Pro-Palestine Professor: “I Hope You Dismantle The United States”
A professor at the elite Macalester College is sparking backlash online after a video of her at the annual Socialism Conference, which was held July 3rd to July 7th, shows the professor calling for the complete destruction of the United States.
The professor, Dr. Melanie K. Yazzie, was speaking at a panel event hosted by Red Nation, a Native American nonprofit that advocates for Palestinian and Native American rights.
“Of all liberation struggles and the movements that seek justice, equality and peace, that hope to seek to dismantle the United States: I hope you dismantle the United States.”
“The US is the greatest predator empire that has ever existed.”
"There is real hope that Palestine offers us. Palestine is the alternative path for native nations. This is because we understand Palestine as the tip of the spear.”
“And if that isn't part of your politics, you should. You should listen to indigenous people. That is the goal. Decolonization is the only thing that is going to save us as a species. Everyone should be on board with it, no questions asked.”
“It is a righteous struggle,” she said about the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“We need to lean into that: Colonizers are scared. Lean into scaring them!” Yazzie urged. The professor, who teaches a class titled “Indigenous Feminisms” about “settler colonialism” at Macalester, did not respond to a request for comment.
Yazzie told audience members that she and other participants on the panel are a reminder to "the world that even after 500 years ... this is something that has not gone away, and in fact it will never go away, no matter how much you suffer."
"And I think that is what we have to offer our Palestinian relatives…. to push back against the violent settler project that is the United States," Yazzie added.
Pro-Israel activist Tamar Masudin took note of her keffiyeh in a viral post Sunday.
“Just a reminder: when people dressed like this talk about ‘dismantling’ a nation, they don’t mean peaceful reform. They usually mean violently tearing down everything good about Western civilization.”
“They’re not speaking in metaphors, and it was always about Palestine,” he added.
Ironically, she’ll be teaching this anti-American rhetoric for Macalester’s American Studies Department. More like Anti-American Studies? Macalester has been ranked in the top 20-30 of all liberal arts colleges nationwide, out of hundreds of colleges, for decades now.
Her students next semester will be treated to a deep dive on the alphabet soup topics of social justice including “queer writings”, “gender non-conforming subjectivities” and “erotics.”
Professor Yazzie also teaches at the University of Minnesota, just a 12-minute drive from Macalester College, where she will be holding a research class for graduate students in the American Studies Department this fall.
In her free time, she writes about indigenous rights for websites including Sentient, for the First Nations Development Institute, and in academic journals.
In a 2015 essay published by Johns Hopkin University Press, Yazzie explained that she visited Palestine in 2011 “to understand the occupation as a settler-colonialism endeavor,” but she did not pay Israel itself a visit for comparative purposes.
“While I am indebted to Palestinian colleagues and acquaintances for these lessons about humanity and resistance, the violence of the occupation—with its images imprinted on my spirit and consciousness—is what I have carried forward,” she wrote.
Yazzie also explained that she has been active in the BDS movement against Israel since 2013, recanting one protest she co-organized against Israel during her time as a student at the University of New Mexico.
“During the protest, we held signs that read ‘Boycott Colonization, Divest from Israel’ and ‘End Navajo Partnerships with Israel.’ We chanted ‘from Window Rock to Palestine, occupation is a crime.’”
Macalester and UMN did not respond to a request for comment.
Email the author: tonimaeairaksinen@gmail.com
