White, for instance, is a term, an adjective, that these invaders constructed for themselves, probably in the european seventeenth century, and unquestionably as part of their self-justifying invention of legally owning other human beings kidnapped from Africa. Actually, the one thing these so-called White people have in common is deeply rooted in a complex cultural whole that we might call worldview-in a technical sense-which distinguishes them much more discretely as a complex whole than the tone of their skin or any other morphological feature.Īs an American Indian, referring to these oppositional Others as White or euro-western or euro-american, settlers or pioneers, etc., are all descriptors that have a certain usefulness, even as each is an inventive fiction and proves to have generated significant negative affects. Somehow, we must move beyond the color code system of racialization.Įurochristian, then, is a socio-political signifier that I find much more descriptive and accurate than the usual adjectives that are applied. The use of the color White functions only loosely as metonymy. While this may summon immediate images or emotions in each person’s mind, it really does not identify very much other than where tensions in the social whole are at the moment. In one sense, everyone knows who or what we’re talking about when we say, “White folk,” or just “Whites.” Most significantly is the choice I have made with regard to references to the socio-political (i.e., military, social, legal, ecclesial, and philosophical) opponents of the Native Peoples on this continent when these Others began their long and sustained invasion of our lands. Like all academics, I want to insist on certain usages of language and the accompanying conventions in the interests of maximum accuracy. I was actually talking about something even more deeply rooted, their culture and worldview. Often enough, students, training for christian ministry would object with one or more strategies for rescuing their christian tradition, but I was not talking about their church or their faith. They go hand in hand so that the violence of colonialism is the violence of Christianity. Teaching in a liberal christian school of theology for three and a half decades, I persistently argued that colonialism is Christianity. I propose we call this category eurochristian. Pioneers? Immigrants? Settlers? What will we Natives call this Beast-who rises up out of the sea? That is, those who came from across the big waters (suggestively using their own religious mythology). Readers may also be interested in Tinker’s earlier piece on The New Polis tracing the history of a book of Christian history that was bound in the flayed skin of an American Indian and displayed publicly for 80 years. Readers should know that they often expand and clarify the text in addition to pointing to sources. Out of respect for Dr Tinker’s writing style, the editor has chosen to keep the author’s footnotes intact.
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