Diaspora: the dispersed; all those peoples who are dispossessed from their homeland, and (in the majority of cases) alienated from their language, economic systems, ancestors, cultural and spiritual traditions.
Who is the Diaspora?
In what is now referred to as the "united states of america," essentially all of us are members of the Diaspora. Very few of us are indigenous to this land, and those that are native have almost entirely been either slaughtered, relocated, assimilated, or all three. Thus of the 250 million some members of this "nation" only perhaps a few thousand remain on ancestral lands, with a distinct language, culture and spiritual traditions. All of the rest of us are "dispersed" peoples.
Within all intact indigenous nations, an uncompromising defense of the land, people and history is always present. This is true whether we are speaking of Palestinians, Aborigines, Basques, animist Africans or the natives of Turtle Island. Those who have sustained their ancestral traditions in the midst of the omnipresent assault of capitalism and whiteness, have survived exactly because they have resisted the predominant tendency towards a rootless and a-historical "globalization."
Thus, when we say that we are of the Diaspora, we are simply acknowledging the destitution of our present condition. We say that we have been dispersed because this fosters the potential for a legitimately diverse and profound solidarity amongst all those currently living in the so-called "united states." From here there is a possibility of dignified collective action.
The positive action possible among the Diaspora is not rooted in what we have gained through our dispersion, but through what we have lost, and in the question 'where do we go from here?'
Specifically we are:
AFRICANS:
The largest, and the most important migration of peoples to conquered Turtle Island were the 80-100 million captured Africans sold as slaves in the emerging capitalist economy of the "New World." Without the theft of millions of people's labor, without the systematic desecration of their humanity, the invaders could not have created the empire of affluence and global terror that we now refer to as the "u.s." The historical enslavement of Africans is, both materially and psychologically, the most pervasive and foundational ingredient of our present miserable condition in this society.
The mass robbery of human beings instigated by European Christian invaders grew to be such a profitable endeavor that some among the African population began capturing and offering up their own for the thousands-of-miles journey to the insane degradation of the New World. Confined in a state of wretchedness comparable only to the likes of modern factory farms, more than half of the African "cargo" of the slavers died on passage to "the Americas" and were thrown into the sea like simple debris of a business enterprise.
Africans were stolen from dozens of nations throughout the west coast of Africa, as well as somewhat from the internal regions. The numerous languages, cultural and spiritual practices of the Africans were systematically undermined by the slave system. In the West Indies, Africans were "broken" for their eventual task of cultivating vast quantities of cotton, tobacco, indigo and sugar cane on plantations throughout the Caribbean and the southeastern united states.
It is this breaking of human beings that best exemplifies the experience of the Diaspora. Nations and families ruthlessly divided, the women raped by the master, the children sold "down the river." Native dance and music forbidden and forced underground, indigenous names obliterated by the master's name. Native religions and languages banned and replaced by the slaveholder's Christianity and English.
Having endured nearly three centuries of slavery, and another full century of apartheid terror, descendants of Africans in america have been almost entirely stripped of all legitimate sense of being African and have been given, in trade, the offensive and meager identity as an African-American.
EUROPEANS:
One way or another, either taught by the left or by the racist public schools, the history of Europeans in the Americas always begins with the history of those who initiated and profited from the genocidal slaving conquest. This is a piece of the history that cannot be ignored or understated. Yes, two continents were conquered and another was robbed of millions as slaves, and yes, the conquistadors were from Europe.
For sure, there has always been a class of Europeans that stockpiled stolen gold and silver, that burned natives alive and buried the corpses in mass graves, that owned vast plantations and sold the sugar, rum, tobacco, cotton and indigo on the international market, that owned the ships that carted Africans across the Atlantic as cattle, that called for the mass distribution of smallpox blankets, that came to brutally Christianize "ignorant savages," that slaughtered millions of buffalo and harp seals with reckless abandon, that established themselves as the new government, and so forth.
And yet, saying this only tells the very crudest beginning of the story of Europeans in this country. The vast majority of settlers, in general, and even among the armies of colonization, were not the wealthy speculators and bishops that really spearheaded the initiative. Many millions of European migrants were impoverished folks, criminals or criminalized revolutionaries and religionists, thousands of whom were forced to migrate for exactly these reasons. Very little has been done to understand and describe this process (certainly by the white radical movement in the u.s.) but we can begin with the sparse knowledge we do have, and build from there.
For example, there is the story of the Irish peasants crammed into ships strikingly similar to slaving vessels (often a third to a half of the "cargo" died or was sickeningly ill upon arrival) and sent to america during the famine of the 1840s. These Irish folks were forced to migrate to america because it was cheaper for the landlords to ship them abroad than to wait for starving people to pay rent.
Then there's the English revolution - technically understood as the civil war to overthrow the king - that gave birth to a number of more radical currents among the English peasantry. Many of the soldiers who fought against the king became disillusioned by the fact that once the king was gone, the new parliamentary system still treated the poor as slaves and benefited the state church and the landowners. These folks mutinied and were violently repressed. Many of their leaders were killed, and the living were given two choices: go to Ireland to put down freedom fighters there, or go to america. Most chose america rather than murdering their Irish brothers.
These stories, as well as the simple understanding that what is now Georgia began as a British penal colony, begin to make clear that at least a good portion of the European Diaspora came downtrodden and persecuted, rather than (or as well) as greedy, racist Christians. In fact, the concept of race as we now understand it, and particularly of whiteness, grew out of this interaction between European migrants and African slaves on stolen Turtle Island.
The creation of "white" people in america began as an attempt to maintain the fragile balance of the slave economy in which the vast majority of the population were either slaves, indentured (or landless) Europeans, or natives. The slaving class had to ensure that events such as the Baker's Rebellion, where poor Europeans linked up with Africans and natives in revolt against the rich, would not continue.
Colonial lawmakers created this category of white people and gave white people certain material privileges, such as the ability to own land and the "right" to work slightly less menial industrial jobs and Europeans became white to the extent that they aligned their own interests with those of the slave holders and industrialists. Early in the colonial process, there were dozens of examples of European migrants organizing in vocal opposition to slavery, but by the turn of the twentieth century, this almost entirely gave way to a situation in which, even most so-called revolutionary white people advocated for the "naturally inferior" status of Negroes to be maintained.
So, becoming white had two key components. one was this acceptance of certain human beings as "niggers," barely above animal status, and fit only for brutal exploitation. Second was the decimation of all European cultural or spiritual heritage and the willingness to assimilate into america. Both were dramatic shifts from their condition upon arrival to this country.
For example, many of the Irish migrants identified not necessarily as Irish but more specifically by the county that they had left. They mostly spoke Gaelic and practiced a version of Catholicism that was a combination of Roman Catholicism and the pagan spiritual customs of pre-colonized Ireland. Many of the Irish peasants had lived in townlands, which were stateless, communal means of living, almost entirely unaffected by British rule. All of this had to be either forgotten or undermined in order to consider oneself a white american.
This transition from an identity firmly rooted in land, spirit, ritual and ancestry to an identity of loose affiliation to all peoples from Ireland, and then all of Europe, and then more abstractly to all of those currently deemed white, is a rather gross perversion of the notion of solidarity.
Inherent in the alliance of all European migrants in america into one distinct group of white people is the violent suppression of all that once allowed the European to know herself (ancestral history, custom, language, and spirit) as well as the violent subjugation of all those classed as "non-white." Thus, fundamental in this agreement to be understood as of the white race is the absolute negation of the possibility of legitimate connection with the majority of the world's peoples.
So while the localism of indigenous systems of living in Europe guaranteed the individual's survival through the vibrancy of the community, the transition to whiteness guarantees only the mutual alienation of all those participating. And perhaps the third key component of whiteness is that very near to everyone must participate or the power of the consensual lie tends to dissipate.
REFUGEES:
That millions of people find the conditions in their country so undesirable that they choose to migrate elsewhere is not a surprise. The daily conditions imposed by the dominant society, particularly in the vast portions of the world where this domination is blunt, undisguised thievery, are absolutely noxious towards all things that live or might wish to live. Capitalism is war. Whether it shows itself in open violent conflict or not - and (taken globally) it does daily - the continuation of this system is both rooted in, and inherently violence. As a result, refugees of war are everywhere.
A refugee of war is a time-bomb. Every war that the colonial and neocolonial masters have instigated over the past hundreds of years has simultaneously sown the seeds of resistance in millions of survivors. In places such as Palestine where the people have faced over 50 years of military occupation, apartheid and genocidal "removal" campaigns, the rage felt among the people is truly awe-inspiring. At this point, more than 50 percent of the population of the occupied territories are 18 years old or younger. They have known nothing but Israeli oppression and have nothing to look forward to but the Intifada.
And there are many, many Palestines, just as there will be many, many Vietnam-style wars of national liberation.
Of course, the vicious irony of the situation is that people flee their impoverished home conditions and enter the u.s., the country that crafted the conditions at "home," crafted a way of life here that is rooted in flaunting the affluence gained from the theft abroad, and is armed beyond compare to guarantee the perpetuation of such poverty.
The offensive posture of the u.s. state toward the third world migrant - in terms of making her feel thoroughly unwelcome (the violent excesses and policies of intimidation of the INS, the militarization of the Mexican border, English-only laws, deportations, etc.) - is fairly well understood and described by american progressives and radicals. More complicated, and perhaps more revealing of the true nature of the migrants' presence in the u.s. is the offense of the posture that encourages him to stay.
It is this "middle path" of simultaneously damning you and also needing you to survive so that you can be exploited that is the essence of imperialist domination. The "guest worker" programs geared towards the gross exploitation of Latinos, and the acceptance of Indians, Asians, Africans and West Indians into the scientific and computer engineering fields are two prongs of this same attack.
The Latina is "niggerized," both to extract enormous profits without having to set up operations abroad, and to establish the foundations of a (veiled) neo-nazi platform. The legitimate rage of the descendents of slaves in america is redirected, (downward) while continuing, virtually unabated, the total tyranny and assault on Black people in this country. The Spanish-speaking "nigger," and the Third World migrant in general, is used as the context for the forces of reaction to actually intensify the open hostilities and murderous delights that has existed here, to various degrees (almost entirely among white people) ever since the invasion.
And though it is less blatant, the existence of a Third World intelligentsia in america is part of the same process. Because although the Third World educated class enters the american university to flee the poverty at home (and at times do actually achieve a degree of material prosperity here) their presence in the first world ultimately aids in the mass impoverishment (materially or otherwise) of the bulk of the world's population. From the standpoint of the empire, the educated migrant is merely the exception that proves the inherent niggerdom of the entire third world.
The migrant is also made to feel welcome to the extent that he becomes american, which is the same as saying, "the extent to which he becomes not himself." Much like in the economic sphere, the migrant then becomes trapped between two identities, both of which are not enough to keep her alive. Economically she is not quite a slave and yet not quite a second class citizen. Culturally she is never again fully of her people, and yet never allowed to forget her exclusion from full participation in amerika.
In practice, this paradox tends to play itself out in ways that appear contradictory, or confused. First generation immigrants create communities in which some portion of home is kept alive: the languages, the foods, the religions, the celebrations, and so forth. here, there is almost a vibrancy, and, at times, even an atmosphere of community self-defense that is inspiring and liberatory. And yet, almost as soon as possible, and certainly by the second or third generation, these practices fade away in favor of the quasi-americanism that becomes possible. Sadly, in the narrative of immigrant communities' survival, it is inevitably emphasized that it was the assimilation, and not the community self-defense that kept the people alive.