ETA: I should also note that The Anti-Oppression Links List at Dreamwidth is assembling links to post on rape and race. /ETA
That post was inspired by posts by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
shewhohashope and deluxe_vivens who pointed out the importance of considering race in discussions of rape. Another good post on racism and rape was made by abydosangel: here. Please note that these are not spaces for white people to make it about us any more than Cereta's post was a space for men to make it about them.Behind the cut are online resources concerning sexual violence/rape of American Indian/Native American women. I'm using some of the search terms that proved most useful. This list is not meant to be comprehensive: it's introductory.
Intersectionality becomes even more apparent in this post because I found a number of sites/resources/articles/bibliographies that focus on indigenous women (in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Latin and South American, and Australia)—so many so that I may make a separate list of those), and on other women of color, and on collective resources on women and human rights.
Something to keep in mind: the racist racial categories do not reflect the realities of "mixed race" peoples: Black Indians, Black Hispanics, Afro-Caribbeans! (This has been playing out in the Star Trek fandom where people keep insisting Zoe Saldana isn't Black...) The U.S. ideology is particularly monolithic in its "black" vs. "white" catgories because of the history of chattel slavery (including the legal fiction that the children of women who were slaves took the legal status of the mother instead of *in many cases* the WHITE father). This monolithic construction tended historically to exclude other cultures/ethnic groups (or to assign them to one or the other sides of the binary--including some Native Americans who were at some times considered 'black' and at other times 'white.') ETA: As
delux_vivens notes below, this monolithic category also obscures the fact that most Black Americans are mixed-race--because of the centuries of systematic rape of African-American women--just as a number of Anglo-Americans have Black ancestry (see: the 'one drop rule').Dakota Women Blog (Found by
al_zorra).Rss feed: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/dakot
USCS Rape Statistics
Sexual Victimization in Indian Country: Barriers and Resources for Native Women Seeking Help
At Feminist Law Professors, Unprosecuted Abuse of Native American Women
(I made a syndicated feed for this blog: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/femla
Andrea Smith (whose work is on my "must read" list) is author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide Probably the single best place to start, from what I've read.
Andrea Smith's page at South End press
Article on Amnesty International Report
Amnesty International Report Maze of Injustice The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA
Interview with Charon Asetoyer
Resources for American Indian/Native American Specific Resources in the Midwest
Tribal Law Journal article titled "Expanding the Network of Safety"
Also found on this search:
Sexual Violence in the Lives of African American Women:Risk, Response, and Resilience Carolyn M. West, Ph.D. With contributions from Jacqueline Johnson
American Social History Syllabus
Women's Rights and Human Rights Bibliography
Racism and Rape part 3
Profile
- ithiliana
- Ithiliana
- The Purple Book of Ithiliana
Comments
Well, pretty much all Black Americans are 'mixed race peoples'.
This list is not meant to be comprehensive: it's introductory.
I'm going to start asking some of the people I see commenting about how 'eye opening' this information is, b/c they 'havent thought about it' before: what exactly do you think about?
I'm always fairly creeped out by articles like this, because I think too many people end up using it as exotic pain pornography. Not that I have anyone in mind. Oh no. *sits on hands*
African-Americans probably ALL have some white ancestry, just as a whole lot of Anglo-Americans have Black ancestry.
Exotic pain pornography: will have to go google that. I know
its not a googleable term. its something that i've talked about with woc on lj about how for some people, discussion of traumatic issues for woc becomes the subject of creepy lurid fascination-- with a subtext of 'how awful it is to be you'-- under the guise of 'learning'.
my deleted comment was an example of someone who is well known for doing so.
I didn't know that there were men out there who fetishized long hair until I joined the long hair community... but the admins have to hunt them off the site regularly. anything, indeed!
Beautifully put. I'm not sure I want the answer, but the question is paramount.
And following it up with that *other* strategy, "I Cant Learn Unless You Teach Me Yourself And If You Dont You Are Mean And Sabotaging Your Cause" seems to be an indefatigable one-two punch.
Your refusal to tolerate my clueless shit is OBVIOUS evidence that you really don't care enough about your cause.
It's all so vicious and transparent. GAH.
OK--I see your point!
And yes, I can see how academic discussion of racism and rape can fall into fetishization and pornography. The inclusion of living American Indians in museums as well as the grave-robbing by universities and museusms is just another layer of exploitation and oppression.
(edited slightly because I have the wrong "Venus" in mind) *misses office books*
Edited at 2009-06-20 06:54 pm (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saartjie_B
Emotional porn is part of why, in discussions of racism, I've pulled back from giving examples from my personal experience. I still do sometimes, but with the knowledge that someone is going to be a little too into it.
bingo. i've stopped even thinking about it. its rarely worth it.
**Jaw drops**
Wow, what a complete and utter asshole!
I have seen, at academic conferences, Black professionals asked for seating accomodations or other requests that make it clear racist white person assumes they are the help, but this is below even that.
And Shit for brains clearly has less empathy than a louse.
I suspect all honest answers will be along the lines of "mostly I think about myself", probably with at least a side helping of "that's all in the past, so I don't think about it because I'm focused on the present". Even those of us who have encountered a lot of this information have seen it presented solely as historical rather than as anything relevant to anyone alive now, and it's certainly never linked to things like white girls still being raised to fear and mistrust men of color and see them all as likely rapists. (I was raised that way, by my civil rights activist mother; her Nice White Lady training won out when it came to her worries about keeping her daughter safe.)
The exotic pain pornography thing is a lot of why I haven't watched or re-linked the video going around of a girl being killed in Iran. The amount of attention it's getting feels somehow indecent and fetishizing in a way that I find really troubling.
but from so many people who can rattle off detailed chapter and verse about How Those Women Over There (where over there = the entire muslim world, anywhere in Africa, etc) Are So Oppressed And Must Be Saved Right Now, it seems blatant.
But THAT's not thinking--it's just rattling off The Uncivilized Other Stereotype!
Of course neither is the "it's all about me, bad stuff happened in the past, etc." really thinking.
*sigh*
It's disingenuous and blatant and thoroughly rewarded and supported by the white mainstream. I don't at all mean to excuse individuals by blaming culture, though; I think there's plenty of blame to go around.
And yes, completely yes, to the video of the girl being shot in Iran. (I thought similar things of a lot of the media coverage of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.)
Just a note--it's not a race linkspam comm specifically. It's anti-oppression generally, so will hopefully be assembling links to big conversations on subjects including race, gender and gender identity, sexuality, religion and other such issues.
This was an outgrowth of many conversations she and I have had about the historical exploitation of native women and the lack of knowledge that when people make the boast "I'm 1/16th Cherokee" what they are really saying is that they had an ancestor that was abducted and forced into marriage with a white man.
Not if she was a Cherokee princess!!!
Oh wait.
Edited at 2009-06-23 04:56 am (UTC)
It's very strange sometimes to be from the culture white people think is "cool" and have to deal with the realities of that. Your mom crying over Wounded Knee =/= white people owning dreamcatchers.
well if you want to get technical...
It's very strange sometimes to be from the culture white people think is "cool" and have to deal with the realities of that.
you mean like, trendy blessing ways vs the legacy of IHS forced sterilization?
"everything but the burden."
Edited at 2009-06-23 05:33 am (UTC)