Suzana Martinez Wk 2 Response

When Place Becomes Race by Sherene H. Razack depicts the deemed connections between European colonizers and land. In this sense, there’s a specified innocence in European actions completed during the colonial period that engulfed the Indigenous population, essentially erasing history in favor of Europeans. The modern definition of land is connected to the community of individuals occupying it at the time, which causes the land to be viewed and used differently, deriving from racial orders set by White Europeans to immortalize their beings to establish power. Due to colonization, the epitome of class, femininity, and masculinity lies on the shoulders of White individuals, often causing self-hatred in minorities. Self-hatred infiltrates political ideologies, occupations, and societal changes, meaning colonization correlates to a refusal of self-acceptance. Decolonization is not a metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang emphasizes the performative nature of utilizing the term “decolonize” as it often ignores the history and needs of Indigenous populations that faced the brutality of colonization in the first place. With the rise of political discussions using social media, there continues to be a lack of acknowledgment toward Indigenous communities such as the rising death toll for missing Indigenous women, lack of clean water in reservations, and generational trauma stemming from colonization. A personal thought I had regarded how playing with the term “decolonize” takes away from the initial meaning and removes power from Indigenous communities. Similarly, the text discussed how everything Natives held sacred and crucial to survival was rebranded to fit the European lens; this idea is grossly similar to creating political discussions centered around decolonizing mindsets because the ideas being implemented aren’t always centered on the benefit of Indigenous peoples or society as a whole, rather to clear the conscience of European history. Both passages heavily enveloped Native images within the words to illustrate frustrations and how individuals continue to talk for and over Natives. Both ideas of land and space are fairly similar as they correlate to European rebranding, which created a social hierarchy. An interesting point derived from both is the violence and negatives sparked by colonization. In school, there’s little taught regarding the dark effects of colonization and what occurred. However, Decolonization is not a metaphor that depicts the violence inflicted on enslaved individuals to contribute to the hostile image of colonizers and When Place Becomes Race highlights the innate need for control within colonizers.