Understanding Colonialism Through Different Film and Articles

Running head: UNDERSTANDING (DE)COLONIALISM1
Understanding (De)colonialism: A Reflection
Student Name
College/University Affiliation
UNDERSTANDING (DE)COLONIALISM

2

Understanding Colonialism: A Reflection


The mentality of a colonizer, or settler, is one so deeply ingrained a settler is barely aware of any (mistaken) settler’s superiority status. This ethnocentric – and, in fact, racialized – state of mind (and being) has been front and center of assigned course material. The Canary Effect (Davey & Yellow Thunder Woman, 2006) and Embrace of the Serpent (Guerra, 2015) movies as well as “Settler Colonialism Primer” (Hurwitz & Bourque, 2014) and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” (Tuck & Yang, 2012) are, more specifically, representative of a vast literature on (de)colonization, indigenization, oppression/liberation, and repatriation. By exploring ways settlers – i.e. people moving from one land, voluntarily or not, to settle in a new land already “owned” and occupied by indigenous populations for different purposes – past week’s class material offers invaluable insights. Namely, one has come to understand underlying dynamics informing (de)colonization – and, for that matter, settlers/colonizers – to justify historical atrocities and, perhaps more importantly, free settlers/colonizers from blame (and shame) continuing to occupy/settle indigenous lands. The week’s material varies, of course, in form, depth and perspective presenting a case for and arguing against (de)colonization. To put matters into perspective, a closer examination is required at each source. This short reflection aims, accordingly to discuss past week’s course material in order to offer a critical understanding of (de)colonization as a concept and practice still so much at play in 21st century.
In The Canary Effect, horrific scenes of a cultural genocide unfolds. Using actual footage and powerful visual effects, The Canary Effect makes evident – for viewers, perhaps mostly white, i.e. settlers by choice – historical atrocities generations of (white) settlers/colonizers have committed in order to appropriate land and, ultimately, displace Native
UNDERSTANDING (DE)COLONIALISM

3

Indians. The documentary, making horrific and insightful at once, is a powerful statement about a systematic process of demonizing a culturally different group of people starting by racialization and perhaps not complete until complete elimination. The cumulative, sometimes accelerated, pace of eliminating an “inferior” race, as shown in The Canary Effect, using direct (e.g. killings, sterilization of women, and removal from reservations) and indirect (e.g. acculturation and assimilation at boarding schools) means only accentuates a state of complacency whereby white people accept white privilege yet refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing and, more, claiming to bear a burden of putting into better use lands indigenous people “claim” to own yet misused.
The concept of indigeneity of land is perhaps eloquently expressed in Embrace of the Serpent. In contrast to The Canary Effect, Embrace of the Se...