War Pony... The ProtectorI think we should start with psychological and emotional genocide and how we see that especially in 'St. Marie.' Here we see a young girl trying to escape her race and heritage and believing herself to be white. Not even white as in American, but she sees her own skin as white. She wants to incorporate herself fully into the 'white' traditions and ignores her native american heritage. Her mind is so set on being part of everyone else and her head has been warped with images and thoughts that are set to derail her from her heritage that she even joins the american (white, for the purposes of this essay) convent in order to incorporate herself more fully with the white people. The person that really leads to a psychological and emotional turmoil within Marie is Sr. Leopolda and her hatred of the Native American people. She makes basically turns Marie into her slave and brainwashes her further with bad thoughts about her people and her heritage. I guess you could call it a stamping out of the race by means of discrimination and hatred.
We can almost certainly turn to the film Powwow Highway when discussing economic and social genocide. This film shows mostly what the Native American people went through (and probably still continue to go through in more subtle ways) in economic standpoints, talking about the destruction of their lands and livelihood to make space for 'white' Americans and their daily living. We know that Buddy Red Bow wants to shut down the mining that will be taking over his home and his determination seems to really speak for what he wants to do. We see this culture, these people, rich in traditions, honor and intelligence having to make ends meet in whatever way they can because everything is taken from them.
I guess it's that question of 'What right do people have of destroying other human beings like that? Of destroying their livelihoods, dreams and even their lives? It's a part of the human world that I cannot ever possibly understand nor do I wish to, simply, we must see it for what it is, unacceptable and try to learn as much as we possibly can from the extremely poor moments in humanity's history.
What jumped out to me right at the beginning of your post was “Sometimes we tend to skip over this as though it isn't as important as the Jewish Holocaust.” This may not have much to do with the substance of your post at all that I’m commenting on this, but it is still an interesting point that deserves expansion. Why is it that we tend to skip over this? It could be that the scale of devastation is not nearly equal at all. However, in that case, why isn’t the genocide in the Ukraine valued higher in study? My reason is two-fold. One, Native American genocide is overlooked by many factors. We are educated in school (thanks to our love of Thanksgiving) that thee Pilgrims and colonials had a great relationship with Native Americans. However, this is not the case. The settlers completely pushed the Native Americans from their land. My other reason is that since we pride ourselves as being the greatest nation in the world, we do not want to admit our faults and the genocide we place on our own citizens. It is not that we are in denial of what is going on, it is pure ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI want respectfully to address a couple of issues I have with your statements, Jeff. When you say that the scale of devastation between the Holocaust and an American Indian genocide is not nearly equal that is not a clear statement. It seems to me that you're suggesting that the devastation of the American Indian genocide is lesser than that found in the Holocaust. I did a couple google searches and it seems to me that most scholars believe that the total amount of Indians killed over a long period of time was greater than the death totals of the Holocaust. The two are very different in nature and duration, obviously, but still we have the historical estimates of higher numbers, so it'd be hard to say that the American Indian devastation was any less great than that of the Holocaust. I do, however, agree with your statement that we choose not to face our culpability in the deaths of millions and a great deal of despicable acts. We all know the reality of events, but living with guilt can be burdensome. I think a big point of courses like this, is to make an effort to fully understand the psychological, social, political, and economic ramifications of these genocides on their people today. I feel that's the only way I've been able to sift through my guilt as a white man, after choosing to constantly educate myself on awful things people who look like me have done throughout the world.
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