Conditional Giving

Throughout history of the imperial United States, there have been countless examples of people giving to the colonizers, followed by violence and convenient amnesia. From indigenous destruction to the reign of terror of sovereign communities during the Reconstruction to urban renewals that destroyed the lively segregated neighborhoods, colonizers have been given countless resources that they have later destroyed. Recently, there has been excessive whining for Black people to get back into the streets and all over the platforms and stages to fight the current imperial administration. I would argue that the convenient amnesia and violence have taken away their capacity to recognize that many of us have nothing left after the last push, beginning in 2015 with the murder of Freddie Gray. The problem with capitalism is that the sycophants and beneficiaries always believe that there is “more” to get, and that people just need to provide information as to its whereabouts.

When colonizers first arrived on the eastern shores, they knew nothing about this land, including the seasons, game to hunt, or where to find consistently fresh water. Indigenous communities were under no obligation to share, but chose to based on more socialist societies that recognized independence. Was every motive pure when territorialism can be a human desire? No, but colonizers did more than receive help to survive seasons: they systematically murdered the people who gave information related to survival. Imagine offering to house and feed a stranger, incorporate them into a family structure, and then that stranger decides to murder everyone while they sleep. Rewarding generosity with violence is a psychotic way of existence, and no, it cannot be argued that “human nature” made crazy people destroy others, who were not interfering in any way except to have something the lunatics wanted.

African slaves were taken from Africa to do the work that colonizers refused to do for themselves because instead of being content with small-scale economies, they demanded the right to recreate the feudalism they had supposedly been “escaping.” This is the problem of the whole, “This time, we have the power!” mentality. Simultaneously, the colonizers demanded the right to hide what they were doing by prohibiting reading and writing, and to emotionally abuse those who were working based on insecurity. When slaves rightfully decided that they had done enough and wanted to live their own lives, colonizers were enraged and decided to do their level best to murder as many slaves as was economically viable to scare the rest into submission. After colonizers lost the right to command, they demanded the right to go into communities they had segregated and take whatever they wanted, and if the free societies objected, the colonizers would murder those until the rest of the communities were once again under submission.

Skipping to the Civil Rights Movement, people were trying to abide by the rules of the dominant narrative and maintain communities while trying to improve under unfair rules. Relegated to the polluted and desecrated areas of cities and towns, marginalized and oppressed people made segregated neighborhoods into thriving communities that produced a wide range of talent. Segregation was only recognized by the marginalized and oppressed, and “outsiders” were in the communities all the time, taking their fill of goods and culture. Instead of abiding by the segregation that they had imposed, the descendants of colonizers then demanded to take the neighborhoods again, running highways through the middle or declaring that the areas had to be taken over by municipal entities–to be given over to the sycophants and colonizers of the time. Even abiding by the rules, excelling, and creating our own cultures to consume did not stop people who demanded access and control over everything.

Here we stand in an era when almost nobody has anything, and there are still psychopaths demanding that people with nothing give even more, because a lack of character can never be filled by external circumstances. People drown and die because “elites” demand even more than they have and will never be able to spend in a lifetime, even if they were reckless. So much has been given to these people and yet they cannot stand that there is “more” to be acquired that they lack, and the rest of us bear the burden of their unmitigated and insatiable greed. I cannot even pretend to understand what that is like because unlike such monsters, I am more than capable of having enough, even if I lack the opportunity. Believing that such people are receptive to appeals to humanity is highly problematic, and I am disappointed in those that continue to believe.

What is often missed is that the “elites” are picking fights to run away from debts owed and grace they were given, and the rise of the unrecognized is starting to drown out their delusions. People who were given and then decided to take are not “good people,” and everyone is tired of the relentless amount of energy demanded to sustain that irrational mindset. In their heart of hearts, such people know that the time for running from responsibility and accountability is over, and the only way to make amends is to start pouring back into everyone else. However, rather than do that, they will offer “studies,” “conversations,” performative emotions and everything else, rationalizing that there is too much to give back too soon. Nobody else demanded conditions when we gave because everyone else was able to live without constant extraction, and no one knows how to stir communalism within ravenous wolves.