this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
477 points (90.2% liked)

World News

32045 readers
663 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (50 children)

I’d rather be under the rule of a hegemony that is composed of many different cultures and in the process of healing than one who is still actively genociding their minorities.

EDIT: Welp, I guess there is no war in Ba Sing Se. Ya'll are expert brigaders, well done.

[–] JohnBrownsBussy2@hexbear.net 59 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

Less than 10% of Native Americans can speak their native language. How many Uighers and Tibetans can speak theirs?

Have you been to a reservation? I remember one that we drove through in Arizona, the Hualapai. It wasn't just a desert, but a salt flat, utterly devoid of vegetation. Along the road, you had dilapidated pre-fabs, occupied of course by the victims that had been placed here. Not all reservations are as harrowing. I've visited the Navajo Nation, as well as Lakota and Ute reservations. Poverty is intense, and people do the best they can, but the reality is that these people had their lands stolen from them and were forced to the most marginal places in US, unsuitable for much agriculture and barely suitable for ranching.

There is no healing in these places, rather the victims of genocide are constantly blamed for their own poverty by the settler communities stole their land. The native peoples were devastated by covid due to the lack of healthcare resources as well.

Let's look at the Black American community as well. It was just 3 years ago that the US had its largest protest movement in history against the police killings of unarmed Black men. And what was the response by the government and media? After a moment of groveling, to take back all promises of reform and instead funnel even more money to an increasingly militarized police force, and to engage in a panicked sensationalized crime wave reportage. Police killings continue (1 in 20 homicides are perpetrated by the police), and the economic situation hasn't improved much for Black Americans since the Great Recession lead to a massive seizure of Black household wealth.

The situation in the US isn't healing, it's an oozing pustulate sore. There has been a failure to reinforce voting rights, and anything like reparations, even just targeted relief, is considered a joke and a non-starter in the halls of power. The only healing is in the minds of libs that think that donning Kente cloth and watching Black Panther constitutes absolution.

This of course is to say nothing of the murderous wars waged by the US in Iraq, Laos, Vietnam and elsewhere, and the genocides it co-sponsored in Guatamala and Indonesia. Or the general neo-colonial global financial mechanisms that lock the third world into permanent debt traps and underdevelopment.

[–] MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Yeah, the US did and is doing fucked up things. But we're talking scale in the modern era here.

How much longer will the Uyghurs be able to speak their language when china bans Uyghur language books in Uyghur schools? Why does China put up signs at those schools saying that only language permitted on school grounds is Mandarin? Why is china sending hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese to Uyghur home for days at a time to ensure they are speaking Mandarin?

Maybe the US can heal better and faster from its atrocities, but China is actively pursuing atrocities at an official industrial state level.

[–] happyandhappy@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

youve got a lot of spunk for somebody who doesnt really know what they are talking about. China has 56 recognized and protected ethnic minority groups where scholars are creating alphabets for minority languages that had not been previously written as a way to preserve their languages. How many indigenous people in the US and Hawaii can even say that they speak their language after having had them systematically destroyed for decades?

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Hint: it's like 2%, and the death of every one of the precious few elders who still fluently speak these languages is an incalculable and irrevocable loss.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (46 replies)