For colonialism has not simply depersonalized the colonized. The very structure of society has been depersonalized on a collective level. A colonized people is thus reduced to a collection of individuals who owe their very exsistence to the pressence of the colonizer. - Frantz Fanon
This statement really hit me the first time I read it. Growing up in America my people are forced to internalize the lies and hateful propaganda of our society. Even though we know it's untrue society as a whole accepts it and it's done so effectively that it bleeds out of our own country and seeps into parts of the whole world also believing the lies told about us. So of course that manifests in different ways being raised in this environment. Personally it put me into what feels like a state of survival mode. It's served me well constantly working hard, planning next moves with contingency plans when they inevitably fall through. Constantly thinking through what I have to do to survive and keep going, thankfully it's gotten me to the point where I now can enjoy my free time which afforded me the luxury to sit down read and educate myself. I say educate but really we all know it subconsciously, of course on the road here you feel it in all the microaggressions and backhanded compliments. "You're so well spoken", "you're one of the good ones", "if only the others were like you". The average person here truly thinks this way not even recognizing how insane the implication is, as if my people are not capable of what is inherently human. In that same breath they condemn people like my brother who rejects the world completely due to the hate for him simply being born "black". After growing up as we did he chose not to participate in the racist capitalist system that I assume he knew would never accept him but sadly turned to drugs. I couldn't save him, I was trying to survive myself. I hope I can help raise the consciousness of who's left.