Raphael Lemkin's Genocide

The label of “genocide” can be an indefinite term, much like a binary model of examination, where discrepancies are not simply viewed as right or wrong, but rather with multidirectional perspectives. With respect to the atrocities the Native Americans endured, it is important to determine how to label the events based on the formal definition of Raphael Lemkin’s genocide which, in short, is defined as the intent to kill or destroy a specific group of people based on race, ethnicity or religious affiliations (Convention). I strongly assert that it is essential to define the Native American case study initially as genocide. With such a strong label, most will gravitate towards it and express more interest. However, that attention is more than

Scenes from the California Gold Rush where Natives were targeted for mass extermination will be examined to define the situation for genocide and greed and by contrast, the boarding schools designed to reshape and reconstruct those whom the Europeans deemed as “savages” and “uncivilized” will be critical to use as a way to display how genocide and cultural destruction provide a look at how emotional harm can be deemed as genocide.
Raphael Lemkin’s genocide has different methods of human destruction that can be formally defined as genocide. According to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent

This could possibly be much harder to define as genocide compared to the California Gold Rush study. However, when carefully applying the concept of Lemkin’s genocide to the cultural destruction that the Natives had to endure, it becomes clear that the events can be defined as genocide AND cultural destruction. For example, the film, The Thick Dark Fog directed by Randy Vasquez showcases a Native American Lakota man, Walter Littleton, who was made ashamed of his culture, forced to forget his Lakota language, abused, and deemed uncivilized and as a savage because of his traditional Native American ways (Vasquez). As a result, Littleton forgot his culture and became the epitome of white man, he conformed and got nothing out it. At this point, it shifts from being physical harm to cultural harm, where the intent is to destroy Native values, beliefs and culture. By doing so, the Europeans hoped to change the future of Native American culture, making it nonexistent. As a result, the indigenous people are faced with severe psychological consequences of past abuse experienced in the boarding schools. The physical and mental harm that was endured then translated to their children and future generations. As explained in the film,