Settler/colonizer views
If you are born in the country you live in, you can't be a settler by definition. Impossible.
Yet when you point this out to these types, it triggers them. It's funny.
Wait, so what you're saying is that Israelis are not settlers because they were born in Israel? Let's hear from others. That's what it would mean if you used that definition.
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If you are born in the country you live in, you can't be a settler by definition. Impossible.
Yet when you point this out to these types, it triggers them. It's funny.
It is only when I studied history that I came to realize, all peoples are invaders, all peoples are settlers and colonizers. There is no one original to the land. They all swept in like locusts to wherever they are now. It does not matter what part of the world you look at or which people. I really like "The Ancients" podcast by History Hit, hosted by Tristan Hughes.
You may find here and there, a tribe in a remote jungle, and no one knows the history of what came before, and so they like to claim to be the originals. Such claims rest upon ignorance of the past and what really happened. Writing was only invented recently. And some peoples did not get writing until it was imported into their land by another civilization.
If no one knows the history of a people, then sure they can claim to anyone that will believe them, that they are pure as the driven snow, and innocent of all crimes forever and ever, and sprouted in the land like wheat. The reality may be far different, but who is around to tell the tales?
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When we talk about settlers/colonizers we are only talking about the modern era, not ancient settlers who might have settled in various areas over millennia. What matters in our contemporary context is the injustice perpetrated in recent centuries because it's an acknowledgment to people living today who are the recent descendants (and in some cases the actual refugees) of those whose lands were stolen and who are still experiencing the effects today.
Any white person who lives in the Americas is living on stolen land. That doesn't mean it will ever be returned but acknowledging it can mitigate further injustice and simply admit the truth.
Yes, the point is to try to stop (or at least mitigate) any further injustice. Here in the U.S.A., the point is to protect the rights of indigenous Americans, both as individuals and as tribes.
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If you are born in the country you live in, you can't be a settler by definition. Impossible.
Yet when you point this out to these types, it triggers them. It's funny.
Because the whole basis of ownership is based on a social construct that depends in large part on ownership being accepted. Barring literal treaties and deeds being exchanged, the only basis for ownership becomes physical possession and the acceptance by others that it's owned.
There's been a bunch of nonsense lately about recognizing the historical owners of the lands that we do things on around here, which is an absolute waste as that's applicable to just about every part of the world. There are relatively few areas that are still inhabited by the same people that showed up there originally and even when that is the case, cultural norms change and there's unlikely to be a continuous record. PR China has arguably the longest continuous cultural record, and even that was pretty severely disrupted at times by groups like the Mongolians and Imperial Japanese as well as the question of how you count it when dynasties from different groups are in charge.
Any white person who lives in the Americas is living on stolen land. That doesn't mean it will ever be returned but acknowledging it can mitigate further injustice and simply admit the truth.
I disagree, that is a way that people make themselves feel better about themselves without having to go through the awkward process of actually doing something about it. It's not realistic to give back the land, there's far too many people here now and too few on the receiving end if that was attempted. But, there is a bunch that could be done in terms of allowing tribal land to more closely resembled land in a developed country than that of a 3rd world state. Which in some areas it absolutely is the case.
It's also kind of hypocritical that somebody's skin has to be this dark in order for this sort of stuff to matter. There is only now starting to be greater awareness of the ethnic cleansing of white folks.
Regardless of the other factors, I don't believe current generations should have to be guilty or cursed because of what their ancestors may have done historically, especially if the classification of the guilty group is an inherent quality. Thus, the framing shouldn't be "whites are guilty of X" or "blacks are guilty of X". I acknowledge that there are groups of people who were screwed, even more so in history (but might vary depending on the context of the region or country). And that there probably will be in the future too.
Assuming that racial and ethnic group conflict was what OP was getting at.
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"Capitalism" or free-market != oppression
Aren't the white farmers in SA having their land confiscated directly or not, or even genocided?
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"Capitalism" or free-market != oppression
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If you are born in the country you live in, you can't be a settler by definition. Impossible.
Yet when you point this out to these types, it triggers them. It's funny.
That's not gaslighting, it's people disagreeing with you. It's also not people being triggered, it's them disagreeing with you.
When people have their views challenged, they tend to argue back (I'm sure you are no different in that regard). Arguing back does not mean they are gaslighting you and does not mean they are triggered.
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When people have their views challenged, they tend to argue back (I'm sure you are no different in that regard). Arguing back does not mean they are gaslighting you and does not mean they are triggered.
Well said.
This seems to be a common debate tactic, dismiss all opposition as 'triggered' and all expression of dissenting opinions as 'gaslighting'. That way your opponents are irrational and emotionally-motivated abusers rather than simply people who disagree with you.
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By "the ethnic cleansing of white folks," I assume you mean the ethnic cleansing of particular white ethnic groups, e.g. Bosniaks back in the 1990's? (And let's not forget Palestinians, most of whom look "white".)
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I think there's some validity in the point that "settler" and "coloniser" are often used in a blunt manner, not to mention a racist manner. They say "this ethnic group is entitled to live in this place, and this ethnic group is not". Regardless of whether we think it is appropriate to call a white Canadian a "settler", I think we can agree that this is potentially a dangerous line of thinking: it suggests support for ethnic separatism.
There is probably a great deal of scholarship on this matter that I have a fairly tenuous grasp on, but to me the ultimate issue shouldn't be where one's ancestors were born, but rather whether a society has been built upon racist or nationalistic suppression. To stick with the example of Canada, there have been centuries of oppression of the various native peoples, full-on ethnic cleansing continuing until frightfully close to the present (children being separated from their parents in order to kill off the ethnic identity). As I understand it, the last federally-funded "residential school" only closed in 1997; these schools and similar practices are now recognised as "cultural genocide", a phrase which arguably underplays the number of deaths that took place there.
Personally, I think people of all ethnic groups are equally entitled to Canada. But while that's a nice sentiment, it would be naive to think that's how Canada has always been run. In practice, dozens of different cultures experienced colonisation by the British and French. Canada is now a multicultural democracy with citizenry of more or less every ethnic group in the world, but those British and French settlers are still the dominant culture into which others are expected to assimilate (the French are seemingly exempted from this). I think Nunavut has its own form of self-governance too... but that's Nunavut.
Anyone who says everyone who isn't indigenous should go home is racist and barking up the wrong tree. But it's also hard to ignore that colonisation did happen and has been disastrous for the victims, with its effects still being felt today.
Choosing to live somewhere is fine. Living where you were born is fine. Oppressing people based on ethnicity is not.