this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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This is clearly the words of someone who has no community or culture to cling to, one born nation-less and with a position to lose. For me contributing to my community in what's necessary of me benefits everyone and all children. For colonized peoples there is a collective worth protecting as it protects ourselves as individuals.
It's honestly sounding like you have internalized individualism. Like I said it's fine to not want children and to not have them, but know that people having children is necessary for your survival, and you have a role to play in the survival of their children.
Everyone has a role to play as we are social beings. Our society as structured alienates us from the benefits of socialized production but these conditions are definite and mutable. Have some revolutionary optimism.
I’ll put it bluntly because there’s a lot of assumptions that are easy to make when you’re talking in English on a primarily American platform, and maybe there’s some misunderstanding about the conditions people in this conversation are actually living in:
If you’re a white American, you have no culture or nation worth reproducing or clinging to. If you’re a white American and you believe that you, your children, and your fellow enlightened settler whites will usher in a revolution in the United States of America in your lifetime: that’s not revolutionary optimism, it’s delusional cosplay. The only revolutionary role that a white settler can play on colonized land is to betray his fellow settlers and work toward the destruction of their empire. Communism will be built on the grave of this empire by those who come after.
I've written in my comments that my people are colonized and subject to genocide, I'm not a white settler, I'm Black. I understand the outlook that settlers have a false nation unworthy of upholding, I agree, but I do not think they need to be stripped of living their lives as human beings in the manner they choose as long as it fits the framework of Decolonization.
I comment on my predictions and expectations of settlers a lot, this time I'm on the optimistic side that we'd hope for more settlers to be deeply concerned about the future generations. It's fucked up for settlers to come here, trash the place, and when it comes time to clean up they'd rather die out than join the multi generational effort to fix this place. We don't plan for their help but it would be a quicker process with more hands. 🤷🏽♀️
Decolonization also means restoring the humanity of the colonizers.
Albeit not peacefully 😏
My apologies then, for approaching your comments without the appropriate context in mind. I don’t mean to suggest that I think settlers have no responsibility to the future (I haven’t killed myself after all). I hope to do everything I can to leave a better world for other people’s kids than my parents left for me. Without getting too deep into personal detail, my parents come from generations of white American evangelicals. My parents’ decision to have kids was not a net positive for the world or for their kids. If I ever unexpectedly find myself with the means to provide a decent life for someone beyond my own immediate survival, I’ll consider adopting.
if other people putting children in harm's way is necessary for my survival then i would prefer not to survive and for the cycle of suffering to end with me. there's no social unit worth damning generations of children to lifetimes of suffering and bitter struggle.
fight now and maybe having a kid later won't be equivalent to putting them through hell, but in the meantime we have no moral standing for conscription.