Tweet

Joseph M. Pierce

12 Oct, 10 tweets, 2 min read

@WhiteHouse

How Trump's @WhiteHouse statement on Columbus Day, is more revisionist than the revisionists they fear, a thread:

"Today, we celebrate Columbus Day to commemorate the great Italian who opened a new chapter in world history and to appreciate his enduring significance to the Western Hemisphere."
1. Italy was not a unified country until 1946. Columbus was not Italian.

"As a native of Genoa, Columbus inspired early immigrants to carry forth their rich Italian heritage to the New World."
2. Nor was Columbus an immigrant. He had a contract with the Spanish crown to find India, and he died thinking that he had found India.

"Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy."
3. Note how the affirmative statement admits no historical interpretation. CC's legacy either is, or isn't. There is no wiggle room here.

"These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions."
4. WHOOOAAAAHHHHH. Since when is historical interpretation the same as "extremism"?

"Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister."
5. Notice how there is, again, only one version of history here: "our".
Bonus: "splendor" is no longer subjective?

"We must not give in to these tactics or consent to such a bleak view of our history."
6. TBH, genocide is bleak. But I get how claiming ownership over history is easier than admitting to the bleakness of white supremacy. SO BLEAK.

"On this Columbus Day, we embrace the same optimism that led Christopher Columbus to discover the New World."
7. LOL, it was Vespucci who called it the new world, not Columbus. CC had no idea it was "new". (it isn't new and he didn't discover it).

"We inherit that optimism, along with the legacy of American heroes who blazed the trails, settled a continent, tamed the wilderness, and built the single-greatest nation the world has ever seen."
8. Columbus wasn't optimistic. He was scared for his life.

9. And about that settling of a continent, and taming of the wilderness, and greates-ever-nation business. WOW. WOWWWWWWW. WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

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Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

17 Sep

For those wondering why Trump recently linked a critique of the nuclear family to a critique of whiteness, a thread: The family is the main place where gender, race, and sexuality are constructed in contemporary societies.

Marx and Engels described the family as the place where the division of labor first occurs, and thus, where women are first subjected to discrimination on the basis of gender.

Foucault called the family the interchange of the regime of sexuality and regime of alliance. He meant that the family unit stabilizes power differentials by creating "sexuality" and by turning marriage into a "contract".

Read 10 tweets

Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

6 Sep

I have not commented specifically on this. I wasn't sure exactly how I felt, but then, I realized that #JessicaKrug wrote to her unknown ancestors in the acknowledgments to her latest book, and I just broke down.

That white fuckery, that debasement of the memory of the ancestors that she did not have, is rooted in so much violence and so much privilege that it is utterly astounding. Pathologically astounding.

I do not want to distract or divert attention from the real material harm that she has caused Black and Afrodiasporic friends and colleagues. In particular young Afrolatina and Afrolatinx colleagues whom Krug gaslighted and demeaned, and for her claims to Afro Puerto Ricanness.

Read 8 tweets

Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

18 Jun

I've been thinking about mask wearing a lot. For reasons that are probably not surprising, the mask is now a symbol and has been taken up by conservatives (and white supremacists, but there is really very little difference there) as a way to signal their rebellion & independence.

That is entirely logical, as I have said before, because it channels the white desire for invincibility, on the one hand, and disregard for collective care, on the other. Now, that being said, as an Indigenous person, for me, wearing a mask signals that I am aware of you.

That I care for you and recognize your humanity. It is a way for me to be in good relations with you and with your relatives, with your kin, your elders, whoever they may be. Me wearing a mask is me consenting to be in good relations with you. HOWEVER...

Read 4 tweets

Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

26 May

Apparently, there is an *ongoing* discussion (like today) of whether Native Americans were "cannibals" and that it was "proven" so. Here are some resources to dispel that myth, since it was used for centuries to steal our land and enslave us. We have receipts:

1. Jáuregui, Carlos A. 2008. Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y consumo en América Latina. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. (Literally a 500 page academic monograph on the subject, dispelling the myth)

2. Davies, Surekha. 2016. Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A brilliant analysis of how the 'human' was invented in contrast with monsters and 'cannibals' portrayed on European maps)

Read 12 tweets

Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

4 Mar

Some people have questioned my own path to Cherokee citizenship after the Warren letter. I have nothing to hide. My father was adopted pre-ICWA by a white family. We have gone through the slow, painful process of reconnecting & reclaiming citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.

I have written about it extensively. First, here in Indian Country Today: newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…

And then in Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, here: pepepierce.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/pierce…

Read 8 tweets

Joseph M. Pierce

@PepePierce

2 Mar

I was once asked by a Warren staffer if I would rather get hung up on the Cherokee issue, or let Trump win. As if to say, there are two options: let go of my conviction that Cherokee sovereignty matters, or allow more years of this... /1

It is a false dichotomy, obviously, but that interaction has repeated itself over and over again since we published the open letter. The letter, for me at least, is bigger than electoral politics, even while it intervenes during the electoral cycle-- /2

it is only by using the pressure created by that cycle that EW's team actually responded to us at all--but has at its core a defense of Indigenous self-determination: who we are and who we defend as our own. That the US election has to boil down to the lesser of two evils is, /3

Read 7 tweets

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