis, we will see that they are not Americans, they are in fact European settlers. That’s all they are. Now I know what you will say: “Oh, but that happened a long time ago.” It might have happened five thousand years ago. I’m talking about history and fact. It is a fact that they are European settlers. And our ideology must analyze history.   – Kwame Ture[1]Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007), 199-200.

 

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A corrective polemic that defines settler colonialism and explains why Africans in the Americas are not settlers.

Length: 00:13:51  Size: 26.6 MB

References

References
1 Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007), 199-200.

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