The ideal Colonial Model type:

[Topiltzin]

The ideal Colonial Model type:



1. A militarily strong group conquers a people and takes over their territory. The conquered are not only of a clearly different national and cultural background, but are also of a different race so that the two groups are visibly distinct. In classical colonization, the colonized are in the majority in their own conquered nation.

2. The conquerors come from a technologically advanced nation; thus they are able to conquer and colonize another group of people. The area conquered and colonized is often rural and underdevel¬oped; its peasant people have few technological skills. The colonized country is not encouraged to develop industrially or technologically but instead is seen as a source of raw material and cheap unskilled labor and as a market for the finished products of the "mother coun¬try"-the homeland of the colonizers. The colonized work at obtain-ing the raw materials for the mother country, but not at urban, tech¬nologically advanced jobs. They are not encouraged to become skilled, literate and educated because their chief benefit to the colonizers is to remain a source of abundant and inexpensive labor. 1£ they were to become literate and educated, they would rebel and not perform their current low status jobs.

3. The colonizers have economic and political control over the colonized within the country. The colonized are at the bottom socio¬economically, whereas the colonizers control all positions of power. The colonized face class, cultural and racial prejudice.

4. The culture, heritage, language and customs of the colonized are labeled inferior and are suppressed. The colonized are racially and culturally defined as inferior by the dominant group, primarily in order to justify the status quo in which the colonizers live in power and riches while the colonized live powerless and in poverty. The colonized have little or no chance for upward mobility; there is a ceiling on how far they can rise. They are defined biologically and culturally as backward and unprogressive, lazy, unreliable and unintelligent by the dominant group.

5. Certain members of the colonized people are given some few privileges. In return, they are expected to do the work of controlling their own people. Also, these tokens are paraded by the colonizers as examples to the world of how well they are treating the colonized. They are falsely used as examples to the colonized majority of what they can become if they do not cause trouble and if they work hard to do the colonizer's bidding. The colonized are segregated into ghettos separated from the fine residential areas of the colonizers. 'They are strongly discouraged from moving into the neighborhoods of the colonizers. 'The tools employed to keep them residentially segregated are poverty and racism.

6. The contacts of the colonizer and the colonized remain at a secondary level. The colonizer almost invariably is the boss, super¬visor, employer and so forth, while the colonized remain social and economic subordinates. At this time the colonizers because of their status and power, be¬come the reference group of the colonized. 'The colonized often at¬tempt to become as similar as possible to their conquerors in the belief that if they do this they will be favored not only by the colonizers but also by their own people who believe in the elite status of their conquerors. Hair is straightened and lightened by some of the col¬onized (most colonizers being Caucasian). Traditional customs and languages are scorned as being inferior and second rate not only by the colonizers but by those colonized attempting to gain status as well. Children of the colonized appearing most like their colonizers are treated in a favored way. While there may be some acculturation, that is, the colonized may learn some of the ways of the colonizer because his own language and customs are seen as inferior, there are few if any primary contacts made between the colonizer and the colonized, i.e., practically no structural assimilation occurs.


7. Having been rejected by the colonizers as candidates for struc¬tural assimilation, the colonized finally, intern, reject the colonizers. The colonized begin to resent their being defined as culturally and racially inferior. Often, leaders of the conquered group spend much of their time in consciousness raising, demonstrating to their people the extent of their oppression. 'The people look about and see other wars of liberation being fought by other colonized peoples and take encouragement from the fact. Having overtly rejected their colonizers, the colonized in a decolonization movement no longer favor those who are physiognomically like their conquerors, but on the contrary, favor those who are least like them. Those of their people who have tried to win favor with the colonizers are seen as collaborators and traitors.


8. There is a revival by the conquered people of their heritage language, and ethnic and racial pride. Cultural nationalism flourishes, Heroes of the past are resurrected and openly lauded, especially those who originally fought the oppressors at the time of their conquest.

9. At this time, warfare and harassment of the dominant group by the subordinate group intensifies, often causing increasing repression by the colonizers. Continued and intensified repression by the colo¬nizers creates increased suffering as well as martyrdom of some of the colonized, and this increases the will of the colonized to fight.

10. Finally, the colonized people throw off the yoke of oppression imposed by their colonizers, oust them from their land and take over economic and political control of their land. The end result is a single society of one nationality and race living in their own land.

Frantz Fanon's and Albert Memmi's studies of Algeria colonized by the French offer a classical case of the elements in the colonial model presented here.
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We come in unity from the four corners to unite all native people on turtle island with a message of peace, harmony, respect, and liberation.

MeXicano as Indigenous people possess far greater connection with their ancient Mexican past than many European groups do with their respective past.

Do not Claim African X, Native or Mexican X unless you are making a stake as Indigenous to the land and your culture.