Dear Joseph N. Weatherby,
I understand you're gone, and I pass my condolences to your family. Today, for my political science class, I had to read a book you contributed to: "The Other World."I was assigned to read your chapter, the one about colonialism. Through your eloquent paragraphs and excellent writing, I wish I could ask... WHAT THE FUCK.
As a person of the "Other World," I personally find your chapter condescending and belittling - you were apathetic to the suffering of this so-called "Other World," as you glorify the colonists that destroyed our homes and took away our livelihood.
And to say that the colonists felt bad for their colonies, thereby relabelling them as "protectorates" does not mean jack shit. You know why? Because there was no difference in how they treated us "protectorates" from when we were "colonies." A new name doesn't change a murderer.
You should not be talking about the hardship that the colonists face in trying to establish power, you should more eloquently explain the terrors that they brought to us: disease, war, death, destruction, and unwanted control. It's not that we didn't want the colonists, no! Not the people who raped and pillaged.
Oh! And I am so sorry that the plight of the stigma of racial colonialism has fallen on the pale and weak backs of the Western powers. It must be so tough! Almost as if it isn't true? First thing, we did not pardon the USSR because they were Marxist, we were non-aligned (did you even do any research?), it was because, I don't know, maybe half of Russia is in Asia and is Asian?
Secondly, kudos, " it was clear that the earlier Other World views of the Soviet Union and colonialism was incorrect." Uhm, I don't ever remember anyone saying that the Third World loved the USSR, but of course only white can be right, so you had to add that!
Now, Latin America's Roman Catholic population "stands as a legacy to the serious purpose of the religious crusades of Spain and Portugal," yes the legacy of blood and violence. Of good ole' Christopher Columbus giving the indigenous people smallpox and massacring them because he "discovered" America.
This cultural "gift" of the colonists' language, culture, and religion! The same "gift" they used to erase our own savage cultural identity right? You know, how are you going to force people to work in inhuman conditions if they don't speak the same language as you? Well, guns would work initially, but then everyone would be dead! Then what? Oh boy!
Maybe I'm sensitive, maybe I'm crazy! But colonialism is this huge thing that happened and it hasn't really ended. Countries like Myanmar and Niger are still in the same shitty place that the colonists left them in.
Why? Because the colonists left, but the dominance that they had still exists. Someone cannot pardon colonialism or portray colonialism without its infinite problems. These aren't largely theoretical problems, no, these were death, starvation, racism.
Love, Dan!
