I'm sitting on a panel on prejudice tomorrow....

[Wetzelbill]

Should be 6-8 of us answering questions for about 40-50 people so so.

I'm representing an American Indian point of view, well technically anyway. I believe I am going to talk a little about modern colonialism and it's effects on our society. And how that white supremacist ideology helps keep the ruling class in power as it sets whiteness as the standard for everything. Meaning that ruling class elites believe that ideas from their own white culture are superior and it allows them to justify certain colonial activities. For example, Manifest Destiny fits into that realm, or even more recently the concept that people in the Middle East need democracy enforced onto them by a Western power, pretty much for their own good. No matter what happens this is considered progress. Say hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying is fine, because they are still "better off" than they were before the intervention of a colonial power. The ends justify the means.

So I plan to talk a little bit about that, providing the line of questioning allows me to do so. I'm a little nervous as I don't know how broad or narrow the questioning will be. I may end up just having to relate a few of my own personal experiences, but, truthfully, I don't like doing that. I'd rather talk about certain themes and concepts and related that to how our world is today and what we can do to change it. I believe it is necessary to tell certain stories, like for instance, I have experienced a certain amount of prejudice, and giving examples can be productive. I just don't want to dwell on that.

Why? Because sometimes people here a story and everybody shakes their heads and think "Wow that is terrible" but nothing more comes out of it than that. I want to give them something tangible that they can walk out of the room with. Something that is their own. Because my story would just be my story. But if I can teach one person in that room something about say colonialism, and give them an interest in developing an new way at looking at the world, then maybe they can broaden their worldview.

I'd like to get people to have a new worldview, to see problems from all sides and with a certain amount of depth. So hopefully I'll be on my game tomorrow, I am a little nervous. But it's a good kind of nervous. :)

[Bitwit1234]

1. Most people say this but I have documented proof

My great great great great grandmother was Indian. Mattoponi. That's doesn't count for anything in the Indian population tho. They are a small tribe that practically does not exist anymore. They can't get certification.

[Bitwit1234]

2. Most people say this but I have documented proof

My great great great great grandmother was Indian. Mattoponi. That's doesn't count for anything in the Indian population tho. They are a small tribe that practically does not exist anymore. They can't get certification.

[porphyrian]

3. I'm not sure that it's possible in the context of your presentation...

...but it would be interesting if you turn the tables on them somehow - give the audience a taste of colonialism in progress. Let them all get seated and comfortable wherever they like, then make half of them get up and go stand in a small area for no apparent reason. If anyone says anything about it, or after a short time, make more people go stand in that same small area. Keep adding rules for those standing (no talking, women in back, whatever - the more arbitrary, the better). You get the idea.