Today's presentation of Albert Memmi's book The Colonizer and the Colonized was very well put together, and it showed me that this whole process of colonization is a lot more complex than I thought. To have colonization, both the colonizer and the colonized must experience dehumanization. The concept of dehumanization is somewhat similar to Gobineau's paradox of the conquering race, which argues the exact action that advacnes a nation (law of attraction) is what causes the devaluing of the dominant blood though miscegenation. So with dehumanization, the colonizer must first remove himself from humanity to understand the position of the colonized, who are dehumanized by the colonizer. What was so interesting to me is the fact that the colonial system will not function unless both parties experience dehumanization. But then again, this does make sense because the colonizer needs to have some knowledge of what life is like for the colonized in order to know the proper steps to take to begin the process of colonization.
The last question that was presented to the class was whether or not we believe "colonized" is an appropriate description for African-Americans today. We came to the conclusion that post-colonial would be a more accuate word to use beacuse although America is no longer a "colony," there are still aspects in which our society operates as one. This then led to African Americans and their struggle from slavery to now. Even though slavery and colonization are not the same, they are similar, and I will say that although African Americans are no longer "colonized," they still deal with a type of conflict in which they constantly have to work even harder to compete in American society.
After class, Dr. J and I had a brief conversation, and I told her that basically everything I've learned in our class coincides with the material in my African American History class. In History, we are discussing the pivotal events of the Civil Rights Movement, which sort of relates to the revolts of the colonized. Just as the colonized revolt and contribute to the end of colonization, participants in the Civil Rights Movement took the proper steps to bring about change for African-Americans. Although the two concepts are not exactly the same, there are several similarities between the two.
So what is your take on this? Do you think much has changed for African Americans? Do you think more needs to be done? How does the situation of African Americans relate to the colonizer and the colonized in your opinion?
And here's a short video about the Civil Rights Movement that kind of shows how the process of "colonization" was being broken as well as some forms of "dehumanization." Not the same thing, but there are some parallels.
In a certain way, the slave trade and transport exacerbated what would historically have been called colonization. Within most contexts, Tunisia included, the colonizing power moves into an area, which at least allows the population to maintain some relationship with their physical homeland. Within the context of African Diaspora, slaves were taken from the familiarity of their homes, their language, their culture and transplanted somewhere else, often times being grouped with other slaves who did not speak their language, share their metaphysical beliefs, or their cultural proclivities. On the one hand, this transplantation led to new cultural amalgamations that produced some of the most enduring cultural artifacts known today. On the other, many of the original languages were lost and ontologies forgotten. Although I am tempted to compare the American context to other colonies, I think it is important to understand and recognizes the huge differences as well--differences that I am still trying to wrap my head around. Interestingly, the true colonization, according to Du Boise and Fanon, occurs within the mind. Truthfully, that kind of decolonization takes a much greater effort to carry out and, given the lingering vestiges of the system which reinforced slavery to begin with, we must consider whether that kind of decolonization is accessible. Perhaps we will always need the term post-colonial.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of post-colonialism it reminds me of playing catch up. Since the exploited group within colonization is the colonized, I would consider that to be the slaves within America. After the abolition of slavery, African Americans were forced to assimilate to white America if they expected to survive. So in a way this does resemble post-colonialism to me because of the huge learning curve they had to overcome. During slavery, slaves weren’t allowed to read or write. So when you throw them into society prior to them having these skills, it is very difficult to completely alter their lifestyles. Many were exploited through sharecropping because they had no other skill sets. Also the option for children to become educated was very slim because either their parents weren’t educated and couldn’t teach them or their parents couldn’t afford to send them to school. Even though school is technically free now, evidence of these previous practices is still present within our society.
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