Who Wins the Prize for Being the Most Victimised?

It's really stressful living in a country where the original sin of genocide and land theft hasn't been addressed, which is then overlaid by the atrocity of slavery, which is then overlaid by convict deportation, which is then overlaid by false promises of equality, freedom, justice and liberty for all... so much dysfunction... and so much jostling for the role of "most damaged victim"...

In my opinion, the ONLY people here who need justice and restitution right now, are the original people living in this land, on this continent... the rest of us arrived as immigrants and we all - of every skin colour - have huge privilege, taken/bought on the backs of that indigenous suffering, displacement and genocide... 

Deal with/heal that original sin/wound and much of the other victimising/victimhood will fade away...

Let me say up front, that I recognise and own my status/privilege as a white formerly middle class woman with the advantage of a good education... having owned that, and at the risk of being vilified, I'm going to admit that I can't be bothered finding my way through the maze of which race in this country, on this continent, on this planet, has been the most victimised...

I totally get that since I left The Netherlands/Holland as a child, I have been an immigrant to four countries and lived well in each, which comfort was paid for by the suffering of the indigenous people who had been colonised in times past; in some of those countries the first colonisers were white... in others, they were brown or yellow skinned...

I know what its like to be an outsider... coming into a country, speaking a different language, not knowing the customs, being of a different class... being teased, bullied, "oppressed" by other whites - yes, racism DOES exist within groups sharing the same skin colour...

and... I totally get the pain of the wounds inflicted by the colonisers... and wherever possible, reparations and restitution should happen...

and... this whole tendency to oppression thing is something it seems all humans on the planet have within themselves, individually and collectively... there's black on black oppression, yellow on yellow, white on white, brown on brown, 'red' on 'red' oppression... I've seen it, everywhere I've gone... In Singapore, for example, until recently it used to be white on yellow, yellow on brown and brown on brown... now that most of the whites are expat business people, not colonial rulers, it's yellow on brown, brown on brown...

and... we've been doing it since the beginning of gathering together in groups... check out the history of human interaction - conquest and colonisation - on every continent...

so, at some point, don't we have to give up on holding on to it all, because, really, aren't we ALL guilty?

I think I have just laid myself open to criticism from less privileged people, that "it's OK for you, you're white and at the top of the pyramid"... and yes, theoretically I am quite high up on that scale... My skin, gender and education get me privileges that other people might not have... AND... at the same time, poverty hurts my child as much as it does a child of any other skin colour... being an outsider, a minority anywhere is hard for any child of any colour or creed... how are we ever going to heal any of this if we don't find some commonality somewhere?

and just to prove the point, this article crossed my path today, highlighting the sad fact that this separation and bigotry is happening currently, amongst Native American people: On Card Carrying Indians and Those Indians Who Don't