Listening to the podcast now- personally so far, it does well explain the issues of Chicanismo, and Mexican settlerism. But I would also argue- that even a (partially, not wholly) false indigenismo, is better than pure settler-colonial genocide in the Anglo-Saxon fashion.

As a (non-mixed) Asian-Canadian, and as someone who cares about being generally decent, etc- yes, all the nonsense about “colonizing out of love,” and “creating a hybrid vigor superrace” is hideous nonsense. It doesn’t justify forcibly mixing, and “intentional whitening of the race” is something I am deeply familiar with and condemn, both in the Latin American context, and in the context of many white-aspiring nonwhites (such as Frantz Fanon described, and as plagues Asian-diasporic communities, and to considerable degree, my own mom). Erasing the contributions of black Mexicans also is disgusting. But- as someone who thinks that there is something inherently and irreplaceable valuable to race and to indigeneity (not something superior nor justifying the “ethnostate,” mind), and the indigenous right to homeland and preserving the dignity of the race and culture (I’ll get further into this, but bear with me, however this may sound)- I see Chincanismo as still infinitely more preferable, than the Anglo and Nazi traditions.

I’m aware how it sounds, stating that there is this great inherent value in the preservations of the “character and culture of a race”- while making clear to denounce notions of racial superiority, but recognizing some considerable degree of moral superiority in the context of land and self-determination- (FWIW, Palestinians are far, far more indigenous than the Israelis ever will be IMO; they are the ones who stayed). But as said- hear me out.

We live in a deeply racial and “post-colonial” society- one where the dignity of non-white, non-western races and cultures have been vilified, abused and disenfranchised, where the effects of colonization continue to scar the hearts, minds, and skin of the victims. Indigenismo, even a partially exoticized and constructed indigenismo, is a balm to that- as is black power, red power, pan-Africanism, pan-Asianism, pan-Arabism, even pan-Islamism and all sorts of other assertations of our equality, and even supremacy (certainly a moral supremacy- not one of the individual, but one of the cultural character of the victimized nations, over those cultures which have wrought unparalleled death and destruction and intolerance across the globe and continue to scour it like locusts, seeking to permanently destabilize, disenfranchise, and dehumanize others).

In this context, I would nod to Gandhi’s statement- “I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of a whole race.” The same sentiment has been shared many times over, by many other famous figures- and I wholly agree with it; one could argue the word “emasculation” is unnecessarily gendered, but the essence of the quote remains the same without it- as a fully non-white, Asian person, someone who has lived with resulting alienation and issues of identity all my life (though I see the experience of being a minority in the west in particular, as that of a crucible- people can either break down into self-hating, white-aspiring regrettables, or learn self-pride in spite of their environment), as someone who comes from and was raised in a considerably (in my mom’s case, a deeply) mentally colonized family; as someone who was denied their ethnic language- by neglect or design considering it was my mom’s first language- someone who was denied much of their heritage and longed for it all my life, and someone whose family, after the 3 eldest, named the younger 3 (or 4, if one counts a miscarriage) with French Catholic saint names- as someone whose parents were raised believing that the indigenous religious traditions of their culture- in my mom and aunt’s case, their very immediate family- was devil worship- and someone who has considerable reason to believe that, alongside all the religious extremism and mental colonization, it goes so far into debasement as that my mom, when she was perhaps around 18, a fresh convert to Christianity and newfound denouncer of her culture, went on to elope with a white American teacher who could as well have been her father before returning home to Singapore after that flopped, as an example of how deep and personal the racial and cultural humiliation (not due to her actions, but what all of this I have described, my experiences, my parents’ experiences, the context of all this in the context of one culture being vilified and wrongly smeared, by another culture which ironically enough was that of the global perpetrators of unparalleled, widespread evil)- I cannot bring myself to fully condemn indigenismo, even when it takes the vulgarized, problematic form of Chicanismo.

Surely you can understand, if not agree. There has to be a place to enshrine the culture- not as superior, not as something deserving a ethnostate or preferential treatment beyond the natural indigenous rights, but as something that deserves to exist and is no one’s inferior, and if promoting it even through almost fascistic sounding (but not quite- I consider there to be a vital difference) descriptions of Chicanismo described in the video. There has to be a place to enshrine the dignity of the race (not as superior, but nothing less than equal) and the indigeneous, non-white right to land and equal personhood- even if the methods that are used to carry it out stray some, so long as it does not embody itself through genocide and other atrocities I would describe it as an infinitely lesser evil, than the prevalent status quo across the “de-colonized” world, and certainly across the stolen lands of Anglo North America. That’s my take on it- and all that I have described, can similarly be stated for the black non-indigenous diaspora culture in the Americas, and the white Celtic cultures of Europe, etc… but in my mind, there has to be that organized force so as to counter and eradicate mental colonization, so as to ensure people can have equal dignity, rather than be, no matter how “liberated,” slaves within their own mind. I can’t, won’t, and don’t even want to condemn Chicanismo, or similarly, black supremacist movements and the sort like the Nation of Islam, Hoteps, Black Israelites, or such extremist movements like Islamist ultra-fundamentalism and Hindutva, as being even remotely near being the same as white supremacy and fascism, (I will condemn them where necessary- sometimes always, because it is always necessary depending which on the list) because they aren’t as I see it, and because these movements are still infinitely preferable to the alternative, the colonized mindset that has been waged as a war against the non-white, non-western peoples and cultures of the world for the past 500 years.

Halfway through the vid and- I do wholly agree however that there is no “earned indigenism,” certainly not for those whose claim to the land stems from settler-colonial genocide- if anything, such actions I almost feel should cast a metaphorical curse upon all their descendants, an eternal repudiation of any indigeneity they might claim to hold. Settler-colonials certainly cannot become indigenous IMO, because the colonial apsect permanently scars the culture. Boers are not indigenous, for instance (though that does not mean they deserve to be genocided or mistreated- they, like the Rhodesians, and like the Americans, Canadians, etc. still today, do not deserve the land however). Even 1000 years onwards, I do not think that the white American peoples can ever dare hold claim to indigenism, unless they return to Europe. Metis on the other hand are native, etc. of course

Still watching and indeed, I’m really starting to see your point. Mixed feelings about it; I certainly have no intentions nor aspiration to ever claim indigeneity to the Americas, for instance (though I have always seen the indigenous here as distant kin who crossed Beringia thousands of years ago, and racially related kin, not in the sense of geography and history, but outright similar shared racial characteristics that have seen our experiences and treatment at times overlap greatly).

To me, the homeland (China, despite that I’ve never been- and on a broader pan-Asian sense, Asia, as a center of much of human civilization and what I identify with) has always held a nigh sacred position in my mind. Not as an ethnostate, not as some state to unilaterally support regardless of its actions, but as a place that was denied me by circumstance but that I feel- as an atheist- a near religious reverence and longing for, and always have, and the notion it a part of my very being, written into my DNA you might say- the land of my ancestors on both sides, the land that stands for my heritage and the continent and general region that stands for my race, for my very dignity (however things may be further complicated and I can get into those matters, I would stand by saying all that).

The appropriation of indigeneity they’re describing, to me seems like the epitome of white colonizer shit, indeed.