A University of Minnesota professor called on students during a “teach-in” panel to “dismantle” and “decolonize” the United States.
The comments were made by Dr. Melanie Yazzie, part of the Navajo Nation and assistant professor of American Indian studies at UMN Twin Cities, during a discussion hosted by The Red Nation, an anti-Israel group.
“What we really want to take away tonight, is… ‘We’re in the belly of the beast,” Yazzie told the audience. “We’re all indigenous people who come from nations that are under occupation by the United States government.”
She claimed that the United States and Israel are “one in the same” for occupying land.
“And of course the US bankrolls the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. They’re one in the same,” Yazzie said.
“It’s our responsibility as people who are within the United States to go as hard as possible to decolonize this place because that will reverberate all across the world,” she stated, adding that it is their responsibility because the “U.S. is the greatest predator empire that has ever existed.”
“And that the goal is to dismantle the settler project that is the United States for the freedom and the future of all life on this planet,” she continued. “It very much depends on that.”
