Friday 13th post

Through much of the readings and lectures, particulary on todays reading ” Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire” you get a sense of imperilaism being justified or even caused by nationalism. To have such pride and belief in ones nation, religion and culture to only want the same for others. In fridays reading the dialogue wavers between narrators admiring the filipinos yet then some rejecting the filipinos so called “savage” ways of warfare. However as stated as well in the reading on page 174, certianly not civilized actions were recorded such as robbing, ravishing and kicking those who complained by U.S soldiers. This cannot be mistaken though as many U.S soldier did not do this as the same goes for not all Filiponos were “savages”.  In my opinion, the Filipinos were much like early america, fighting for their independence from a higher authority after being seperated. America fighting for independence and against taxation from europe while in their scenario the Filipinos heard rumor of america looking for replacement slaves and fought ever so more for independence and national identity. The U.S justified their actions of war and racial slurs with their nationalism, believing in their superiority and “civil” ways. Providing a promise of civilizing the “savages” for their own good, much better than the filipinos own nationalism. Similar scenarios occured in Jaffa were the difference between civilizing and helping the people of the ottoman empire or overextending their jurisdiction and taking advantage of them became a blurry line. Its another case of pride in nationalism to assimilate their ideals and influence into another civilization without much consideration for the civilization itself. This can also be seen by other nations such as france and ethiopia.

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