âPolitical Project of Reclaiming Personhoodâ
DeSchooling is a lifelong journey of recognizing false teachings, resisting the status quo, and pulling away from the effects of âschoolingâ. More specificallyâŚcolonization. There has been a lot of confusion and chaos about whats going on in the world. Children are being ripped from their parents by a government that has an oppressive hold on black, brown, and poor people. âMenâ deem it acceptable to torment and scream at people for speaking spanish. An 18 yo girl is stabbed to death by a white coward and the news tries to paint a perspective in favor of the murderer. I could go on for days about the situation colonizers have set up for us; but instead, I want to talk about ways to move past colonization. In, âThe Racial Contractâ, Jamaican philosopher Charles W. Mills, goes into great detail about the atrocities Europeans have inflicted on the rest of the worlds people. -Sitting Bull asks: âWhat treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their landâŚWhere are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet, they say I am a thief⌠What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red?â Ward Churchill, another Native American, characterizes European settlers as a self-conceived âmaster race.â David Walker complains that whites consider blacks ânot of the human family,â forcing blacks âto prove to them ourselves, that we are MENâ W.E.B. Du Bois represents blacks as a âtertium quid,â âsomewhere between men and cattle,â comments that âLiberty, Justice, and Rightâ are marked âFor White People Only,â and suggests that âthe statement âI am whiteâ is becoming âthe one fundamental tenet of our practical morality.â Richard Wright analyzes âthe ethics of living Jim Crow.â Marcus Garvey concludes that blacks are âa race without respect.â Jawaharlal Nehru claims that British policy in India is âthat of the herrenvolk and the master race.â Martin Luther King Jr. describes the feeling of âforever fighting a degenerating sense of ânobodiness.ââ Malcolm X asserts that America âhas not only deprived us of the right to be a citizen, she has deprived us of the right to be human beings, the right to be recognized and respected as men and womenâŚWe are fighting for recognition as human beings.â Frantz Fanon maps a colonial world divided between âtwo different species,â a âgoverning raceâ and âzoologicalâ natives. AimĂŠ CĂŠsaire argues that âthe colonizerâŚin order to ease his conscience gets into the habit of seeing the other man as an animalâŚcolonization = âthingification.ââ Australian Aborigines in 1982 protest statement at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane point out that âsince the White invasionâŚour humanity is being degraded and our history distorted by strangers⌠Before the world, we accuse White Australia (and her Mother, England) of the crimes against humanity and the planet. The past two centuries of colonization is proof of our accusation. We hereby demand yet again recognition of our humanity and our land rights.â- The chaos of the past and of today can be linked by two common themes: Morality and Personhood. Entire civilizations were wiped out at the hands of European guns because, âthey were savages with no moralsâ or âpeople without historyâ. By dehumanizing or stripping away what makes someone human, they have excused immoral behavior such as theft, rape, and murder. Having a high standard of morality is to be forever cringing and triggered by this society. Wanting all children and families to have food is a political issue because in this society, white morality is a political conundrum. DeSchooling yourself from the western status quo means evaluating your morals and reclaiming your personhood. âBlack is Beautifulâ âBlack Girl Magicâ âBlack Boy Joyâ These are political statements meant to reclaim black personhood. Once we decolonize our minds, our past glory will manifest as present victory.