Devaluing Native Women is A Crime Against the Earth

"In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense." -Judith Herman, "Trauma and Recovery"

I picked up a book off a friend's bookshelf and wandered downstairs with it this week, and when he saw it in my hands, his expression was one of startled amusement, so I asked why. He said it was a Native woman who had given it to him, and remarked on the curiosity of how I had zoned into it. I laughed, "Must be some kind of psychic bond!" But when I took it home and started reading it, amusement turned into a sense of urgency: this is no questions, hands-down required reading for the movement, and for those who stand in solidarity.

On the back cover, a comment by Laura Davis: "Bridging the worlds of war veterans, prisoners of war, battered women and incest victims, Herman presents a compelling analysis of trauma and the process of healing." That the first recommendation is by Laura Davis, says a lot. She co-authored the pioneering 'first' manual on healing from childhood sexual abuse, (The Courage to Heal) which blew the lid off the no speak, no see taboo and became both a beacon and a lifeline for survivors.

That book saved my life. The only thing it really lacked was a political analysis which linked violence and tyranny in our homes and beds, with the violence and tyranny of the state, and not being written by women of color, its focus was (except for first person stories by women of color) limited to the experiences of mostly white, middle class women. 'The Courage to Heal' may not have told our collective story, but it did save many of our individual lives.

"Trauma and Recovery" tells the story of trauma survivors, the experience of trauma and the process of healing, from the point of view of someone who has worked with us for over twenty years. Reading it feels like the necessary next step to healing on an individual level. As survivors, we've learned to tell our stories, to survive flashbacks and backlashes, we've learned to communicate our truths with our partners, to confront abusers, to love and nurture our bodies.

Taking that a step further means telling our stories as threads in the webs of our communities' struggles, the struggle for survival as a people. A relative's story about sexual abuse in a residential school isn't just a story about sexual abuse, the why, where, when, how, and who; it's a story about residential school, and the why, where, when, how, and who of that.

Violence and abuse in our communities is never an isolated incident. Our own, and our families' stories are not isolated from our collective story of occupation and genocide as peoples. And that link isn't just a weight, one more burden, one more level to 'deal with' or 'work through'. It's a promise that we are not alone, and we don't struggle alone.

The experience of interconnected trauma means the promise of interconnected healing. As she kicks her addiction, she kicks off the colonizer's control over her body. Then someone accepts himself as two spirited, and the colonizer's grip over their sexual identity is lost. As we take back the land in a ceremony, that ceremony becomes a community where we can live the way we've always lived. She tells her family at his funeral what he did to her all these years, his power to silence her dies too. As one young language carrier refuses to speak English in their court systems, one more Indian refuses to bend to their ways. As he fights nazis in the streets when they threaten his community or allies, he proves that white supremacy is a fight that can be won. As she stands in the road, and turns back logging trucks, she takes a stand for her children, and for future generations. They blockade INAC from doing illegal elections when the sun rises, and reclaim sovereignty when the sun sets. She trains her hands to fight, and remembers her grandmothers were warriors.

For us, defending the land is an experience of trauma and recovery. We are of the land: her trauma is ours, her recovery is ours. And we're of each other, all of us are bound up in each other's trauma, and each other's recovery.

Everything we do has to come from this understanding, and none of this work can be done without respect for women: our value, our bodies, our voices, our stories, our ceremonies. Our ways of thinking and feeling, our emotions and intuition. Our love, the love we give and the love we deserve. Our hearts. Our powers of healing, our skill in combat. Our eye to relatedness in all things, in all ways. The knowledge we carry in our bodies, the ceremonies of blood and birth we carry in our bodies.

Devaluing Native women is a crime against the earth. We are first on the frontlines and the last line of defense against conquest and colonization. We are the memories the colonizer wants the colonized to forget. Our voices, louder than their secrecy and silence, threaten the foundations of capitalism and the illusions of democratic government. We are the life standing in the way of their death machines.



Here's that quote again, and the ones below it are paraphrased, to fill in the blanks, and bridge the imaginary gaps between our experiences as people:


"In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense."

"In order to escape accountability for his crimes of DESTRUCTION OF THE LAND, the CEO does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the CEO's first line of defense."

"In order to escape accountability for his crimes of MOLESTING HIS DAUGHTERS, the ABUSIVE FATHER does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the ABUSIVE FATHER'S first line of defense."

"In order to escape accountability for his crimes of COLONIZATION AND GENOCIDE, the PRIME MINISTER does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the PRIME MINISTER'S first line of defense."

"In order to escape accountability for his crimes of DEVALUING NATIVE WOMEN, the COLONIZED NATIVE MAN does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the COLONIZED NATIVE MAN'S first line of defense."

"In order to escape accountability for her crimes of DEVALUING NATIVE MEN, the COLONIZED NATIVE WOMAN does everything in her power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the COLONIZED NATIVE WOMAN'S first line of defense."



If you're using your power to promote forgetting, secrecy and silence, then honestly and courageously ask yourself:

"What crimes am I trying to escape accountability for?" This movement cannot afford to lie to itself, and we as people are worth the difficult path of truth-telling, to ourselves, for our people.


Gchimiigwetch.