(10) Sharon Smith
On Economic Justice
SHARON SMITH·TUESDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2015·6 MINUTES
By Sharon Smith
The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism—the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek a history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society.
--Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2014)
My Friends,*
How can we speak of economic justice, without first acknowledging the proceeding quote as truth? Please remember that the modern European nation state arose in conjunction with European colonial expansion, backed by ever increasing methods of mass destruction and organized violence. Beginning in the eleventh century, with the Crusades, a small circle of white men developed the global capitalist economic system we know today, through military conquest and economic exploitation, by plundering the world’s resources and its peoples. Only later, in the 19th century, did European men attempt to justify the culture of conquest they created, by inventing a theory of racial hierarchy, which established white people as superior, all others as inferior, and therefore ripe for subjugation.
How can we, knowing this, claim to live according to Friends’ testimonies of Equality, Integrity and Peace, if we cannot, or will not address this basic contradiction of our existence?
When our European ancestors, including early Quakers, first sailed to America to participate in the colonial experiment, they saw non-European people of color as not fully human. That erroneous belief was no valid excuse even then, and by today’s standards, our English ancestors were far out of proper Quaker order. This one fact could very well explain why the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) still consists of mostly economically stable middle class white people, who wonder, occasionally, why we remain a fairly accurate statistical cross section of middle class white America, with a few sprinkles of color for visual effect.
Consider that most white people in these unUnited States have no friends of color. Most don’t know any people of color well enough to have them over for dinner, or just hang out together. Most don’t even have Facebook friends of color. I checked. Moreover, white people are raised to believe they are superior, entitled, and to be wary of folks of color. Furthermore, what most Americans learn about American history is usually only the sanitized, “This Land Is Your Land,” from sea to shining sea, settler colonial mythology.
A first step toward building a shred of credibility for Friends, among people and communities of color, might simply be to acknowledge that the US is indeed a white supremacist colonial settler state, founded on genocide, theft, slavery and a host of other atrocities, meant to benefit white people at everyone else’s expense.
One can find quite a bit of information about the disproportionate impacts of our white supremacist economic system on Black Americans and Latinos. Yet, if you think socioeconomic statistics regarding Black Americans are extreme, they are rivaled by stats for Indigenous Americans. For example: Did you know that one in four Native Americans lives in poverty? Did you know that Amnesty International has been investigating shockingly high and disproportionate rates of sexual violence and missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls? Are you aware that, in 2000, while Black children represented 36% of the foster care population, even though they comprised only 15% of the general child population, Native American children represented 2.6% of the foster care population, yet only encompassed 1.2% of the general child population? Have you heard about the extreme disproportionate over-representation of American Indian juveniles and adults in our criminal justice system? Or that the stats for extra judicial killings of Indian men by law enforcement are actually worse than the stats for Black men? Or that the system is rife with racist predatory corruption, and that by every socioeconomic indicator, these statistics are becoming increasingly more alarming? Probably not.
It is no accident that you are unaware of these very troubling facts. One has to know just how and where to search in order to find them, due to a longstanding media black-out on Indigenous affairs. Why? Because erasing the true state of Native America is part of the colonial settler nation’s cover-up strategy to keep white Americans from having to face the guilty discomfort of all that blood on your hands.
Make no mistake, much violence is required to achieve the socioeconomic and political goals of a colonial settler state, like the United States. The US continues its centuries long colonial process of divesting Indigenous peoples of their lands and resources. Land has always been the issue. Without land, there can be no cultural base, no self-determination, and no economic sustainability. Because people do not simply give up their lands, resources, children and life ways, without a fight, European Americans, and the rogue white supremacist colonial settler state, now called the USA, consistently meets that resistance with unspeakable violence.
Native nations and communities have struggled against terrible odds to maintain traditional values, collectivity, cultural practices and histories. In every instance they have fought for survival as peoples, while the US colonialist/capitalist military industrial/corporate objective, has always been to terminate their existence as distinct peoples. To paraphrase Dunbar-Ortiz, “Modern Indigenous nations and communities are societies formed of necessity, in resistance to colonialism.”
Before you say, “But violence was committed equally by the colonized and the colonizer,” let me remind you that, from the Doctrine of Discovery and the founding narrative of the Pilgrim settlers’ covenant with God, to the Monroe Doctrine, to today, Euro-American colonialism—which is today’s global economic capitalism—has had a genocidal agenda. Moreover, Indigenous Americans never invaded Europe, or Africa, or Asia. And, Europeans never came to the Americas as immigrants intending to assimilate into any of a wide range of aboriginal cultures, learn the language or become good citizens. Instead, y’all brought your European culture of domination and conquest to the Americas, and proceeded to terrorize the native population into compliance and economic dependency.
Let’s face it Friends, the American empire you are such comfortable citizens of, is based on genocide, slavery, theft, rape and many many lies. It now preys on all people of color and nations around the planet, through European and American corporate interests, in your name. Please seriously consider the fact that as white Americans, Friends have the luxury, of taking a passive stance, while continuing to reap economic benefit from the slaughter.
As long as we avoid these truths, we deny our responsibility for essential unresolved issues of unceded Indigenous lands, sovereignty and economic self-determination, as a basis for economic justice. If we Friends are to “walk our talk” and actually live according to the Quaker testimonies, of Peace, Integrity and Equality, we so proudly profess, what do they require of us?
* The official name for the Quaker faith is, The Religious Society of Friends, therefore Friends with a capital “F” means Quakers.
Sharon Smith is a birthright Friend, due to her mother’s lineage. She is proud to be Black-Occoneechee Saponi and Mohawk, from her father’s lineage.
(approx. 1,200 Words)
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/13/1-in-4-native-americans-and-alaska-natives-are-living-in-poverty/
http://www.ncjfcj.org
http://www.crimeandjustice.org/researchReports
http://obsn.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occaneechi
7Liz Oppenheimer, Diane Dicranian and 5 others
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Sharon Smith Friends Journal declined to publish my article "On Economic Justice" for their December issue dedicated to Quaker writings about economic justice, so it is published here.
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David W. Van Why I have no doubt this article is of publishable quality and there should have been a place for it. You get at a theme of Quakers adamantly abstaining from violence while simultaneously profitting from it. You hit the head of a very big nail that few of us want to face. I think you need more room to address that theme; I can easily imagine more than 10,000 words. Thank you for publishing it here.
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Elaine Coate Where do we see a pattern of integration among our friendships? This is the acid test. I do see among my friends grandchildren a wonderful breakdown of racial barriers in regards to marriage. It gives me hope. Love conquers all!
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4y
Crystal Light Is there a different way to present the numbers regarding children in foster care? Given that the McDonald's one-third pound burger had demonstrated lower sales because people thought a one-fourth pound was bigger (4 is bigger than 3, donchaknow), the numbers 15 and 36 followed by 1.2 and 2.6 seem less impressive than they ought to. Perhaps some ratios would be better? 15/36 = 0.417 and 1.2/2.6 = 0.462. Still small numbers but at least one can see that 0.462 is bigger than 0.417. Maybe when I'm not sleepy I can think of a better way to express the issue.
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Sharon Smith replied · 1 reply