My views on colonization:
- The Christian church embraced settling land not occupied by Christians
- European settlers successfully colonized this land, now known as the United States
- The land was enclosed and stolen by settlers
- Settler genocide nearly eradicated the Indigenous populations
- Churches, including Quakers, implemented the Indian Boarding schools to forcibly assimilate Native children into the now dominant settler culture
- The institution of chattel slavery was used to provide stolen labor for the capitalist system
- This created an interlocking system of Christian colonial capitalist violence
- These interlocked systems are extremely resistant to change, mutually supporting each other
- A holistic approach to decolonizing is therefore required
- LANDBACK – to return the land to Native sovereignty
- Mutual Aid – to replace the unjust capitalist economic system
- Abolition of police and prisons – stop the carceral system that violently enforces colonial capitalism
The Question
The question is, do we continue to accept the current dominant systems of colonial capitalist violence?
I believe we must stop our complacency and complicity in accepting the ongoing injustices of colonization.
A Matter of Conscience
Quakers, such as I, have always embraced the concept of letting our lives speak, living our lives as consistently with our beliefs as possible. I reject the Christian colonial capitalist violent systems of the dominant culture of this country. How to do so is what my past decade of experience and writing have been devoted to. What this new blog is focused on.
A Cautionary Tale
Our (Quaker) history regarding the Indian Boarding schools should be a cautionary tale. We significantly aided the colonization of this land.
It has become clear to some of us who are called Friends that the colonial capitalist economic system and white supremacy are contrary to the Spirit and we must find a better way. We conscientiously
Jeff Kisling, An Epistle to Friends Regarding Community, Mutual Aid and LANDBACK
object to and resist capitalism and white supremacy.
Incommensurability
Incommensurability in a decolonial context means that the worldviews, goals, and logics of Indigenous sovereignty and settler colonialism cannot be reconciled. They are mutually exclusive. There is no middle ground. We either continue our colonialism, or we must conscientiously object, and reject the Christian, colonial, capitalist violent systems that continue to enforce it.
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