Monday, August 27, 2012
As you are reading Custer Died for Your Sins, you can also use additional resources to contextualize your understanding of the period during which the text was first written and published. Here is one documentary trailer. If you find other useful resources that you can share with your classmates, please post them on the blog.
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The imperial foundation upon which colonialism rests relies on categorical structures within a framework of all the isms (racism, classism, sexism, etc.), in which people of color can never equally engage. The entire western paradigm, in which this foundation rests, relies on conquest, subjugation, exploitation, and genocide.Further, the whole western or Eurocentric manifesto of existence depends on the insidious and intentful destruction of Papahanaumoku or Mother Earth, it's spirit, and it's mana, its ability to produce and sustain the very human who seeks to destroy it in his imperialistic quest for power and dominium.
ReplyDeleteThis is the paradigm in which Deloria wrote his own historical manifesto in the treatment of Indians and it speaks to the similarites in the treatment of Kanaka `Oiwi since 1893 when the traitors overthrew Queen Lili`uokalani.
Deloria Jr.'s brings the systemic and problematic essence of colonialism right smack in front of your face. The systemic problem of western categorical placement of Indigenous Peoples (the other becomes the expert of the native after subjugation and marginalization)born of racist contempt, continues to be the thrust for government's directive, and interference (continuing dominance) over Indian life and land. (IRA, BIA, DOI).
As I continue to read, I find myself becoming angry...again at the similar treatment of kanaka `oiwi and all indigenous people of color. What has changed in the imperial paradigm of military regionalism and globalization? Deloria Jr. wisely and correctly described what would happen in terms of continued disparaties, federal and state corruption in juriditional capacity over Indian lands and tribal affairs. Federal recognition for tribes have discordant rates of success and the general well-being of most tribes who have been left behind while others have made great successes speaks to the reality of inequity amonst the ability to make those options viable.
What I see in the work of Deloria Jr., is the reality of what will happen under the Akaka Bill for kanaka `oiwi. Many of the quasi-state and federal entities, bureaus, offices (OHA, DOI, Office of Hawaiian Relations (OHR, officed in Washington, D.C.) are already in place. Kanaka `oiwi status has recently been legislatively declared, the relentless pursuit of ceded lands under the multitude quises of development that are non0native initiatives, the most recent the Public Land Development Coroporation (legislatively created)are simply means to continue the capture of lands through city, state, federal, jurisdiction made possible by legislating away any regulation for those lands, military occupation (yes we are an occupied nation)and settler compliance in which all peoples of Hawai`i, except her native sons and daughters, have and still benefit. There is something wrong, terribly wrong with this paradigm. Short of anarchy, which the government has whittled away with intended obesity and gross consumption, what can indigenous peoples do beyond the very few successful models that still require government subsidies or funding?