Postcolonialism is one of those university words... it deals with cultural identity in colonised societies: the dilemmas of developing a national identity after colonial rule; the ways in which writers articulate and celebrate that identity (often reclaiming it from and maintaining strong connections with the coloniser); the ways in which the knowledge of the colonised (subordinated) people has been generated and used to serve the coloniser's interests; and the ways in which the coloniser's literature has justified colonialism via images of the colonised as a perpetually inferior people, society and culture.
I am a postcolonialist. The short of this translates to: i'm trying to renounce my white priviledge. "Hi i'm luke! what's your favorite color?! i see your skin is different than mine, do you identify primarily through this medium or do you prefer i deal with you on an individual level?" There are no inferior people, just people in different contexts. The point is to dialog about those context and see the similarities! imagine what we could learn! imagine the different ways of viewing the world that we could learn and in turn use these to help solve problems in our own contexts! awesome huh?
the opposite of this view is colonialist. no one will identify as this, but i see a TON of this popping up recently. a colonialists believes that their country is the greatest and all other countries must measure up to their standard. for example, US colonialism would hold that white, male, middle to upper-class capitalist that is religiously nondenominational Prostestant is the standard to be measured by.
the biggest instance in current events is the whole blow up on the Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's 2001 comments where he stated "God damn America!" people are jumping up and down about this.. people are asking me what my thoughts are.. here they are:
someone claimed that Obama is “as a man and member of the Elite social-economic class Senator Obama has no sense of what working class men or women suffer, survive, and live through daily”
he’s not. please read his background. he's actually quite poor compared to every other politician out there...
as for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.. please listen to his whole speech in context and read what Black Liberation Theology means. it mainly means that it is Afro-centric but not Afro-supremists. Why don't we have White Liberation Theology? Because we don't need it in this country! The majority of theology in America is white. What would we be liberated from? Keep that in mind while you view the whole speech! enjoy!
Do you see the postcolonialist message in here?
This whole mess is started because a man, Obama, was raised by a white mother and self-identifed as a black man and went to a progressive black church. this is what it is. what we’re dealing with is race issues on both sides and white priviledge is being confronted. white people don't like having to remember the fact that they were generally shitty to people of color despite the fact they had "All Men are Created EQUAL" in the bill of rights since the late 1700s and still haven't lived up to it yet (although there have been some improvements).
now that you have the context... what do you think?
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