The Freedom Road Socialist Organization recently put out this article, arguing that the United States isn’t a settler-colony and it’s rubbing me the wrong way.
The article makes some assertions and assumptions that I have some thoughts about, and I’d love to hear y’alls as well.
[Proponents of the US Settler colony theory say that] The United States remains today a settler-colonial state. People of European descent, regardless of their actual class position, are settlers, and are seen as continuing to benefit from and perpetuate a colonial system. In other words, the people of the United States are divided into two camps, with the colonized in one camp, and the settlers in the other. Some even go so far as to say that this makes up the principal contradiction in the U.S. This is furthermore viewed as a fundamentally antagonistic contradiction
I don’t know if this is an accurate description of the US Settler-colony theory. All settler and colonized populations, be they in Israel, Canada, South Africa, etc. Have class distinctions within them that ought to be considered. Saying there’s a settler population isn’t mutually exclusive with class analysis.
This ought to be contrasted with the Marxist-Leninist view, which sees the United States as an advanced imperialist country. Again, we see a division of U.S. society into two camps. On the one hand there is the camp of the capitalists, and on the other the oppressed and exploited masses of workers and oppressed nationalities. The principal contradiction is therefore between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the multinational working class and its allies on the other, particularly the oppressed nations.
OK? I don’t necessarily disagree, but how does this contradict the notion that the US is a settler-colony? It contradicts the version of that idea given earlier, but I think that’s a strawman. Or at least a case of a narrow representation of a wider trend.
The article goes on to describe American history, talks at some length about the class makeup of the settlers. The implication seems to be that this varied class makeup makes them not a single class of “Settlers™”. But then goes on to say that the early US was characterized by a:
transitional settler-colonial period
But that this period ended… At some point.
The article also seems to conflate the concept of a Settler-colony and colonies written large.
The United States is the greatest imperialist power in the world. It isn’t a colony. Like Tsarist Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, it is a “prison house of nations.”
Within the borders of the U.S. there are oppressed nations. What is an oppressed nation? As Stalin defines it in Marxism and the National Question, “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” These oppressed nations are nations without states. They don’t govern themselves. The oppressed nations in the U.S. are the African American nation, with its homeland in the Black Belt South, the Chicano nation in the Southwest, and the Hawaiian nation.
So we’ve finally named some oppressed nations. I don’t know why Hawaii is here, but otherwise this is fine. It’s how the other colonized/oppressed people’s in the US are handled that confuses me
To be perfectly clear, it is important to note that oppressed nations are not the same thing as colonies. The correct demand for a colony is immediate independence. This is the demand we must put forward regarding Puerto Rico and other colonies, where basic democratic rights are denied and which are merely objects of plunder.
The argument about a colony requiring independence is compelling. But why is Hawaii not included with Puerto Rico? Why does one island nation stolen by the US empire get independence, and the other doesn’t? There’s no fleshed out analysis on that.
Also, an overseas colony and a settler-colony are different.
The demands of indigenous peoples deserve special consideration and are distinct: full sovereignty and national development of indigenous peoples, and the protection of their cultures, languages and traditions.
I think this is the first mention of indigenous peoples, and we’re 2/3 of the way through the article.
WHY ARE THEY DISTINCT? HM? COULD IT BE THAT THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE PROCESS OF SETTLER COLONIALISM MEDIATES THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH THE BOURGEOIS STATE?
The U.S. isn’t an apartheid system, like “Israel” or “Rhodesia” for example. The horrific system of Jim Crow segregation that followed the betrayal of Reconstruction was itself uprooted by the Black liberation movement. While national oppression remains, de jure segregation no longer exists. The working class, as a result of its historical development, is therefore multinational in character.
… So you know we shoved indigenous people onto reservations and continue to systematically exclude them from modern American life. South Africa was pushing Africans onto reservations, and Israel is de-facto doing the same thing to Palestinians… Because they’re replacing the native population with a settler one…
De Jure Segregation being over means nothing in terms of the actual material conditions of oppressed nations in the US.
I could go on. But the article just seems poorly thought out. Despite supposedly refuting the idea that the US is a settler-colony, it spends so little time actually talking about indigenous peoples.
Am I onto something? Is the analysis of this article missing the mark? Or am I a petty-bourgeois radical, like the article suggests?
Yeah, this is a miss for sure. The things they say the US is in no way contradict its fundamental settler nature. And I wouldn’t say you can simply collapse all white people into a homogenous “settler” class, but to not reckon with the past and present of settlerism as the foundational core of this country is blinding yourself to material realities.
I don’t know why they think a Marxist understanding of national self determination is somehow at odds with opposing settler colonialism - I would argue either position is incomplete without the other.
I wrote a long post about my thoughts here: https://hexbear.net/comment/5706231
Great post
Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837
Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837
“We Will Talk of Nothing Else”: Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
The note on apartheid is wrong. If the definition of apartheid is something with a de jure character (which I would contest, that’s the same argument Israeli apologists make for that country) than that simplistic definition won’t tell you whether whether the working class is split.
I don’t think it does justice to the settler-colonialism theory, but there don’t seem to be any existing orgs doing justice to it either. In my city, the settler-colonialism folks are ultras who have given up on mass or workplace organizing in favor of ever-smaller groups of increasingly burnt-out activists showing up to fight the cops. That shit is a waste of time, and you don’t have to be a communist to recognize it. The author says something I agree with: if the implication of settler colonial theory is that American workers have no revolutionary potential, and that trying to organize them won’t lead to a revolution, then it is self-defeating as far as application in America. (I left SAlt because they also have a self-defeating thesis: effectively, that Palestinians should lay down and die since everything depends on an Israeli working class coalescing and unifying.) To combat this widespread perception, the folks on the other side need to shout from the rooftops what they think American communists should do. The author should have also examined what believers in settler-colonialism are saying to this effect.
And remember, fuck nuance (PDF warning). A theory isn’t better the more contradictions it mentions. This applies to both sides of this debate.
The author says something I agree with: if the implication of settler colonial theory is that American workers have no revolutionary potential, and that trying to organize them won’t lead to a revolution, then it is self-defeating as far as application in America. (I left SAlt because they also have a self-defeating thesis: effectively, that Palestinians should lay down and die since everything depends on an Israeli working class coalescing and unifying.) To combat this widespread perception, the folks on the other side need to shout from the rooftops what they think American communists should do. The author should have also examined what believers in settler-colonialism are saying to this effect.
I think it would just look like Palestine Action. Palestine Action isn’t concerned with building some broad mass movement within the imperial core, but directly sabotaging the production and distribution of weapons. I remember there was also a Danish Maoist-Third-Worldist formation that had the political line that there was no revolutionary potential in the imperial core, so their praxis was robbing banks and giving the money to, incidentally enough, the PFLP. I guess if you think there’s no potential for a mass movement, adventurism wins by default. Like, if you were somehow transported back to 1940s Germany, the only meaningful praxis you can do is blowing up bridges, assassinating German leadership, and other stereotypical types of adventurism.
I like Palestine Action, they’re doing good work, but they can’t win. If we apply settler-colonialism to say that their acts don’t directly benefit US/British citizens and won’t appeal to more than a fringe minority, their membership can pretty much only go down as they get taken out by the state. Winning has to be done by a group that has something to win, in this case the Palestinian and peripheral resistance. There’s a bunch of climate activism groups that had the same fate (including a surprising amount of adventurism that is so effectively quashed it never gets on the news). Idk, it’s just so pessimistic an ideology that you can’t spread it. Like Lenin was going around bringing people the good news of social democracy - “guess what, you’re part of the mighty working class, here is how we can have a revolution that will improve your life” - and we get to go around and say “sorry I know you’re struggling day-to-day but you are at the top of a global pile of bodies, and once I convince you there ain’t shit you can do about it except wait for a revolution somewhere else.”
It’s like the same kind of logic that gets you the White Panther Party. I don’t think it’s attractive to the masses to be part of an auxiliary force. But then again there’s a lot of proxy consciousness around, where people say “I like unions, shout out Teamsters” and don’t bother organizing because they figure someone else has got it covered. As far as 40s Germany, at that point Germany had brutally repressed any communists trying to organize, but if not for the state it would be been possible to say, “hey guys I know you like the sound of lebensraum or whatever but you’re going to suffer tremendously under the war” and essentially point to the possibility of the GDR, which was better to live in than Nazi Germany!
they can’t win if they aren’t popular. If tomorrow mysterious ceo-action group appeared, their can’t win condition is completely different from “they’ll get quashed”.
pal action is semi-popular tbh, enough to skate off some convictions, its question of critical mass more like
hey yall long time lurker usually on an account i had made but yet to use.
im not here to represent frso but i understand its position well, and want to clarify what i can and also understand the criticism different people have. feel free to ask questions and i will do my best to answer! also! i have autism and may get overwhelmed at some point if many people begin responding but i will do my best.
we’re all comrades here and i am thankful for the opinions of every one who i know has only love and righteousness in their hearts! love yall!
i think the main confusing thing about the article is that it seems to be mainly pointed at Sakai-type Third Worldists who see settler-colonialism as the primary contradiction. frso strongly believes in the progressive potential of the working class, and doesn’t believe that categorizing the working class as a “settler working class” on the side of the enemy is correct.
the primary contradiction of our era is imperialism, and that means in order to fight it there needs to be an identification of the imperialists as the enemy and to draw in as many allies as possible to combat the principle enemy. this means that the working class of the united states has a historically progressive role they can play in this struggle against the US monopoly capitalists who maintain the oppression of not only their own workers, but almost all stratas of society of the oppressed nations except the comprador neocolonial puppets.
as all societies are not just a unilateral mode of production but a unity of modes of productions, it is not like no aspects of US society take part in settler-colonialism to this day, but rather that settler-colonialism (specifically as a transitionary period of early capitalism which is characterized by the primary contradiction between settlers and the colonized) is not the defining characteristic of USAmerican society and production.
confusingly, the article is about the marxist definitions of settler-colonialism and “nations” which - while sharing terminology with - is completely different to indigenous and especially Native American ontologies. its aim is at marxist revisionism stating that the white working class is an enemy specifically, which is why it does not approach the topic from an indigenous perspective.
also, these things are subject to change as things develop. i dont take the position that any of this is dogma and am highly interested in correcting mistakes where they are. im curious about peoples thoughts, especially as comrades, and to please not be too harsh if there are points of antagonism.
i agree with this person’s assessment at large, although i think the contradiction lies mainly in the communication of what the article is about. granted, communication issues lie primarily with the communicator.
from my reading of the article, it was not meant to be about indigenous struggles, and lacks every dimension of a proper analysis of indigenous struggles. also the tagline makes it sound like something denying indigenous struggles which is also poor form.
i agree with the general tendency i think of the issue people have, which is that if settler-colonialism is going to be written about and published publicly, it should not be as a narrow rebut of a specific claim of a specific tendency of marxist revisionism but should be sufficiently all-encompassing.
thank you!
Interesting that the article brings up Chicanos. If we like podcasts here, someone shared this Decolonized Buffalo episode on Indigenous perspectives on Chicanismo that seems very relevant!
Otherwise, Ell Em Eff Ay Oh. I wish I could get into specific examples that take into account my own “diaspora American” perspective — I might later if I have more time — but suffice it to say that when I arrived in the USA recently, I immediately felt the settler-colonialism “in the air” as basically an omnipresent Thing that affects everything here. And I don’t think that’s incidental to the creation of articles like this one: a lot of people who grew up and have spent most of their lives in the USA, after all, would not notice the settler-colonialism around them, for a similar reason as why most people wouldn’t notice their own BO.
…Except people at least know to take care of their own hygiene.
Confronting the elephant of settlerism head-on, on the other hand, would be too psychologically taxing for many people: such people are presented with the thesis that the USA remains a colonial society, and will upon hearing this thesis write some sophistry such that they can continue to deny it. Several of the claims or ideas in this article, like that settler-colonialism did happen but just “ended at some point”, are just tropes that Indigenous activists have been refuting for years. It’s all just sophistry to resolve cognitive dissonance, nothing more.
Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837
Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837
“We Will Talk of Nothing Else”: Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
Interesting that the article brings up Chicanos. If we like podcasts here, someone shared this Decolonized Buffalo episode on Indigenous perspectives on Chicanismo that seems very relevant!
I’ll definitely watch this later! It’s also worth noting that the FRSO has a very fleshed out line on Chicanosmo and a conception of the formerly Mexican parts of the US as an oppresed nation. So that’s why that gets such a significant mention in the article.
Yeah, 'cause what that podcast was basically saying is that Chicanismo is a settler ideology comparable in several respects to Zionism. So given that, I thought it was unsurprising that a writer espousing one settler ideology (“Chicanos specifically are not settlers”) would also espouse a different one — “there are no settlers in Ba Sing Se, period”.
This also goes a bit into the point about different settlers having different class positions: I don’t think it is a controversial assertion that a lot of US residents of Hispanic descent have it more than a bit rough, but Chicanismo would then be an example of how these sorts of class antagonisms in a settler community get twisted to reproduce settlerism.
Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837
Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837
“We Will Talk of Nothing Else”: Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I think the real driving force behind articles like this is that many within FRSO want to organize the US working class (e.g. they salt Teamsters) and perceive critiques that put white settlerism as “primary” as saying, “don’t even bother”. They need to say, “no there is a point to it and in fact it is the theoretically best grounded look I said primary contradiction” because otherwise they are doing something with no hope of success, so the logic goes. This would also explain why the discussion of white settlerism is so full of errors and oversights. It’s not really about knowing the topic and analyzing it, they clearly felt no compulsion to read and understand what has been written about the topic, let alone talk to indigenous comrades to get real-world organizing analysis.
I think the core of this thinking is incorrect and gussyjng it up in the language of dialectics distracts from the real point, which is just this simple yet clearly very difficult to answer question: how could we organize the US working class into an anticapitalist force, even a revolutionary one? I would say you cannot begin to answer that question without understanding and combatting the importance, function, psychology, mechanisms of settler white supremacy, and you cannot begin to answer it without understanding and combatting capitalism and imperialism. Really, you have to think about the demographica of who joins and leaves left spaces, what they want to do in those spaces, and which forms of activism resonate with who. You should look at past formations and ask why they failed. You should look at those most similar to you and think about how they are succeeding or failing and what forces work against them.
And if you’re going to write public essays, you should really think about your audience and what you hope to achieve.
i think the theory uses “colony” in a specific way that yankees will always have a hard time understanding because “we” stopped being a colony 250 years ago, there was a war and everything, and sometimes those yankees write statements for socialist orgs.
terminology that conflicts with a gradeschool context of the words is always an extra struggle.
