Forum Post: Re-thinking the American Dream and reinscribing colonialism

The American dream is the modern extension of manifest destiny, which was the ideological framework that justified imperialism on Native American homelands, aka colonialism. The so-called American dream was only possible because of the genocidal history of the US -- the rape and murder of Indians, and the legal fictions that were created to justify the millions of acres of legally stolen lands.

From the perspective of Native Americans, the entire island of Manhattan is occupied land, since the land was basically seized as a result of the imposition of a foreign ideological paradigm which was based on a concept of land ownership unknown to the indigenous peoples. To frame the current liberation movement as an "occupation" is to fail to realize how occupation is the reinscription of colonialism for Native peoples. For Native people, this is a second occupation.

The American dream -- to the extent that it was ever a reality to begin with -- depends on the ongoing violation of Indian rights, codified into federal Indian law, which is simply the construction of legal fictions designed to justify the subjugation of Native people without their consent and the theft of their lands. It is privilege at the expense of the indigenous populations.

For further reading:

"A Peoples History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

"Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen.

"Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America" by Robert A. Williams, Jr.

"Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Discovery," by Steven Newcomb.