‘Decolonization is Not a Metaphor’ by Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang

I mention this source because it re-frames class structure in the US. From the abstract:

Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism.

Later (page 3):

The too-easy adoption of decolonizing discourse (making decolonization a metaphor) is just one part of [a] history [that] … taps into pre-existing tropes that get in the way of more meaningful potential alliances. We think of the enactment of these tropes as a series of moves to innocence …

The basic idea is that people living in the US cannot claim they are innocent just because they were not the white Europeans who first arrived on Turtle Island and committed that original genocide.

If Tuck and Yang are correct, then we need to re-frame the first interpretation of Sakai’s comment about ‘revisionists’, in the comment above: So:

1. Don’t appeal to the white working class because its interests do not align with the interests of oppressed peoples. Becomes:

• Don’t appeal to the ~~white~~ working class because its interests do not align with the interests of indigenous nations and oppressed peoples [in the global south].

Tuck and Yang argue that the interests of most people in the US are aligned with the ruling class. This includes even the descendants of slaves because their jobs, homes, businesses, etc, all rely on the continual refusal to give the land back to the indigenous nations. Following this logic, all workers in the US would rather side with the ruling class against the indigenous nations and oppressed peoples outside the US.

This may seem to be an extreme position. But look at the numbers in the Cope and Malm comments: all workers in the global north benefit from global mechanisms of unequal exchange; using the land for anything other than reparations to indigenous nations may amount to a refusal to decolonise the US.

This refusal supports colonisation by providing a bulwark between oppressed indigenous nations and the ruling class – the ruling class can rely on the more privileged workers to defend their property rights, because the alternative (without revolution and solidarity) is becoming destitute.

I’ll note here that although Yang and Tuck rely on Franz Fanon, they are not Marxists. If they are, their Marxism is deeply problematic. In the cited article, in footnote 2 on page 4, they write (references omitted):

Colonialism is not just a symptom of capitalism. Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g. Chinese colonialism in Tibet). “In other words,” writes Sandy Grande, “both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all” (…).

FWIW Tuck and Yang’s paper argues against the trend to treat decolonisation as something that can be achieved just by talking about and recognising colonialism: adding a few classes on colonialism into a curriculum, for example. They argue that this will not decolonise the US. Their paper is very good at highlighting and articulating the problem. The question for Marxists is whether their (Tuck and Yang’s) solution is correct, and if not, what is the right way forward.

Edit: added a line as my editing made it look like my summary was part of a quote.