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Hi friend,

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I've been thinking a lot about Palestine lately (what else is new?). But specifically, I've been thinking about the relationship between Palestine and Israel as a microcosm of the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer.

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If you happen to be from the global majority, then you're likely to feel the truth of today's words in your very bones. Because it will never not be top of mind and top of spirit that the same methods Israelis, with the aid of the US and some Europoean countries, are using to exterminate Palestinians are the same methods that European colonizers used to exterminate and subjugate black people and indigineous folks from the Global South.

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The examples are truly breathtaking. The referring to Palestinians as animals. The torture. The imprisonment. Calling them savages. Killing hundreds of them at a time. Calling them violent and insinuating that they are all terrorists with an uncontrollable thirst for violence. The calling for "peace" when they resist their annihilation by any means necessary. Saying that Palestinian civilians need a savior (from Hamas) and implying that they do not know their own minds (even though the Palestinian population is highly educated -- higher than Israelis).

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It's a lot to take in when these systems of violence and oppression have and continue to be imposed upon your bloodlines simply because your ancestors happened to inhabit a place in the world with valuable resources.

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Because the truth is that it's not because of the color of our skin. The color of our skin and racism generally has always been used as a pretext to justify the violence of empire.

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But the reason they've always needed to subjugate and torture us feels more sinister to me. It's not just about the resources needed to feed an insatiable empire. It's about taking something that they didn't have then and they don't have now.

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And the more I've been reflecting and continuing on my own healing journey, the more I've come to realize that the thing they want and crave, but will never have, is Prosperity.

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Let me explain.

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Historically, the oppressed of the global south are a prosperous people. We settled and lived on prosperous lands rich with natural resources. Those of us that did go searching for something greater found others living prosperous lives and established trade routes.

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And each time the colonizer arrived in our homelands, we were thriving. We had what we needed. Sure, there were spurts of violence because we are not separate from nature and at times, nature is very violent. But we had what we needed and most importantly, we were pretty much minding our own business. The life we were living was sustainable.

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But then a colonizer arrived. And it told us that this was how things were now. It insulted us. It met our generosity with violence. It laughed at our supposed naiveness and it took and took and gave nothing back. And when we protested about just how much it was taking, it met those protests with violence. It gaslit us. It told us we didn't know any better because we were savages. And it got into the business of subjugation. The first 24/7 on-call business model that requires constant time and effort. It tortured the outliers to keep the larger population in line. It used psychological and physical warfare to break us.

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It knew it was winning when some of us willingly started to adopt the colonizer language, customs, and practices as a means of survival. When that started to happen, the colonizer rewarded that behavior up to a point. It granted those early adopters privileges and held them up as outliers to show others like them that it's possible to survive this violence and oppression if you just submit to it and let the colonizer take everything you once knew from you: your land, your language, your culture, your Gods, your loved ones, your dignity, and most importantly, your humanity. This is the origin of respectability politics.

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And once it became the norm for us to sacrifice our humanity to imitate the colonizer as a means of survival, then the colonizer proceeded to tell us the biggest lie of all. It told us that it was the one who carried the legacy of prosperity because the colonizer, not us, has always been the only one capable of thriving and flourishing. So it's no surprise that the rest of us, the colonized, are poor and struggling. It's no surprise that our families can't get ahead because think about how hard it is for a savage to try to be human. So a savage trying to be a prosperous human is basically impossible for any member of the global majority, who, if you haven't been paying attention, are not human.

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But you can't thrive or flourish if you're always in a state of hunger. And colonizers are always hungry. They always needs more. They are never satisfied.

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And therefore, they do not know and will never know prosperity. Because they are hungry for something that they do not have and will never have for as long as they continue down this path.

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They will consume everything, die hungry, and still call that prosperity.

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But there is a kind of self-containment to prosperity that the colonizer simply does not understand because they don't carry the legacy of prosperity in their bloodlines like we do.

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So they try to force us to forget that prosperity has never really been about money; it has always been about contentment, living in sync with nature, taking what you need, and giving what you can.

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They try to torture us into forgetting that community is prosperity.

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They try to convince us to reject the notion that unconditional love is prosperity.

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The colonizer will try to brainwash us into forgetting that it was our people who cultivated and tended to those resource rich lands and that those lands thrived under our care.

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The colonizer will try to make us believe that they, not us, hold and carry the legacy of propserity.

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So today, I want to remind those of us from the global south that we are the legacy of prosperity.

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It is our lands, our practices, our blood, our sweat, our tears, our lives, our love, and our communities that have generated the wealth of the so-called global elite.

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Their wealth is actually our stolen prosperity.

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And we are a naturally prosperous people regardless of the lies they try to tell us about ourselves.

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And try as they might, they'll never really be able to stamp that legacy of prosperity out of us. It doesn't matter how many of us they kill. Or how many of our children they murder. Or how many of our schools they demolish. Or how many cultural sites they blow up. Or how many fields of vegetation they set fire to.

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It doesn't matter if we lose our languages or lose the memory of our homeland or forget the name of our villages. It doesn't matter if they take us away from our families and our homes. It doesn't matter if they make us eat their foods and dress us up in their clothes. It doesn't matter if they force us to adopt their religion or their language.

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And it doesn't matter if they claim our prosperity as theirs.

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For they are still starving. They still do not know self-containment, contentment, or sustainability.

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We are the keepers of those memories. It is we who hold the memory of what it is to thrive and flourish in our blood. The legacy of prosperity courses through our veins. We need only tap into the memory to reclaim what was always ours.

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For what is ours will always come back to us. That is the natural order of things. Just as what is theirs will always come back to them.

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So today and everyday, I send my love to a prosperous people. And I remind you of your proud legacy just as I remind myself of mine.

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May you remember, embrace, and reclaim your prosperity today, and everyday.

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And may you choose love over fear and safety over comfort,

Brionna

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Donate

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Mutual Aid for Palestinians: Operation Olive Branch has a list of GoFundMe's for families trying to evacuate Rafah before they are massacred. Check out the spreadsheet and donate whatever you can.

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Offers from Friends: Bianca still needs to complete more sessions to obtain her official EFT clinical certification. Because of that, she is offering 20% off all of her sessions when you enter the code TWENTYPERCENT at checkout. You can book via her website. Seriously, run, don't walk to book a session with Bianca. It was also her birthday the other day so like, give her a great birthday present!

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