Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

However, in the United States the process of Americanization of immigrants is one of erasing history with the presentation of a canned narrative of greatness and goodness and expectation of immigrant gratitude for being a part of it, threatening the immigrant’s legitimacy in the absence of birthright citizenship. There is a similar expectation that, somehow, Black Americans should be grateful for Lincoln and the Civil War that brought emancipation from slavery, ignoring the tradition of enslaved African resistance and free Black abolitionism. Police killings of Black people, particularly young Black men, simply cannot be understood without knowledge of the workings of enslavement and slave patrols. The existence and resilience of white supremacy makes no sense without understanding invented racial codes to justify genocide of Indigenous inhabitants, enslavement of Africans, and establishment of settler colonialism and continental imperialism. Racial capitalism and violence are embedded in the US fiscal-military state, the Constitution, and institutions. US historians know this history, but for professional credibility and advancement, they must obfuscate under the demand for “balance.” For oppressed people to take history into their own hands, they have to know that history.