You know what makes this even more ridiculous to me, as a pasty ass motherfucker?
All the land we stole and murdered for sucks. If you’re white, why the fuck would you want to live in Israel, why the fuck would you want to live in Africa, why the fuck would you want to live in North America below like the 40th parallel?
The sun itself tells us we don’t belong every time we go outside. I grew up in Florida and Texas and the sun is a toxic danger. You did genocide to take Florida??? The place you can’t go outside half the year or you’ll get heatstroke in like 10 minutes?
You could’ve stayed in England, France, and Spain! Three of the biggest colonizer countries have literally the best climate on earth. Why the fuck would you leave??
I visited England for two weeks once and it was like my body knew that was where it had evolved to live. My nose was clearer than it had ever been, the sun felt pleasant and warm, and the hottest peaks of the hottest days were still totally manageable.
You put the people who are already under your thumb someplace, they displace the locals and steal their shit
Then they send the stuff back to you, they get a cut of the profit and you continue the process until you’ve stripped the land bare and have to repeat it
They didn’t send their best to the new world, they sent who they didn’t have room for. Makes me think of the first waves of indentured servants to the Caribbean, mostly Irishmen who absolutely withered and cooked in the heat of the sugar cane plantations. It’s the origin of the term “redneck” as far as I know
I mean lots of it was very nice land managed by the original inhabitants in ways that adapted to the climate and conditions. It mainly sucks for colonizers because they tried to basically just transpose their western methods of construction, farming and civilization in general onto the new territory.
That’s definitely a big part of it but there is a level to which white people straight up didn’t evolve to live in southern latitudes with intense sunlight. I have skin made for a rainy northern island where you need to scavenge any bit of vitamin D you can find. I burn in 5 minutes in Florida and even when I’m not burning the sun hurts.
Like, as a 1600s peasant who’s never left England going off to find your fortune in the new world how do you not take that as a sign from God that you’re in a place you don’t belong?
Until the early 2000s when they started a huge sun protection campaign, Israel had one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. But “God promised you this land”?
There is definitely an association with skin pigmentation and skin cancer (and rickets the opposite way). But skin pigmentation is not why colonists are bad, the colonialism is. There are dark skinned Israelis and light skinned Palestinians (and Lebanese and other middle eastern minority national groups).
There are also places in the low latitude Southern Hemisphere (Parts of Africa, South America, New Zealand, Australia) and high latitude North America (Canada, border US states) that are perfect for white colonists “genetically”, they still shouldn’t be there.
Finally while middle eastern and South Asian people may have a lower pre-disposition to skin cancer, they still get skin cancer, but material factors like the clothing they wear and the hours of the day they work affects this too. An Israeli doing a 9-5 going in and out of AC controlled buildings in a t-shirt and shorts is going to burn more than a Palestinian wearing a headscarf, and long sleeves and pants, taking a break to rest inside a traditional house at the middle of the day when it’s hottest and the UV is worse.
(also I imagine skin cancer is also under treated in Palestinians due to significant shortages in all medical care)
The land was settled in order to extract resources back to the home country. Only the schmucks and undesirables actually went out to live in the colonies. To the extent that bourgeois settled too, it was for upward mobility, and they deemed themselves entitled to wealth for bracing the so-called savage lands.
After centuries of settlement, and after the formal end of colonialism, the descendants of the original white settlers have lost connection with their own history. They must make up a new one which imagines that capitalism is natural, that the settled land was pristine before they arrived, and that the country was founded on principles of liberty rather than exploitation and genocide.
You know what makes this even more ridiculous to me, as a pasty ass motherfucker?
All the land we stole and murdered for sucks. If you’re white, why the fuck would you want to live in Israel, why the fuck would you want to live in Africa, why the fuck would you want to live in North America below like the 40th parallel?
The sun itself tells us we don’t belong every time we go outside. I grew up in Florida and Texas and the sun is a toxic danger. You did genocide to take Florida??? The place you can’t go outside half the year or you’ll get heatstroke in like 10 minutes?
You could’ve stayed in England, France, and Spain! Three of the biggest colonizer countries have literally the best climate on earth. Why the fuck would you leave??
I visited England for two weeks once and it was like my body knew that was where it had evolved to live. My nose was clearer than it had ever been, the sun felt pleasant and warm, and the hottest peaks of the hottest days were still totally manageable.
It’s all about resources, really
You put the people who are already under your thumb someplace, they displace the locals and steal their shit
Then they send the stuff back to you, they get a cut of the profit and you continue the process until you’ve stripped the land bare and have to repeat it
They didn’t send their best to the new world, they sent who they didn’t have room for. Makes me think of the first waves of indentured servants to the Caribbean, mostly Irishmen who absolutely withered and cooked in the heat of the sugar cane plantations. It’s the origin of the term “redneck” as far as I know
https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/redneck-origin-definition-union-uprising-south.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redleg
Neck, leg
You learn something new every day
I mean lots of it was very nice land managed by the original inhabitants in ways that adapted to the climate and conditions. It mainly sucks for colonizers because they tried to basically just transpose their western methods of construction, farming and civilization in general onto the new territory.
That’s definitely a big part of it but there is a level to which white people straight up didn’t evolve to live in southern latitudes with intense sunlight. I have skin made for a rainy northern island where you need to scavenge any bit of vitamin D you can find. I burn in 5 minutes in Florida and even when I’m not burning the sun hurts.
Like, as a 1600s peasant who’s never left England going off to find your fortune in the new world how do you not take that as a sign from God that you’re in a place you don’t belong?
Until the early 2000s when they started a huge sun protection campaign, Israel had one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. But “God promised you this land”?
There is definitely an association with skin pigmentation and skin cancer (and rickets the opposite way). But skin pigmentation is not why colonists are bad, the colonialism is. There are dark skinned Israelis and light skinned Palestinians (and Lebanese and other middle eastern minority national groups).
There are also places in the low latitude Southern Hemisphere (Parts of Africa, South America, New Zealand, Australia) and high latitude North America (Canada, border US states) that are perfect for white colonists “genetically”, they still shouldn’t be there.
Finally while middle eastern and South Asian people may have a lower pre-disposition to skin cancer, they still get skin cancer, but material factors like the clothing they wear and the hours of the day they work affects this too. An Israeli doing a 9-5 going in and out of AC controlled buildings in a t-shirt and shorts is going to burn more than a Palestinian wearing a headscarf, and long sleeves and pants, taking a break to rest inside a traditional house at the middle of the day when it’s hottest and the UV is worse.
(also I imagine skin cancer is also under treated in Palestinians due to significant shortages in all medical care)
The land was settled in order to extract resources back to the home country. Only the schmucks and undesirables actually went out to live in the colonies. To the extent that bourgeois settled too, it was for upward mobility, and they deemed themselves entitled to wealth for bracing the so-called savage lands.
After centuries of settlement, and after the formal end of colonialism, the descendants of the original white settlers have lost connection with their own history. They must make up a new one which imagines that capitalism is natural, that the settled land was pristine before they arrived, and that the country was founded on principles of liberty rather than exploitation and genocide.
It’s not about having a place to live, it’s about the desire to murder, colonize, and taking peoples’ homes by force.
I live in temperate-ass northeastern United States, and I have to put on sunscreen ALL the time.