Podcast Episode 1: Merciless Indian Savages

The opening session of the course will focus distinct themes from the first podcast episode, “Merciless Indian Savages”, including the hunger for Native lands as a key motivator for the American Revolution, and the way in which Fort Snelling, a 19th century Dakota concentration camp and present day ICE headquarters, embodies the continuity of settler colonial tyranny.

Integrated themes will include an analysis of capitalism as the economic expression of and driving force behind colonialism, extraction and genocide, as well as a recognition of the parallel role that African enslavement played (alongside Native land dispossession) in motivating the colonists war for independence.

Podcast Episode 2 / Playing Indian

The second session of the course will focus on content from the second podcast episode, “Playing Indian”, that illuminates early colonial projections onto Indigenous identity and the corresponding psychology surrounding Native sports mascots today, as well as the enduring impact on Native people of this settler urge to “play Indian.”

Integrated themes will include a focus on parallel phenomena within Israeli settler colony, and its relationship to the United States, as well as the dialectic of settler identity as both entitled and violent, while also containing profound loss and spiritual longing. We will spend time studying the creation of whiteness as a core form of class manipulation, and also consider the ways in which ancestral connection and a health, liberatory sense of self are integral components of a larger, decolonial project.

Episode 3 / It Happened Here

The third session of the course will support participant processes and reflection around the genocide that happened on this land, including the fact that no part of United States development can be separated from it. We will make time to honor the stories of sacrifice and loss shared in this episode of the podcast, and reflect together on the relationship of the Onondaga and ogwenyo’da (the cicada) which demonstrates a type of belonging that settler society cannot emulate.

Integrated themes will include continued study and reflection on the relationship of the United States to Israel as a contemporary extension of European settler colonialism, and solidarity with Palestine as a vital piece of the global fight against colonialism, environmental devastation and genocide.

Episode 4 / Military Might

The fourth session of the course will explore the link between “Indian wars” of early U.S. history and the development of the U.S. military as we know it today. Focus on podcast materials will include Myaamia survival & language recovery one of a multitude of Indigenous survivance stories and representative of the diverse ways in which human communities resist colonial might - something we can all learn from.

Integrated themes to include: the contemporary U.S. military, including financial bloat at the expense of civilian society; the way in which “total war” continues in Gaza and Southern Lebanon; changing global power dynamics and the (ineffectual) war on Iran; the way in which the U.S. military preys on working class; and meaningful avenues for settler solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty and struggle.

Episode 5 / Land, Not Liberty

The fifth session of the course will focus on integral themes from the fifth episode of the First America podcast, “Land, Not Liberty”, to illustrate the way in which US capitalism was built on the theft of Indigenous land and through a process of corruption, bribes and lawlessness.

Integrated themes will include: study and reflection on the difference between “owning” land and belonging to land; the theft of enslaved African labor that accompanied the theft of Indigenous land; class-based forms of solidarity that can help us form a coalition large enough to confront and dismantle colonial, capitalist systems.

Episode 6 / The Origin of American Authoritarianism

The final session of the course will focus on core concepts and stories from the final podcast episode, “The Origin of American Authoritarianism” that demonstrate how present day fascist, authoritarianism and imperialism is inseparable, and built upon, the treatment of the Indigenous peoples of this land.

Integrated themes will include a vision of people-centered (rather than profit-centered) society that prioritizes Native leadership and values, and study and discussion of what decolonization could look like in practice, how this process improves everyone’s lives, and the role of solidarity-based organizing in working together for a liberated future.