• Choose a Show
• Brian McLaren
• Think Fwd:

Andrea describes how native groups and people of color used to organize themselves around common areas of oppression, but that this became an unhealthy way to connect—a sort of Oppression Olympics. Recognizing that not all groups were oppressed in the same way, Andrea says the question became not “who was most oppressed, but how were we distinctly oppressed, and how were we complicit in others’ oppression?”

She describes the three pillars of white supremacy: “slavability,” genocide, and “orientalism.” Slavability stems from anti-black racism where everyone is viewed as a commodity but with a color hierarchy. The anchor of this pillar is capitalism. The second pillar of genocide has the underlying thinking that native people’s job is to “disappear” so that the incoming colonists can claim ownership of the land. The anchor of this pillar is colonialism. The final pillar, orientalism, is the belief that there is a perpetual foreign threat that must be fought. The foreigners are not thought of as slaves; they are not dead; but a threat that must be continually rallied against. The anchor for this pillar is war. With these new understandings, oppressed communities can organize around strategic alliances and understand how they fit in the larger economy in which we live.

If this sounds a little academic, Andrea moves from theory to real life when she describes the church-run boarding schools for Native American children which she believes were one of the most destructive US policies to native people. Often the coverage of problems in native groups shows the bad things happening to the population, but doesn’t give the context or the background about why it’s happening. The suggestion is that native groups are an inherently dysfunctional people, or culture. Andrea links this dysfunction to the generation of Native American children that were sent to Christian boarding schools at the age of 5 or 6, and not allowed to return home—with the ultimate goal of cultural genocide. This generation of children was not parented, and worse, was subjected to starvation and routine physical, sexual and emotional abuse. When they finished school at 18, they went home to teach what they knew—abuse and violation—to the next generation of native children. And from there the cycle of destruction from within began.

Andrea’s hope is that the story native people’s oppression can be told. If we don’t help bring the issue to light, it will continue to be a covered-up history that no one really knows about. We have the chance to drop the barriers of our differences, help make the issue known, and ask for reparation for boarding school survivors.

Personal Reflections:

1. Do I ever view or approach people as a commodity? (e.g. a way to barter myself into heaven’s good graces, or number on my facebook account)
2. How can I, and my community, help bring to light the story of the survivors of church boarding schools?

Small Group or Staff Questions:

1. Andrea talked about the view of a constant “foreign threat” as a motivator (for war). How much of our motivation for action comes out of fear, rather than love?
2. In the pursuit of “doing good,” do we think about the possible collateral damage? Can we take time to contextualize our words, actions and approaches to other people or groups with whom we work, live, and engage?

Resources:

4 Responses to “Andrea Smith: Native American Communities and Insights into Oppression”

1. Native American Theology(ies) - Kent Annan - God’s Politics Blog Says:
   May 26th, 2009 at 10:42 am

   [...] addition to the Web sites and books mentioned in the article, TheOOZE.TV recently posted a good video interview with Andrea Smith, who’s quoted in the [...]

2. Chuck Dodson Says:
   May 18th, 2010 at 7:50 pm

   I see how the three pillar analysis Andrea makes makes sense in some ways when it comes to what is called the sexual abuse of children –by teachers and clergy.

   I see that such professionals having such relations, even when consensual, can be problematic in an analysis critical of and seeking to stop colonialism, since such professionals are agents of such colonialism in a host of ways. Especially in how such agents internalize the value system of colonialism and inadverdently “seed” their colonial values and “slavability” to such values and their systems.

   What I insist on challenging though, is the broad-brush construction that all relations of these sorts are somehow always morally “bad” (even when they are consensual).

   Yes, in the context of colonial agents working to impress upon the colonized a system that they take for granted, yes, that’s something to be challenged. That’s something that I am challenging more and more amongst my colleagues as I see what you are saying.

   Yet what is missing in the discourse, and what makes it a curious kind of new propaganda, is the reality that these relations are stripped of their contexts, such as that many if not most consensual relations can be noted to be more about meaningful and authentic friendships where age and power lines have a habit of becoming lessened than the popularized notions of “power over” being first and foremost in the “sicko” mind.

   Anti-sex/anti-organic-relations propagandists (and their new church called social science) want, of course, to show such radical relations without their contexts, without the organic friendships, without the solidarity between two people whose sexuality with each other may well often be the minor portion of their relations (not that this is bad or good, just that it is a truth).

   Anti-autonomous propagandists, on whatever topic, have consistently worked to force the least-understood truths out of relations, and hammer systematically at these weaknesses. This is a basic tactic of warfare, after all. That today’s critical thinkers don’t seem to be aware of this proves how they can and are being tooled by this type of warfare. (Especially in the reality that taking a nuanced approach to the issue of authentic intergenerational bonding has now been often blocked from being allowed to be heard in the official policies of many IPs and social networks.)

   There is a grey area here that is being blocked from view, even by the decolonial promoters. Why is this? Perhaps the numbers are perceived to be so small that some believe “it doesn’t matter” if people labled pedophiles get demonized (and pushed into a situation very similar to various groups in 1933 germany); they may think that a seemingly small minority is “fair game” when this kind of scapegoating means a possible better foothold for decolonizing values.

   But in terms of seeding authentic (and thus, truly decolonizing) relations, versus the Brave New World of artificialized relations (pushed at the forefront by professional/colonial values cammoflauged behind calls to emotionally potent over-simplifications like anti-pedophile sentiment), well I think if you think this through, you start to see dangerous precedents in these broad-brush strokes as Andrea and so many others seem to be uncritically buying into.

   Precedents which block autonomous relations like those found in the radical friendship between the much-demonized ex-Seattle teacher, Mary Letourneau, and her young lover. And the free-spirited ways of youth the world over who do not automatically see themselves breaking these “fundamental” laws when they make porn of themselves and then share with their friends via cell phones (having such intercepted by the surveillance state). And so on and so forth. There are piles of such cases where both consensual relations and age-peer sexuality is being dragged through a “good” old-fashioned anti-autonomous hysteria. I can supply such a listing if anyone’s interested.

   Hope the more courageous of you will take a look at the academic website I’ve linked to here (will you allow it to be published here??) and think carefully through the grey areas!

3. Psychoman Says:
   June 29th, 2010 at 11:37 am

   http://www.annarborrealestatetalk.com/19/need-advice-on-getting-your-property-tax-assessment-lower/

4. ~*LiL DeVeL*~ Says:
   July 1st, 2010 at 7:51 am

   http://brianallen.us/?p=988

Leave a Reply