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aimiller 's review for:
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
I want to say: I understand in part why the things I'm about to say I didn't like about this book are Things. I also want to say that this could be a pretty damn useful teaching tool if taught in excerpts? But I wouldn't recommend reading the entire thing without planning to read some follow-up books--of which she wonderfully lists in the back, so you have a lot to go off of!
So, my little baby complaint is that this book is meant for a popular audience and uses settler colonialism as its primary framework, which is totally cool! More people should know about settler colonialism! But she never defines it, and while theoretically her examples show it, my second complaint comes into play with this: almost all of her examples of settler colonialism involve militaristic action (either with an actual military/militia, or an unorganized body of white folks just killing people.) This runs the risk of making other parts of settler colonialism, especially assimilation attempts (allotment, boarding schools, termination, etc.), seem somehow less damaging and harmful. 'Can't we hold both as terrible?' Yes we can and should, but given the amount of space in the text that she gives to the former and not the latter speaks to the possibility that the reader will miss the damage of the latter.
My final overarching complaint is that this book is incredibly, dangerously caught up in pain and death. And I know that we need to make that pain legible to white settler folks, but I also think that she leaves very, very little room for stories of resilience and survivance (despite her citation of Vizenor,) and I think that people (white settlers and indigenous folk) need to see stories of survivance to understand what to do next. This is influenced by a lot of personal stuff, but I really do think that those narratives need to carry as much weight as the death and pain because focusing on death and pain only perpetuates the dehumanization of indigenous folks.
BUT: I will say I think it's a decently accessible book for getting people to think settler colonialism and begin to change the paradigms of the dominant narratives about the US state. I just think that when you finish it, you should immediately read one of the books she suggests to get a taste of narratives of resilience and survivance.
So, my little baby complaint is that this book is meant for a popular audience and uses settler colonialism as its primary framework, which is totally cool! More people should know about settler colonialism! But she never defines it, and while theoretically her examples show it, my second complaint comes into play with this: almost all of her examples of settler colonialism involve militaristic action (either with an actual military/militia, or an unorganized body of white folks just killing people.) This runs the risk of making other parts of settler colonialism, especially assimilation attempts (allotment, boarding schools, termination, etc.), seem somehow less damaging and harmful. 'Can't we hold both as terrible?' Yes we can and should, but given the amount of space in the text that she gives to the former and not the latter speaks to the possibility that the reader will miss the damage of the latter.
My final overarching complaint is that this book is incredibly, dangerously caught up in pain and death. And I know that we need to make that pain legible to white settler folks, but I also think that she leaves very, very little room for stories of resilience and survivance (despite her citation of Vizenor,) and I think that people (white settlers and indigenous folk) need to see stories of survivance to understand what to do next. This is influenced by a lot of personal stuff, but I really do think that those narratives need to carry as much weight as the death and pain because focusing on death and pain only perpetuates the dehumanization of indigenous folks.
BUT: I will say I think it's a decently accessible book for getting people to think settler colonialism and begin to change the paradigms of the dominant narratives about the US state. I just think that when you finish it, you should immediately read one of the books she suggests to get a taste of narratives of resilience and survivance.