Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the ways in which persons from the Dutch West Indian isles living in Caribbean and the Netherlands seek to undo this knot by rethinking the project of the Human. Their distinction to those who solely seek to redo the knot will be highlighted.

Paper long abstract:

Undoing the Knot: Racial Gift giving, Imaginary lines, and Downpression in the Dutch Kingdom

What distinguishes the diverse colonial projects and their lingering effects and contemporary effectuations, is not solely the sheer downpression of peoples. Focusing on that important aspect leads to endless rebuttals and reactions of think tank specialists that throughout human history there have been more physically brutal regimes.

The distinguishing mark to me is that these diverse colonial projects were perverse acts of gift-giving.

The Gift of racial identity!

Simultaneous with the brute violence, acts of racial gift giving (benevolent acts alleviating the unfair trade and subjection) created a world inhabited by humans seen and seeing themselves White and humans seen and seeing themselves as Non-White. The sense of being a singularity in continuous unexpected change got/gets clouded by racial identities that become habitual ways of performing personhood from a young age.

Third, no matter how one does the intersectional dance of multiple identities in academic and activist speak and writing, an imaginary line remains drawn between the White side of the world (that can consist of persons with a darker hue) and the non-White World (where you will occasionally find impoverished pink skinned persons).

One needs radical rethinking to undo the knot

This paper focuses on the ways in which persons from the Dutch West Indian isles living in Caribbean and the Netherlands seek to undo this knot by rethinking the project of the Human.