Messy Liberation: Feminist Conversations about Politics and Pop Culture12 Jan

America Is the Colonizer (Again): Venezuela, Power, and Empire

Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown dig into the U.S. military action in Venezuela, and why calling it “surprising” misses the point entirely. What’s happening in Venezuela isn’t new. What is new is how little the U.S. is pretending anymore.

Discussed in this episode:

Why the U.S. arrest and removal of Venezuela’s leader is colonialism, not “law enforcement”
How oil, capitalism, and empire are always the through-line
The danger of pretending America is a neutral or moral global authority
Why “how you do anything is how you do everything” applies to geopolitics
The direct connection between capitalism, rape culture, and power grabs
Why nuance matters—and why refusing false binaries is not the same as defending dictators
How white discomfort gets mislabeled as “lack of safety”
Why joking about colonization isn’t harmless (and what listening actually looks like)
What it means to be able to critique U.S. actions without claiming expertise over other nations

RESOURCE: Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing

They also wrestle in real time with fear, grief, learning out loud, and the possibility that America’s increasing global isolation may be both terrifying and inevitable.

This conversation isn’t tidy. It’s not optimistic. But it is honest—and rooted in the belief that refusing empire starts with telling the truth about it.

Next episode preview: Becky and Taina shift gears (a little) to talk about Sinners and One Battle After Another during awards season—with opinions they already know won’t be universally loved.

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