Dispossession

Andrea Smith’s use of dispossession is geared towards the cultural genocide of Native Americans. In this heartfelt article, we discovered another tragedy caused by white supremacy which occurred during the seventeenth century. Native American children were being taken away from their families as they were placed in boarding schools far away from their homes further into complete isolation in the hopes of the colonists to lose their cultural identity and assimilate into the white, Christian dominant world. If you were not white and Christian and did not speak English, you were considered to be deviant from the “norm” and drastic steps were taken to further prevent more “deviant” individuals into society. It was also important for these boarding schools to be as far away from their families as possible so no running away can take place. There was only a need to run forward into a society where these children will never have to look back so they can hold a place.

In regards to prevention, “colonists thought it was more cost effective to engage in cultural genocide rather than physical (36).” However, this particularly made me angry because first, these actions are placed within an economic value and second, physical suffering was still present. It is disturbing to learn how taking away identity has to be evolved around economic means in this money hungry society. It is even more disturbing to see how the U.S believes that reparations are a sufficient way to repair the damage that will never heal. Is money the only motivation for our actions? Before even considering the emotional damages, must we only look at the damages that we put into our wallets? Emptiness in one’s pocket cannot compare to the emptiness of one’s cultural, one’...

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...rything only to gain nothing in return further diminishing them. It was interesting to read upon Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, as in one’s place of seeing and belonging to the world, for minorities are becoming trapped into a world where they really don’t have a sense of belonging. If they are robbed from their own identity and stuck at the bottom under white supremacy, then looking at the world will be taken from a negative point of view. It is truly heartbreaking and must be understood that this should be stopped. There shouldn’t be a “norm” for we are all human and all much the same despite our differences. No one should have their identity be taken away or feel like they don’t belong anywhere because we are all given this one life, and that should be lived for our right to simply live to be who we are and not lived by others.