I find it odd how many white people responded to me referring to “This Land is Your Land” as a ballad of settler colonialism somehow saw an attempt to “cancel” Woody Guthrie (& Paul Robeson ?) Critique of a song & its role in a settler society is not cancellation of an artist. https://twitter.com/kthalps/status/1351998937025146882

More tired “But if I, a white person, say someone is good on class, you can’t even critique their work on colonialism or race—let alone think abt how art functions in society separate from the artist’s intent over decades!”

Critique doesn’t equal cancellation!

To school you on Settler Colonialism 101, @kthalps: Colonialism is a structure, not an event. To be part of its culture, art needn’t refer to the origin of the country as you suggest. The claim to the land in the lyrics is enough; but so too is how it functions to bolster a sense

of birthright. I am interested in how I was never taught the socialist verses in school. But I WAS taught, along white children in a neighborhood literally called “La Colonia,” that this was our land from sea to sea—which the Sioux of the region might have had some thoughts on.

But I was fascinated while writing from Puerto Rico abt hearing a daughter of PR sing at the inaugural that “this is your land” to a people of this island colony who will be ruled by a POTUS for whom they can’t vote.

Here, the song is a ballad justifying colonialism!!!

So nice try @kthalps, but no one’s canceling Guthrie. Certainly not Paul Robeson, lol. But just cuz someone had good economics doesn’t mean ppl who think about race & colonialism have to stop doing cultural studies abt their work. “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”