Deconstructing The Colonial Narratives Surrounding Migration — Part 6

Surpassing European Colonialism/Modernity

As seen in the previous parts, the world has been particularly unbalanced since 1492 for the benefits of western Europeans (the core) and their white supremacist enablers worldwide (see the concept of “house negro”) and against everyone else (the periphery).

The narrative claiming that things are getting better (the myth of Progress) is inaccurate as it only considers metrics that exist post-15th century and tries to depict the historical reality as linear (a narrative that goes: “it was very bad long time ago and it’s necessarily getting better”) while the reality is that the world has never been this unbalanced for quite a long time. It might be true that things were getting better so far for European citizens but that’s absolutely not verified for the rest of the planet, especially in the global south.

So how do we surpass this Eurocentric narrative that seeks to homogenize and standardize the world in the image of the European society of the 15th century onwards? In other terms: how do we surpass Modernity?

A postmodern world requires continuous deconstruction

A main mistake people make when tackling discriminations and anti-immigration sentiments is that they fall for the narrative putting it all on managerial dysfunctionalities or individual responsibility, thus refusing to acknowledge the systemic nature of the problem.

Police officers killing Black and brown people? It’s just some “bad apples” among a majority of non-racist policemen. No mention of the institutional racism of policing as an institution and its dark past and original reason for existence (Slave patrols and colonial outpost defense)

Algorithmic discriminations and racial targeting at border controls? Probably an isolated error. Nothing said about systemic racial profiling that involves the executive, the legislative and the judiciary and nothing mentioned about algorithmic bias.

“I’m in the TV room with Stephanie Shepherd, who also served 10 years for a non-violent cannabis offense. It’s after hours, the officers have let us in, and we’re watching the news, and it says: Up next, a look into the cannabis industry. And they are interviewing the ladies of the Beverly Hills Cannabis club. They asked one of the founders, How is business? And she says: “Business is booming.” And Stephanie turns around and looks at me and she goes, “Business is booming? And I’m like, Yep, you’ve got 10, I’ve got seven, that’s 17 years together, for the same activity that this lady on the Channel 7 news is doing. And let’s be clear, me and this lady on the screen did not look the same.” Extract from The Human Toll: How the War on Cannabis Targeted Black America (Part 2) exposing the systemic racism in the U.S.

Economic disparities between the north and the south and between the whites and the non-whites? Capitalism has some issues and needs to be fixed/reformed. Nothing to do with its inherent colonial setup.