COLONIZATION, IN A NUTSHELL

I'd like to elaborate on the process of colonization a bit. If you're unfamiliar with the notion of colonization as I understand it, perhaps you would think that the standard definition of "colonization" would be something like, "to establish a colony in" or "to send a group of settlers to another place to establish political control over it." You wouldn't be wrong. But these are rather vague and general definitions and I am thinking of something that isn't so innocent.

I can give you historical accounts of colonization but I'd rather not at this point. Instead, I will share something else. I once had a conversation with a fellow Alaskan that was so unpleasant, uncomfortable and upsetting that if I had to tell you what colonization meant to me in a nutshell, it would be this. This fellow Alaskan, a white male approximately 30 years old, said to me point blank that "white" ways (and he used "white," "American" and "Western" interchangeably) were literally much better than Native ways. The examples he gave?

1) Farming
2) Western Medicine
3) Education (including written form)
4) Western art, such as the Mona Lisa and Beethoven and Mozart, were much better than any Native art he had ever seen
5) Native people aren't as smart as Americans
6) Native people are too angry with Americans/Westerners, and cry too much of being exploited: "waa waa waa exploitation" (his words verbatim)
7) His ancestors, (i.e. farmers) were much smarter than any Native hunter/fisher/whaler
8) Native culture isn't going to survive because of "survival of the fittest"
9) Western culture is better because it brought astronomy, physics, mathematics, etc
10) Native people should embrace American culture because it is inevitable that American culture is going to win
11) Native people aren't "Native enough" because we use guns, motorized boats, and snowmachines (all introduced by white Americans)
12) Native people will eventually die out because there aren't any more "pure bloods"

YIKES. So you can see why it was such an upsetting experience! But look at this way, his attitudes and beliefs are colonization in a nutshell. I couldn't have defined it better myself.  Every point he made, every statement, are reflections of the attitudes and beliefs that many white Americans/Westerners/colonizers held, and continue to hold, about Indigenous people. These are the attitudes and beliefs that influenced and shaped policies and institutions and ideologies that so negatively affected Indigenous people worldwide. And they continue to affect Indigenous people.

And honestly, where do you even begin with this guy? Do you even bother trying to have a dialogue with him? Goodness knows, I tried. I have encountered these attitudes both formally and informally and it is an ongoing battle but I will say that I never experienced such a blatant onslaught of racist statements all at once. I was shaken up by it and it bothered me for days. But this is evidence that attitudes like these persist and that is still a battle. Some believe that colonization, colonialism, imperialism, what-have-you, is over and done with but I disagree. Statements like these only prove my point.