He called me a setter and a nazi out of the blue, and I asked him if he slanders everyone or if he has a reason for saying that about me, then he replies with this legendary quote:
If you’re Amerikan, then you live in the bowels of the single most brutal settler-colonial entity to exist in the modern era. “Settling” is not a once-and-done action; it is a constant state as long as you are on settled land.
Honestly it all is ludicrous. You absolutely should know your history but trying to hold every white person in existence liable for the actions of people who died long before we were all born is silly. You can’t change the past you can only make the future. You might as well blame my dog for the suffering of the past. It accomplishes nothing. What’s worse is that some people have developed a complex about the history especially if they of a race that was harmed historically.
Don’t blame people alive today for mistakes and cruelty of the past. That is unfair to everyone involved.
You have to be careful not to go too far in the other direction as well. We may be blameless for atrocities that were committed by our ancestors but we do bear some responsibility to address the lasting effects of those atrocities and to oppose the continued settler-colonial project of which we are still part.
And don’t take this the wrong way, responsibility does not equal guilt. Every US citizen is not guilty of invading Iraq, for example, but every US citizen does bear some responsibility to oppose the systems of power that allowed such a thing to be done in our name.
I can’t say I agree but I respect your opinion
Yeah, but then people use that logic to deny that there are structural inequities that need to be fixed.