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savaging's review against another edition
4.0
I've been having this feeling lately about anti-immigrant xenophobia: that if you were to dig past the hate and into the fear, and then even past the fear -- you'd find shame. A rotting, festering shame of what white settlers did and do to native people. An unacknowledged knowing: our ancestors were murderers, rapists, terrorists, thieves. Instead of speaking the words, we lash out violently against others who immigrate to this land, fearing they'll do what we've done and keep doing. We use the words for them that would rightfully be used for our ancestors and ourselves. I've been feeling that maybe healing only comes with a reckoning with history.
So books like this one feel very important.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is up against an impossibility: to write all of U.S. history from the perspective of all of the indigenous nations it abused. And do it in 230 pages. So of course, everything is summarized and glossed-over. This book is no substitute for deeper study of any region, event, or people. But it's still a remarkable achievement.
It's not a history of indigenous people, but rather a retelling of the popular founding narratives from the perspective of indigeneity. I was surprised by the effort she makes to clarify that the weapons of settler colonialism were first used against the peasantry of what is now Great Britain. She also explores how the tactics sharpened in wars and massacres against the Indigenous people of this continent have been used by the U.S. to bludgeon people all over the world.
To give one tiny example: when John Yoo wrote the "torture memos" (which justify torture and prisoner abuse) he found legal precedent in the way the U.S. tortured and abused Indians. They were the first "unlawful combatants," without even the minimal rights given to prisoners of war.
And still after all the history of horror, she ends with these lines by Acoma poet Simon Ortiz:
The future will not be mad with loss and waste though the memory will
Be there: eyes will become kind and deep, and the bones of this nation
Will mend after the revolution.
So books like this one feel very important.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is up against an impossibility: to write all of U.S. history from the perspective of all of the indigenous nations it abused. And do it in 230 pages. So of course, everything is summarized and glossed-over. This book is no substitute for deeper study of any region, event, or people. But it's still a remarkable achievement.
It's not a history of indigenous people, but rather a retelling of the popular founding narratives from the perspective of indigeneity. I was surprised by the effort she makes to clarify that the weapons of settler colonialism were first used against the peasantry of what is now Great Britain. She also explores how the tactics sharpened in wars and massacres against the Indigenous people of this continent have been used by the U.S. to bludgeon people all over the world.
To give one tiny example: when John Yoo wrote the "torture memos" (which justify torture and prisoner abuse) he found legal precedent in the way the U.S. tortured and abused Indians. They were the first "unlawful combatants," without even the minimal rights given to prisoners of war.
And still after all the history of horror, she ends with these lines by Acoma poet Simon Ortiz:
The future will not be mad with loss and waste though the memory will
Be there: eyes will become kind and deep, and the bones of this nation
Will mend after the revolution.
jujureads_123's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
hnells's review against another edition
I just am really struggling to focus on this right now. Will hopefully return to it later when I am unhindered by grad school.
teenytinytina's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
5.0
reeducating_the_phoenix's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I listened to this knowing that the history we were fed in school was a lie, but I was not prepared for the facts laid out in this book. This should be mandatory reading for all Americans.