In the year 2016, a presidential candidate vying for the highest position of power in one of the powerhouses of the world makes utterances alluding to the sanctioning of epistemicide- the extermination of knowledge and ways of knowing through the genocide of its carriers.
This is certainly reminiscent of the 15th century that was met with the genocide of the Native Indians of the Americas and the 16th century genocide of enslaved Africans. One may even say that history is repeating itself; this is not the first time Muslims have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. Along with the Jews, in the 16th century, there was forced expulsion of Muslims from their own land leading to massive destruction of Islamic and Judaic spirituality and knowledge. You see, when a people dies, an entire culture and body of knowledge is lost if is not passed on to the next generation. Sounds familiar? That is because it has happened again in the 1980’s with then President Ronald Reagan’s War on drugs that skyrocketed incarceration rates for crack cocaine users. This dramatically resulted in a complete break down of the African-American community who were the primary users of the illicit substance, albeit the exact chemical compound of powder cocaine which was not the key subject of the war on drugs policies. It is no coincidence that the primary users of powder cocaine were white, middle-upper class persons while the market for crack cocaine was largely the black community.
High incarceration rates had a domino effect; the break down of the family as many parents went to jail and children left on the streets or in foster care, the break down of the businesses and work ethic that once thrived, and the break down of the education system that now places less value and quality of schooling offered in these low-income, slum neighbourhoods.
The cultural hegemony that comes out of this attaches inferiority to anything and anyone that is not White, American and Christian. The foundational structures of knowledge that has perpetuated since colonialism has done untold damage to ‘minority groups’ within the United States and extending to the rest of the world. The standard of normativity has been set and anyone that does not measure up to the yardstick poses a threat and must be eradicated. Muslims. Blacks. Latinos. Others.
Imagine if all that you are and all that you know one day suddenly no longer matters because it is inferior to the meta-narratives and you suddenly become a slave to grand theories of knowledge and the western status quo.
The irony? We may not even need to imagine.
References
Ethan Nadelmann: Why We Need To End The War On Drugs. 2014. DVD. Ted Talks.
Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2013. “The Structure Of Knowledge In Westernized Universities: Epistemic Raci” By Ramón Grosfoguel”. Scholarworks.Umb.Edu. http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol11/iss1/8/.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war
Stop Provoking Violence, Mr. Trump. 2016. Video. AJ+.
By Letiffia David
The 'Third World' In Global Development 
I’m so happy to see Caribbean postcolonial scholars writing back against the utter nonsense being tolerated from the words of Presidential candidates. It shows that our efforts to educate ourselves are coming to fruition, slowly but surely. Relevant observations, I only wish more people would take note.
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Now we have a better understanding on the value of epistemology. It’s not only what you can do but what you know that determines your outcomes. Consciousness and self-awareness is so important to development, and to me this explains exactly why the Caribbean is struggling to develop. We are not self-aware, we are not conscious, and our lives are a regurgitation of force-fed ideologies that do everything but represent who we are as a people.
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Hate is driven by fear. Muslims have been made out in the media to be a religion that should be feared especially after 11/9/01. All it takes is for one individual to use that fear and produce hate in order to seem like a person who is willing to fight for the rights of the citizens of the country. It is simply wrong and it is amazing at the number of people who subscribe to this school of thought. The true power of fear is slowly beginning to reveal itself and the most frightening part is….Muslims don’t have to be the only targeted group of people to be feared/hated. Any group is at risk. The next few years are key to the future of mankind on this planet.
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Agreed. And I believe this fear is epistemic, that is, a fear based on differences in knowledge, culture and experiences and a fear of possibly becoming overwhelmed by them. So to fight that fear some people invalidate others’ knowledge, culture and experiences, resulting in hate towards them because they defy the status quo. Ethnocentrism ties in here really well. But its ok to accept, tolerate and even love other sources of knowledge. Every group is at risk, with the exception of the those that possess epistemic privilege and control knowledge globally.
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Very good points, people seem not to realize the extenet to which persecution based on race, religion etc affects the persecuted.
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Extremely well written, not to mention thought provoking. Ever so often I feel the need to recognize that even in our sheltered Caribbean nations it’s still so necessary to recognize that these issues that many perceive as isolated and irrelevant are indeed important. Not because it is not yet directly at your door stop it should be ignored. These very prominent issues should strike up the conversation about your own values. Hate crimes are becoming the new normal to the extent that one just expects it. The fuel being pumped into Trumps campaign will only prove to incite more hatred and fear. It only begs me to question when it will bleed into issues with other minorities. Would people begin caring more if a ban is placed on our Caribbean people living in America? Would people care more if his efforts turn to rid America of blacks or Christians?. As they say “a sharp tongue can cut your own throat”.
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Reblogged this on therealestoneblog and commented:
I think that this was a very interesting article written.
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I enjoyed reading this article. If I had no prior knowledge on the topic this entry would suffice in my Intro to African American Studies class my professor explained that muslims were forced to “bite the bullet” during a war (can’t remember the name). The name comes from the Muslim people having to literally bite the bullet before loading their ammo. This goes hand & hand because being Muslim, it was against their religion to ingest pork. Definitely a good read.
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It’s a very well written article. To add some more, to me that is exactly what causes people to be violent even Muslims because they feel intentionally provoked. You can’t just say what you feel and degrade an entire culture of people (Trump) and yet nothing is being done about it.
On another note, looking at all the businesses and companies that stopped doing business with him and how much money he lost, it still doesn’t matter to him when you compare his wealth but I really believe this whole election thing is a ploy. The way I see it; Present trump as a candidate and he say’s what the hell he feels…offending people so much that they end up voting for the other choice or anyone except trump to be president.
Kind of similar to 2010 in T&T when the country was so ‘fedup’ of Patrick Manning that we voted for Kamla because she seemed “better” only because we hated Manning at that point in time..not so much that we wanted Kamla.
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You ever read something and just felt…dumbfounded? This was a very eye opening article for me because yes..i am aware that muslims, blacks, jews…anything that isn’t predominantly European face discrimnination…but what i did not see is how we as human being have grown so insensitive to it that we will quickly make racist remarks or spread lies and ridicule a culture we don’t understand just because it does not fit into our narrow worldview. The ignorance is heartbreaking…but what brings change is awareness and then action, so knowing that people are dying due to racism…makes me think twice about saying a racist remark or sharing a “funny joke” that would undermines someone’s culture. Good job at waking me up, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this article on my facebook page 🙂
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From a first hand perspective experiencing the social system of living within the walls of the United States of America, one can perceive the different aspects that are specifically conceived to target certain groups of people to leave them subjugated to specific policies that affect them disproportionately in order for a different group of people to specifically benefit from unfair and unfortunate circumstances. For instance, the overwhelming number of arrests and sentencing of people of color for a drug that is used by white people more often is directly related to the power struggle happening within the power structure that is government in the united states. Gentrification and classism are also other two examples that affect people of color at a greater propensity than the white citizens of the country. Which comes with the territory of living in neighborhoods close to city’s with lower property tax and cheaper cost of living. After time passes and the area surrounding develops the potential of the area is theorized without consideration of the current tenants. Whereas religion has always been a topic to try and divide people with, it is not surprising that Trump would employ such a topic to cause more division than unity among the citizens of the country especially taking into account that that the popular vote influences the electoral college decision making instead of the people ultimately choosing their leader. The electoral college may accept campaign funding or monetary gains for support in specific voting matters. As anyone can gather from the content of interviews and speeches given by trump it is evident that the ignorance being perpetuated is blind and dangerous in terms of the future progression of the human race as a whole. Making America “great” again has different meanings depending on who the respective perspective is received from. Therefore epistemology is important to recognize as it greatly influences what and how we perceive things.
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This article addresses some serious issues which people tend to mumble quietly to themselves about but never have the courage to come out and express their views on. Racism manifests itself in our society via insidious methods and many times if it is not one ethnicity directly insulting another it goes highly unrecognized.
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This piece raises an awareness and it makes me wonder if persons who do not fall into the minority groups understand that if they say and do nothing about it, that they are passive supporters of a racist regime. If i am white, American and Christian, why does this give me some sort of entitlement to belittle other groups within society. But how do we break this cycle if as you rightfully said, it is epistemic, therefore this discrimination may be the norm and a large proportion of citizens may not even view it as inequality. What do you think we can do to change the nature of this?
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You know what amazes me? This belief that America is somehow their’s. Really??
Not even the Native Americans have proper rights or respect there.
As far as I am concerned they are ALL IMMIGRANTS, TERRORISTS, and THIEVES, comfortably living off the pillage of their self-empowered racist ancestors and will do anything to keep the riches that do not belong to them. Why Trump don’t talk about reparations? Why doesn’t he talk about who built America, and upon whose sweaty backs their wall street structures now stand? All of his supporter are complicit. If they are not for the interest of the minorities then they are against it. They believe that racism does not direct them but HATE affects everyone.
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Well written and so relevant. As a history student I believe in learning from the mistakes of the past and not allowing history to repeat itself. I loved the references of cross contextual events. This article also speaks volumes of what can be said about global security and ethical policies in politics. Imagine in the 21st century, politicians are not being sanctioned for running hate campaigns, threats of violence and the propagation of discrimination, genocide and apartheid.
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