Forgive this unfurling of thought which may or may not be but minimally connected to the course material.

It seems to me that the United States, as a location of study, is conspicuously absent from postcolonial discourse. Yes, America is and was an empire, but it was also a colony. I know I have much more reading to do, but if what I have read could be considered at least a representative sample then the postcolonial seems to be relegated to the east, the third world, and the other.

Is it because after winning independence the colonizers did not retreat? Is the US unique as a postcolonial nation? Is the native population as invisible elsewhere as they are here?

The common inheritance of postcoloniality is a Western political structure, a stratification of hybrid and native populations, and more than their share of ethnic strife brought about by the intake of foreign labor and the uneven doling of economic and political resources. America is no exception to this, but has inherited something else. What it is would take much more thought than this blog post could warrant.

The American Revolution was not so much repulsion of the colony and crown, but rather mitosis that disjoined to two without destroying either. If it written in myth it would be not unlike Romulus and Remus birthed from Zeus's imperial headache. And the process of nation-making does require the use of myth.

How does this postcolonial gaze affect the comprehension of course material and experience? Well, at this point we are all postcolonial subjects. Are the problems experienced by the Gullah communities on Wadamlaw, Sapelo, and the other Sea Islands caused by a nested coloniality that operates transparently? The development of "plantation" communities are like colonies themselves. They disrupt the original communities ability to subsist self-sufficiently, forcing the native Sea Islanders into menial wage labor, while also opening up new markets to national and international corporations.

The sense of community on St. Helena was impressive in its implementation of cosmology to adapt and maintain itself. The bartering of resources and talent to accomplish tasks so that money can be used toward the increasing land taxes, the pooling of money by families to purchase their lands, the physical layout of those family compounds; all show how the West African circle cosmogram represents continuity and interconnection between the individual, the family, and the community.