Hey all,
I’m currently developing a Marxist-Leninist analysis of settler colonialism, especially in light of the situation in Palestine, and am going to read Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai for the first time. Before I do I was just curious what other comrades think of the book and its analysis? It seems a pretty controversial text among many online Marxist groups, to whatever extent that matters, but as an Indigenous communist I feel having a clear and principled stance on the settler question is important for all serious communists. I’m not sure if I’ll agree with Sakai specifically, but since I generally agree with the opinions of y’all, I was curious as to your thoughts on the book.
I don’t have any native in me as far as I know; but considering the trail for my geneaology disappears after the 1890s, it’s totally in the air as to who and what. And yeah, same situation as you-- spoke to me just as seamlessly as Wretched of the Earth or We Will Shoot Back. (Which, if you don’t have that latter one, it’s by Akinyele Omowale Umoja; Black Agenda Report put me onto it a few months back.)
As for OP-- I don’t expect anyone to really agree 100% with Settlers, but I’ve read it cover-to-cover like twice now, with a third coming up the next time I have a good, long break. It’s controversial because one, Sakai published under pseudonym and that’s enough to make naive, non-opsec minded ‘comrades’ shit their britches. Two, Sakai was maybe even more abrasive than brother Ture in his analyses; and that makes the settlers immensely uncomfortable. Three, it illuminates a WHOLE BUNCH of buried Amerikan malfeasance; and if I learned anything about the publicity that the settlers ‘learning’ about Tulsa engendered, a lot of the controversy is coming from people who don’t want to think about their nations and organizations of choice doing the things they did.
I have distant Ioway and Charokee, but since I’m white passing and have no connection to tribal heritage I’d count myself as a settler.
It’s a distressing book, because it basically tells every settler “you aren’t the main character.” We can only support actual revolutionaries.
I mean, if I might be so bold, I’d think some settlers need to hear that message lmao. Joking aside, it’s that kind of thing that I don’t know a single Black comrade that actually organizes with settler orgs and parties and doesn’t have a story about getting absolutely talked over, sidelined, and otherwise made to feel ‘other’ within those very organizations; and I think if we got enough white leftists to internalize that message of Settlers at least once, we’d actually start making some headway in equality in this shithole of a nation.
And mind-- I’m not saying that settlers can’t lead their own left organizations; but on matters of liberation, especially Black and Indigenous liberation respectively, they unequivocally should not expect to be at the head of the table on the when, where, how, and why. They should consider themselves lucky to even have a seat at that table if they do; which they likely will bc good luck extricating a settler when someone already fucked around and gave them an invite to the kickback, but it should be understood that it ain’t the settler’s place to talk any kind of sideways about these matters like they’re leading and presiding over them.