A Class on Liberation from U.S. Nationalism
Those of us born in the United States have much to be proud of. We also carry a big load. We have much to understand about ourselves, our nation, and our history! I led a four-year class—“Liberation from U.S. Nationalism”—in Berkeley, California, USA, for Co-Counselors born in the United States.
We met as Global Majority and Indigenous people, white people, mixed-heritage people, Jews, and disabled people with a range of ages and class backgrounds.
Our U.S. standard of living is built on the exploitation and suffering of others. The United States has benefitted materially from the genocide of Native people, the enslavement of African-heritage people, immigrant oppression, and profits from dominating other countries. We have been dehumanized, isolated, and deeply hurt in the process.
Our goal was to free ourselves from the patterns of U.S. nationalism.
We began each class with these introductory questions:
What is something new and good?
What is something you love about the United States?
What have you noticed about U.S. nationalism this week?
What is a strength of your people?
Together we read Harvey Jackins’s article “Nationalism, Patriotism, National Pride, and National Liberation” [in A Better World, pages 27 to 50, and at www.rc.org/publication/books/abw/abw_029_hj].
We discharged on the following:
- Ending racism and white supremacy, classism, Native oppression, and immigrant oppression
- Language liberation, Jewish liberation, Muslim liberation, and the climate
- Our early memories of how nationalism and patriotism were installed by our families, schools, and religious environments and via gender socialization, songs, holidays, and traditions
- What is good about the United States—its laws, history, arts and sciences, other achievements, and people
- What we learned (or did not learn) growing up about other groups or nations
- What we loved as children about the United States, and what we take pride in now as USers
- Our thoughts and feelings about “democracy” and “liberty and justice for all”
- Our own materialism, consumerism, and classism
- Both our oppressed and our oppressor roles (undischarged oppression often leads to oppressor patterns; as Marcie Rendon [International Liberation Reference Person for Native Americans] has said, we often feel, “I have suffered, therefore I deserve”)
- Our love for U.S. people and our pride in their histories, strengths, courage, goodness, and heroism
We identified the following USer oppressor patterns:
- U.S. exceptionalism—believing we are inherently superior to and have a right to control and dominate other nations and peoples
- Individualism, hard work, meritocracy, Christian hegemony
- Manifest Destiny—believing that expansion of the United States is justified and inevitable
- Greed, acquisition, consumerism, materialism, selfishness—“Mine!” “More!”
- Believing the myth of inevitable progress and happiness
- The pretense of “liberty and justice for all”
- Assimilation, forced or by choice; loss of connection to ancestral cultures and languages
- Isolation and loneliness; disconnection and separation from others
- Suppression of discharge
- Chronic helpfulness; feeling we must help other “inferior” beings
- Confusion about individual “freedom,” leading to anti-authority patterns
- Fear, including fear of dependency, and mistrust
- Perfectionism, perpetual “self-improvement,” preoccupation with self
- Defensiveness, denial, rationalizing the suffering we cause
- Classism, dehumanization, exploitation of others
- Domination—through violence and force, including military power
- Embracing U.S. government policies that claim to “help” but really control, colonize, oppress, and dominate
- Colluding with capitalism’s utter destruction of other life forms and the environment
- Genocide
- Because we benefit from it, protecting the U.S. owning-class position worldwide
The class helped us move forward in our lives. We improved our relationships and our communities.
Our hard-won closeness and connection were the key contradiction to our hurts from U.S. nationalism. We became smarter allies to each other and to both immigrants and people born in the United States. As we restored connection, we could face and discharge the isolation, divisions, and domination patterns imposed by U.S. nationalism. We could move closer to the full humanness we have always wanted as we work together to eliminate all oppressions.
Berkeley, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for USA political issues
(Present Time 208, July 2022)