Average customer rating:
- Lakota Woman
- Non Fiction
- Lakota Woman
- Excellent
- Powerful and compelling account of a woman on the reservation
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Lakota Woman
Mary Crow Dog
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Book Description
A unique autobiography unparalleled in American Indian literature, and a deeply moving account of a woman's triumphant struggle to survive in a hostile world.
Customer Reviews:
Lakota Woman.......2007-10-02
I learnt so much from this book, and felt myself getting angry because of her experiences. good on her for telling her story. L'Ohanna
Non Fiction.......2007-09-03
An autobiographical account of Mary Crow Dog's life, this includes experiencing the events that happened at Wounded Knee, and her relationship with her husband, as well as the politics and experiences associated with the AIM political movement.
A look at the disturbing state and problems these people were facing at the time, very interesting.
Lakota Woman.......2007-08-23
An interesting look at the American Indian's struggles in the latter half of the 20th century. The perspective of Mary Crow Dog is helpful for those who have no similar life experiences to compare to it. Very good insight.
Excellent.......2006-11-10
The book came in perfect time and is in excellent condition. I have added it to my collection of Native American History
Powerful and compelling account of a woman on the reservation.......2006-07-28
This is a very powerful book about Mary Crow Dog's experiences growing up as a Lakota (Sioux) woman on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It should be required reading for anyone who feigns ignorance of the ways that Native Americans continue to be treated in the US today. Local whites, the state of South Dakota, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the rest of the power establishment have their inhumanity exposed.
Crow Dog writes in a very sparse style, and writes of brutal incidents in a matter-of-fact way. While this style makes the book compelling, it is also responsible for a major weakness of the book. Throughout the book, Crow Dog is never introspective. Things happen (she uses drugs, starts shoplifting, chooses men poorly) or happen to her (she is raped, among other things), but she doesn't think about why these things happen. She conveys neither a sense of her own agency in these events, or a sense of her own lack of agency.
Oddly for an autobiography, Mary Crow Dog is the object, not the subject, of this story. Even at Wounded Knee, she doesn't really understand why she is there, other than the fact that she has followed the male authority figures of the movement into the siege. She made her choice and put her body on the line but can't really explain why. How life on the reservation produces people like this is certainly worth reflection.
This siege at Wounded Knee provides the centerpiece of the book, and its natural climax. Crow Dog has a very different view of these events than the accounts provided by the leadership, who knew their history and knew what they were trying to do. Crow Dog also talks about the aftermath of the siege, and the period when her husband was in jail. At this time, she also followed him into the practice of Native American religion, and - - more implicitly than explicitly - - explains why this religion is attractive to many.
Finally, this book also provides a valuable insiders' perspective of the dysfunctional communities on Pine Ridge. It's interesting that the politically correct crowd condemns Ian Frazier's "On the Rez" while praising "Lakota Woman"- - both paint similar pictures of the same reservation. It's true than a Lakota insider brings perspectives not available to outsiders, but a white outsider also bring perspectives not available to insiders. Read them both and make up your own mind.
Book Description
This compelling account of the effect of technology and development on indigenous peoples throughout the world examines major issues of intervention: social engineering, economic development, self-determination, health and disease, and ecocide.
Victims of Progressprovides a provocative context in which to think about civilization and its costs.
Customer Reviews:
Too boring to read.......2007-10-02
I had to buy and read this book for a class in school, and I can say, it is probably the most boring book that I have ever read. I cannot stand to read it, the information is good, but its just written in such a bland and biased way, the author sounds like a total hippie who thinks we should all still be living in tribes in the forest.
this book is something else............2004-02-25
i think - it is impossible to write a book with such a great subject more boring and annoying than Bodley did.....the telephone book seems more appealing to me.........
Other Worlds.......2003-09-11
This book is amazing in what it achieves - a thorough, comprehensive view of expansive, global civilization and its affects on local, indigenous, autonomous peoples around the world. Bodley clearly and succinctly summaries the last two and a half centuries of colonial and imperial expansion, the people who resisted and continue to resist that expansion, and the negative consequences of being incorporated (usually by force) into large, impersonal, irresponsible nation-states. A must read for anyone who wishes to step outside our consumer-frenzied, totalitarian culture of domination and see what other worlds were and are possible.
Book Description
An incredible, informative, collection of essays, articles, analysis, interviews, primary documents and interactive & interdisciplinary teaching aids on civil rights, movement building, and what it means for all of the inhabitants of the planet. With sections on education, economic justice, citizenship, and culture, it connects the African-American Civil Rights Movement to Native American, Latina, Asian-American, gay rights, and international struggles; while highlighting the often-ignored roles of women in social justice movements.. Packed into nearly 600 oversize pages are photographs, songs, statements, and work from the likes of such great writers, historians, and activists as Bill Bigelow, James Loewen, June Jordan, Grace Lee Boggs, Herbert Kohl, Bayard Rustin, Rita Dove, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Ward Churchill, Leonard Peltier, Thurgood Marshall, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Martinez, Sonia Sanchez, Eric Foner, Marcus Garvey, Manning Marable, and dozens more. What a treasure trove. And what a vital (and useful) tool.
Customer Reviews:
Challenging the myths.......2005-04-08
There are so many myths when it comes to the Civil Rights Movement and so often it is reduced to a few holiday's and key speeches. This book not only teaches us about the ordinary, everyday citizens who sacrificed and stood for change, but also invokes critical thinking and connects us to our past so we better understand our role in fighting injustice today.
Book Description
In 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian luminary, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota—or so the FBI said. After a suspicious autopsy and a rushed burial, friends had Aquash exhumed and found a .32-caliber bullet in her skull.
Using this scandal as a point of departure, The Unquiet Grave opens a tunnel into the dark side of the FBI and its subversion of American Indian activists. But the book also discovers things the Indians would prefer to keep buried. What unfolds is a sinuous tale of conspiracy, murder, and cover-up that stretches from the plains of South Dakota to the polished corridors of Washington, D.C.
First-time author Steve Hendricks sued the FBI over several years to pry out thousands of unseen documents about the events. His work was supported by the prestigious Fund for Investigative Journalism. Hendricks, who has freelanced for The Nation, Boston Globe, Orion, and public radio, is one of those rare reporters whose investigative tenacity is accompanied by grace with the written word.
Customer Reviews:
We need the whole story and more facts because it affected all our lives.The Federal injustice continues to this day........2007-08-18
Steve Hendricks did the best job of any in documenting what happened during this period of time between American Indian people and no-Indian people in one document.
I was deeply committed and involved within the Indian communities because for some strange reason yet unknown to me I have been very close to Indian people since my youth.
I suffered and experienced the daily abject poverty with them in their homes and could not realize why they could never share what most of the people called the American Dream. I knew part of the answer was almost a
total culture of poverty rather than the Indian cultures I had learned about in school.Multi-generational abuse,physical,sexual,and substance abuse,was the direct cause of much dysfunctional behavior I witnessed.I decided early in my life and to do whatever I could do to help change whatever I could in my lifetime that would stop this injustice. I would give my own life to change that.
I always deplored most organizational efforts to accomplish anything however I joined the Michigan Chapter of the Great Lakes Indian Youth Alliance and the American Indian Movement. The reason why I joined is because for the first time in my life I could feel the surge of self respect,self actualization and spirituality within these organizations,and the individuals and Indian Communities involved at that time.It was a refreshing healing wind of change like you feel after a thunderstorm.
I actually thought the young brilliant Indian Warriors were street/woods wise and spiritual enough to avoid the pitfalls of other dominant culture civil and equal rights organizations but ultimately as far as I am concerned the movement became more and more corrupt exactly like the enemy as it matured.
Individual's like Russell Means,Dennis Banks,Ed McGaa,Floyd Westerman and others less visible continued to self actualize and work hard to individually accomplish the original goals of their and our youth in rather unusual ways after AIM died. I know that each one is committed to do what they can do to improve the lives of their families,extended families,and Indian Nations. Sometime being human they fall short of our and even their expectations. They do what they can as Warrior in spite of almost total overwhelming repression by the United States Government and the American society. However humanly flawed they remain in my mind truly contemporary Warriors of this century.
I also feel Steve Hendricks and many others are doing their best to bring out the truth and documentation of constitutional and personal injustices of those days.I expect other individuals with information to come forth with their knowledge and writing because our society is even much farther away from the truth and principals that this Country was founded on today.
As far as I am concerned whoever killed the active committed lives of the Freedom Fighters,Ray Robinson,Anna Mae Aquash, Neogeshick Aquash the FBI Agents, and the others made a serious mestake and destroyed the purity, beauty,and Sacred Place of the Movement. The murderer or murderers who called for the hit on the precious Warrior Anna Mae Aquash in that instant killed AIM with the same bullet. They will pay for that decision deep within their soul.
I was pleased to see a that the Law Library at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law purchased the copy of The Unquiet Grave I am reading for their students.
It is my hope and prayer that the youth of today will read everything they can get their hands on work, and commit to make justice a reality in their lifetimes.
As long as this abuse, poverty, and injustice remains in our society no one will be free. Until the truth is known we will all be in a "unquiet grave" just waiting for the next shovel of dirt.
If you want to broaden your knowledge,be alive,and aware at least read this book and those that will be forthcoming.
don't bother.......2007-06-26
How this tome ever got past the editors and into print I will never know. What is the author trying to say? It is never clear. The first part of the book seemingly is about, among many, many, many other things (way too many if you ask me), the murder of Annie Mae Aquash - and great detail is included about the circumstances surrounding the discovery of her death. Abruptly at some point in the 2nd part of the book, we find ourselves at the trial of one of three people accused of her murder (none of whom were ever mentioned in part one, and, as to whom there is virtually no biographical detail included). At the same time, the book includes voluminous biographical detail and digression about many, many, many other individuals, for no particular reason it seems. I finished the book because I wanted to see if the author was going to bring this tangled mass of trivial and unimportant details together in some coherent way, but alas, all I got for the effort was high blood pressure. Among the book's many other flaws are these: the author reports on at least one trial, but seemingly has no grasp of trial tactics or evidentiary rules - he chastises lawyers for not bringing up details that (a) would have been irrelevant; and (2) would have been inadmissible; the author too often says things like "but we will never know . . . " about things that are perfecty checkable, things he could have fact-checked if he had chosen to; and, the author seems to believe in a big conspiracy or two that must explain all of the loose ends he leaves, but he never explains what those conspiracies were about and who was in them. Has he ever heard of topic sentences? I am astounded to read the other positive reviews posted here about this book. I consider it to have been an utter waste of my time, and a disservice to the topics he attempted to cover.
What Did Andrew Jackson Do?.......2007-05-27
Mr. Hendricks' book is burdened with the same dichotomy (Multiple Personality Disorder/schizophrenia) as the Euro-invaders' ever-shifting policy/pendulum on what to do about "the Indian problem." The first part of this book does a salutary job of explaining to the unfamiliar some historical bases of the white "Westward Ho!" "Manifest Destiny" expansion across the North American continent, its effect on Native Americans, and the rise ("AIM is good") of the American Indian Movement. But parts of the second part - the fall ("AIM is bad,") could pass for being ghost-written by nemesis J Edgar Hoover and his COINTELPRO'd FBI.
Though flawed in some "facts" and reporterage, Unquiet Grave is marketable and intelligible to the masses and it is important that wider cultures read this (in the Aretha Franklin sense to RESPECT the Native cultures, delight in diversity, and abhor forced "assimilation and "THINK") about what the US Government did - not only in the Miner's Canary sense (If the US Government so cavalierly abrogates/ignores its treaties with the First Nations before this Nation - what does that tell other sovereign nations with whom we seek to entreat?) but also the Santayana sense ("those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")
For a fuller understanding of Wounded Knee I (1890); Wounded Knee II (1973,) and context, this reviewer recommends my List "The water's still running and the grass still growing, so .? " including
Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (Civilization of the American Indian)
and
Robert Redford/Sundance Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story
What did Bill Janklow do? /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer "What do you mean 'illegal alien,' Pilgrims?"
A great informative book!.......2007-04-11
If you are looking for a book that gets right to the heart of government corruption in Native American history yesterday and today this is the book for you to read! The writer has done a wonderfull job researching and digging to get to facts that our inept and sickening government would like to turn a blind eye to. A must read for all people and definately for those who wish to enlighten themselves.
Elegant writing seldom seen in non-fiction books.......2007-02-01
The Unquiet Grave is written as a non-fiction book should be written--with verve, wit, and balance. The author, Hendricks, sifts through reams of information without imparting the pain of his research to the reader; with a novelist's ear and eye he makes every word count, every paragraph visual.
Throughout the book he weaves interviews, news accounts, court records, and censored FBI documents into a story you learn to care about. He does not shy from critical analysis of historical events or of the characters and parties involved, which is refreshing given the geography of most U.S. journalism today.
If you're concerned about the abuses of government powers (past and present), if you think injustice needs to be properly witnessed, then flip through The Unquiet Grave. It's a good read, a hopeful beacon in the fog and the darkness of the American political psyche. Support an investigative journalist working in the heartland of the U.S. empire--they are a dying breed on a punishing road.
Book Description
Ward Churchill has achieved an unparalleled reputation as a scholar-activist and analyst of indigenous issues in North America. Here, he explores the history of holocaust and denial in this hemisphere, beginning with the arrival of Columbus and continuing on into the present.
He frames the matter by examining both "revisionist" denial of the nazi-perpatrated Holocaust and the opposing claim of its exclusive "uniqueness," using the full scope of what happened in Europe as a backdrop against which to demonstrate that genocide is precisely what has been-and still is-carried out against the American Indians.
Churchill lays bare the means by which many of these realities have remained hidden, how public understanding of this most monstrous of crimes has been subverted not only by its perpetrators and their beneficiaries but by the institutions and individuals who perceive advantages in the confusion. In particular, he outlines the reasons underlying the United States's 40-year refusal to ratify the Genocide Convention, as well as the implications of the attempt to exempt itself from compliance when it finally offered its "endorsement."
In conclusion, Churchill proposes a more adequate and coherent definition of the crime as a basis for identifying, punishing, and preventing genocidal practices, wherever and whenever they occur.
Ward Churchill (enrolled Keetoowah Cherokee) is Professor of American Indian Studies with the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. A member of the American Indian Movement since 1972, he has been a leader of the Colorado chapter for the past fifteen years. Among his previous books have been Fantasies of a Master Race, Struggle for the Land, Since Predator Came, and From a Native Son.
Customer Reviews:
American History From the Victims' Perspective.......2006-07-03
This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in the true historical origins of the United States. Ward Churchill wastes no time dispelling the myth that the German Nazis were the originators of the systematic extermination of a cultural group. Likewise, he demonstrates that the Jewish people were not the first nor the last to be the victims of a Holocaust. Through his meticulous research of historical records, Churchill gives us the facts surrounding the theft of this nation from its native peoples. Afterwards, you may never look at Columbus and the discovery of the "New World" with the same rose-colored glasses.
A Little Matter of Genocide review.......2006-03-05
Professor Churchill has done a magnificant job writing this very comprehensive,extremely well-researched book.This book makes people aware that the Jews are not the only victims of Genocide.This book examines the history of Genocides dating back to 1492 to the present day .This book is very important because it educates people about the many occurances of Genocide.Mankind needs to know the past so that mankind can strive to make certain that the tragedies of history will not be repeated.
States of Denial.......2006-02-15
"A Little Matter" is worth reading simply for its discussion of the term "genocide". But there's so much more. If I get started I'm going to blather on at extreme length, so I won't.
The content of this book has been well covered by the reviewers before me, so I simply want to add my 5 stars. If you're interested in the issues suggested by the title, you've found an insightful, solidly referenced, powerfully argued resource.
Ward Churchill has an axe to grind, certainly, but he also has a forest to cut through. There are so many lies abroad in the world that we are all choking on them, I think, both victors and victims. This is a book I'm grateful to have read.
Stannard's wonderful and terrible "American Holocaust" is another. As are John Pilger's "Secret Country", and "Blood on the Wattle" by Bruce Elder, both of which concern Australia, my own sad, similarly haunted homeland.
Fast and Perfect Condition.......2005-09-30
I will continue to purchase all of my texts from Amazon.com.
An Eye-Opener.......2005-06-13
This book is primarily a collection of essays that Churchill has written and published elsewhere. Churchill's main focus in this book is on the genocide perpetrated in the Americas by the Europeans against the various indigenous peoples, and documents how the livelihoods, cultures, and lives of these peoples were decimated over the course of several centuries. What makes the book most worthwhile is the extended discussion on the meaning of the term "genocide" - a term that I consider used often incorrectly, and way too narrowly - towards the beginning and end of the book. The definition of genocide that he uses can be readily applied to various other atrocities, such as the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, Israel (Israelis against Palestinians), Vietnam (first by the French, and later the US), and most recently Iraq (perpetrated by the US) and Sudan.
Recommended for social scientists attempting to understand the causes and consequences of genocide, and well-suited to an educated lay audience as well. The book is a recommended companion to Stannard's "American Holocaust."
Book Description
"Small's commentaries are graceful, informative, and seasoned by a very deep knowledge of Tongan culture. This book includes one of the sanest and most convincing arguments that I have read for experimentation in the writing of ethnography, which is supported by the text itself as an exemplar of a modest, theoretically unpretentious experiment that works very well indeed."--George E. Marcus, Rice University
"While a few Californians may be aware of the Tongan immigrant population in their midst, most Americans are unaware that the United States is a major terminus for the people of Tonga, an island nation in the South Pacific. Small examines Tongan migration to the United States in a 'transnational' perspective, stressing that many of the new migrant populations seem successfully to manage dual lives, in both the old country and the new. To that end, she describes life in contemporary Tongan communities and in U.S. settings."--Library Journal
This book documents the momentous social phenomena of mass migration from agricultural ex-colonies and ex-protectorates to the industrial world. Cathy A. Small provides the poignant perspective of one extended family and one village in the Kingdom of Tonga, an independent island nation in the South Pacific which has lost one third of its population to migration since the mid-1960s.
Moving between Tonga and California, Small chronicles the experiences of a family from the village of 'Olunga. Some members stayed and some migrated to California, in successive waves in the 1960s-1990s. Through their lives, she presents a striking picture of Tongan culture in the United States. Returning to 'Olunga with family members and their American-born children, Small shows what happened to village life and to kin relationships thirty years after migration began.
Customer Reviews:
WONDERFUL!.......2005-12-07
This book is so personal, yet anthropological. It gives a great insight to Tongan culture. I had to read it for an anthropology class, and found it quite enjoyable! I recommend it. The end is especially touching.
boring.......2003-12-28
What a boring book this is. i have always felt like falling asleep. The whole book just keep talking about the same point that i have already known. But the way the story is told just like it's a surpring fact. i don't understand why this book is worth reading and interesting. i think it's so boring. What is interesting is he spent such a long time wrting a boring book.
Nofo'a.......2000-07-26
Cathy Small has intimate knowledgeable of the culture and people of which she writes. She presents a very problematic but accurate picture of a culture that has emigrated from its source and roots in search of income and opportunity in western cultures. An ethnographical response is natural to this topic because it reads smoothly and allows for humanization of the topic.
Da Bomb.......2000-04-28
It's hella good for 2nd adn 3rd generations to learn about their culture and history.
A book that informs and also is a helluva good read........1998-01-20
I highly recommend Voyages to anyone who cares about people and families. It's amazing how a non-fiction book about Tongans living here in the US or in their own country can be so interesting to read. But it is! That's because the author helps us see these recent immigrants to the US as people-in fact, as people very much like those of us whose families came here a longer time ago. It even helped me to better understand what motivated my own family to come here a century ago. The book is not technical at all. It is written in style and language that is accessible to everyone.
Migrants or immigrants seem to be on everybody's mind these days. Mostly we are led to think of them as a group of "others" who we need to regulate and be suspicious of. This book is important because Small draws us away from this kind of distancing and helps us to understand and be sensitive to the individuals. One can imagine relating to these people-perhaps because Small does and we can relate to her.
Since reading it, I find myself seeing and hearing the flow of foreign languages in airports and restaurants, etc. I find myself thinking that these people whom I now am noticing are just like the ones I met in Small's book. That we share a common humanity is a message that we can't hear too often. And Small gives it to us so gently and in such an absorbing way that I think Voyages is a book that should be read very widely.
Book Description
Means is the most controversial Indian leader of our time. This is the well-detailed, first-hand story of his life so far, in which he has done everything possible to dramatize and justify the Native American aim of self-determination, such as storming Mount Rushmore, seizing Plymouth Rock, running for President in 1988, and-most notoriously-leading a 71-day takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973. This visionary autobiography by one of our most magnetic personalities will fascinate, educate, and inspire. As Dee Brown has written, "A reading of Means's story is essential for any clear understanding of American Indians during the last half of the twentieth century."
Customer Reviews:
Good book on Russell Means.......2007-07-07
This is a thorough and long book by Russell Means about his life as an American Indian. He has a lot of hatred toward the white race, which is understandable, but it makes his book hard to read at times because his hatred comes through the pages. He is also obviously biased at points, but that is to be expected because it is an autobiography. However, this man has been through a lot and has done a lot for AIM (american indian movement) so this is a good read to find out about that. If you can get past the hatred in this book, it's worth the read.
Like only Russwll Means can tell........2006-09-20
This book is a must read for anyone who wishes to know the true struggles of our native peoples today. This book covers it all and thumbs up.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE.......2006-02-25
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE ---I found Russell Means portrayal of his life incredibly moving. Already having knowledge of Native American struggles, I immediately found myself floating through time and experiencing emotional identity with Mr. Means. I have shared this book many times with people I know so they can truly understand the importance the American Indian Movement has been in this country. I beg everyone to read this book. - S. Holmes, Chicago, IL
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE.......2006-02-25
I found Russell Means portrayal of his life incredibly moving. Already having knowledge of Native American struggles, I immediately found myself floating through time and experiencing emotional identity with Mr. Means. I have shared this book many times with people I know so they can truly understand the importance the American Indian Movement has been in this country. I beg everyone to read this book. S. HOLMES, CHICAGO.
Russel Means:Idiot,bootlicker,lackey and fool.......2006-01-28
I am an African-American male,product of the struggles for humanity in the 60's. I started Russel Means book with great anticipationand finished it with unbridled digust. Where do i begin,Means lies when he says aim started the community patrols before anyone,incliding the Guardian Angesl and the Nation of Islam.Fact:The patrols were started by the Black Panther party when Means was still dealing drugs,and being an all the way live drunk. He talks of rhe confration at the BiA building and uses it to propogate his anti-black racist venom ,throught the book most African-Americans are depcited as reactionaries and/or fools. Means goes on to lie,how Indians would marry slaves and prefer to go into slavery than suffer the injustices of being Indian. Fact:Means trivalizes the holocaust my people suffered. In Dennis Banks book he cites the support the African-American community provided during the liberation of the BIA building. Means gets his cookies off villifying an dinsulting and denigrating people who,because of our shared oprresion in this country,should be his natural allies, While excusing blatant racists like Mcgovern and Janklow,and allowing himself to turn tricks for Larry Flynt. See Russell whore for 30 pieces and all the butt he can kiss. When one reads this book you get the impression there would be no Aim without Russell Means,every good idea is his,the people are lost sheep without him,Talk about mendacious meglomania. Even white supremacists group are given a greater degree of emmpathy then the African community,live a black person in America,and see how great life is,this short sighted fool cannot recognize people who have a common oppressor because of his reactionary racist tendacies. He condemns the black cops,and Ithis is the one thing er agree on,who did the oppressors biding during th biia liberation,asking how could they allow thenselves to be used to harm another disenfranchised people,yet he cannot see the simalarties with those of the Indians mecanaries who served in Vietnam and participated in the murder of a people who were fighting for their own destiny. This myopic egomaniac,see nothing wrong in murdering vietnamese for U.S. imperialiasm,not one indaian was killed by those D.C. cops. To reiterate Means neglects to mention How during the Bia liberation,the African American community provided food and spiritaul support,at yellow thunder camp,it is course a black man lacking character. Which leads one to conclude M eans is the worst type of anti-black racist,the racist who comes from the wretchded of the earth. In conclusion depsite Means facade at heart he is still a macintosh,a red and green apple(since this parasite will seel his soul for white money,despite his declarations to the contrary),but white to the core.
Customer Reviews:
Warrior sacrifice.......2007-09-26
Dennis Banks has obviously witnessed the personal sacrifice of following a path in a cause larger than his own self-interest. He and Erdoes have done well in their writing and story telling of the hey day of the American Indian Movement. Such a sad chapter in the history of this nation but I was awe-struck at the tone of optimism in Banks as a person. He truly embodies a level of hope and spiritual regeneration despite his many flaws---as we all have. The price one pays as he has in his life for pursuing a dream is truly remarkable. Great piece of work that deserves every consideration. Now, if only justice would finally roll down like the waves of a might water for Leonard Peltier.
Pay for your crimes!!!.......2007-03-16
America is a very, very, very old place. We were not here first and it is time we give back what is not rightfully ours. The American Indian is the original American and he should be able to do whatever he wants to do in America.
Buy this book and let us free brother Leonard!!!!
A Good Read.......2006-11-11
I purchased this book for an anthropology class and I found it to be
an interesting read, but not an easy read. The book is written as if the author is actually talking to you so it tends not to be very smooth, however the content is very interesting and enlightening. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what the Native Americans are really like, how they live, and more importantly how they are treated in their own country.
Great Personal History and Social Commentary.......2006-08-08
Ojibwa Warrior is an autobiography and first hand account of the formation and rise of the American Indian Movement told by one of its founders, Dennis Banks. Banks' book, Ojibwa Warrior, is a multi-dimensional account of the history of racism and empire in the United States which should be of great interest not only to historians but also to anthropologists, philosophers, ecologists and especially social and environmental activists.
Banks begins the book with one of the most important events of the 20th century - the armed takeover and occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement in 1973. Throughout the course of interaction between the Federal government of the United States and the remaining Tribal Reservations, the takeover of Wounded Knee was arguably the most important event of the 20th century. The takeover placed the American Indian Movement and the struggle for Native sovereignty into the national and international spotlight. The takeover of Wounded Knee is a fitting beginning for Banks' book, which is filled with various stories and events that combine into a overarching narrative of uncompromising struggle against oppression and determination to better the lives of Native Americans by any and all means necessary.
From Wounded Knee, which is dealt with in detail towards the end of the book, Banks fades back to his childhood years on the Leech Lake Ojibwa Reservation in Northern Minnesota where he was born in 1937. Banks was born into an economically poor yet culturally rich environment where he and his family lived close to the land and relied on natural foods to supplement their scarce and unhealthful government rations. Dennis tells of the close relationship that he had with his Grandparents, who still spoke the Ojibwa language and continued to practice the spiritual and cultural traditions of their ancestors. Throughout the book, Dennis would reflect back on those happy days often. However, the good times did not last. At the age of six, Dennis and his siblings were forcibly removed from the care of their relations to be placed into State run boarding schools. Banks' experience in this "school" was one that can be described as nothing other than a Government sponsored attempt at cultural genocide.
When Dennis returned to the reservation, he found the situation there to be much worse than when he had left as a child. Although the reservation had always been poor and marginalized, the situation was now much worse - increasing numbers of white folks had encroached into the reservation and the state had forced the Ojibwa nation to take out licenses to hunt traditional foods on their own land. The ability to sustain oneself on the reservation had become nearly impossible and Banks did what many youths from poor and marginalized areas often do in a tragic attempt to better their economic situations - he joined the armed forces. Ironically, rather than making Banks into a mindless soldier for America, his time in the Air Force ended up engendering within him a consciousness of the racist and imperialistic nature of the United States:
"I had been guarding the ramparts of the American Empire, but now I felt like those Crow and Arikara Indians who, after scouting for Custer and fighting on behalf of the whites, were pitted against their own brothers, the Cheyenne and Lakota. My Japanese family members were called gooks, slopes, and slant-eyes by whites, and those who suffered from these names were people just like me. Was I not a slant-eye, as all American Indians are? The American Air Force, which I had thought of as a friend, turned out to be an enemy" (p.55).
Although his antipathy toward the Air Force had already been established, Banks extended his tour of duty two years to remain in Japan with his new Japanese wife and child. When Banks was reassigned to the States shortly after, he went AWOL in order to remain with his family. However, his freedom did not last for long and he was quickly captured, court-marshaled, jailed and shipped back to the States where he received a dishonorable discharge.
By the mid 1960s, Banks was remarried with children and living in the "Indian Ghetto" section of Minneapolis where he had sunken into despair and alcoholism. In 1966, he was arrested, convicted and sent to prison for two years for stealing groceries to feed his family. During his time in prison he wrote that he had become invigorated by the growing resistance to U.S. empire both inside and outside the country and was especially inspired by groups such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party. When he was released from prison in 1968, he returned to Minneapolis, determined to organize the Indian community to join in the struggle against racism and empire. On July 28, 1968, Banks organized a meeting in the "Indian Ghetto," where over 200 people showed up to discuss how to best empower their local community - during this meeting the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) was formed.
A.I.M. began with the formation of a local cop-watch program to monitor and intervene in police abuses of the Indian community. As A.I.M. began to grow and achieve successes in its various struggles, native communities around the country began to call upon the group to intervene in their local struggles. A.I.M.'s tactics were confrontational and although they did not seek violence, they were not afraid to use it if they deemed it necessary to achieve their goals. Coupled with their militant organization and tactics, Banks also describes a spiritual foundation based on a synthesis of traditional native ceremony/spiritualism that was very important to the cohesion and morale of the organization. Although A.I.M.'s tactics were modeled after groups such as the Panthers and Weathermen, those groups suffered from a reactionary anti-spiritualism and disconnected consciousness. It is very likely that A.I.M's spiritual foundation was the key element that allowed A.I.M. to achieve many great successes in their struggles as well as to remain as an organized movement while other resistance movements dismantled and faded into oblivion when faced with the violent repression of the U.S. government under the cointelpro program.
A.I.M. achieved many great victories in their struggles, but they also suffered many devastating defeats. Banks describes some of the more notable actions that A.I.M. undertook during the 1970s and early 1980s, including the six day long occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington D.C., the riot in Custer, South Dakota, which ended in the arson of the County Court House, the three month long armed takeover and occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, and the shoot-out between A.I.M. members and F.B.I. agents at the Jumping Bull ranch on the Pine Ridge reservation. Banks also describes he and Leonard Peltier's time together on the run from a massive national manhunt after the Jumping Bull ranch incident and also writes about the time he spent in California during the 1980s while he lived under an asylum granted him by then Governor Jerry Brown.
The importance of Banks' book cannot be understated. As a primary source document, it will remain as an important reference for present and future historians studying the American Indian Movement and the various groups with which it interacted. The book will also be of great importance for present and future resistance groups who find themselves engaged in struggle against the forces of empire and the repressive apparatus of the United State Government - for these people and groups Ojibwa Warrior will provide much needed insight into the strengths and weaknesses of resistance movements in the United States and the strengths and weaknesses of the various repressive agencies of the U.S. government.
A NATIVE AMERICAN BEST SELLER.......2006-03-23
What do you say about Dennis Banks? You say a true warrior. This is a book that should have been out years ago. Dennis' life is full of rawness, meaningful, honest, strong and passionate times. Dennis captivates you with the rawness of his upbringing, he swells your heart with all the trials and tribulations of his personal thoughts and feelings, such meaningful passages; and most of all his honesty regarding his feelings of being a leader. . . passing it on . . . getting back to his roots. He brings meaning to us as a people, he makes us look at ourselves and appreciate where we came from and what we have and what we should never, never forget. Dennis is a true American warrior.
Book Description
Exploring the history of contemporary legal thought on the rights and status of the West's colonized indigenous tribal peoples, Williams here traces the development of the themes that justified and impelled Spanish, English, and American conquests of the New World.
Customer Reviews:
Poor synthesis of secondary sources..........2007-07-30
The biggest problem I had with this book is the author's constant reliance on secondary sources. Not only that, many of these sources are out of date such as Morison's Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Numerous primary sources from the colonial era were available at the time of this publication--some in easily accessible works. The author also does a poor job of providing context to his discusions and continuosly makes basic errors. For instance, Ferdinand of Aragon didn't rule Spain on his own after Isabella's death, Philip the Fair shortly did. After Philip's death, Ferdinand ruled on behalf of Juana La Loca as regent not as king. The author also refers to the kingdom of Spain. There was no such thing in Ferdinand's lifetime: Spain was a geographic region consisting of the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre. Arguably, these kingdoms were united under Charles V, but they retained separate laws and separate identies. Even so, the author gets this wrong most of the time.
Another problem is the author's reliance on the work of Lewis Hanke. Yet, in doing this, he misses the point of most of that historian's work. The author discusses the Laws of Burgos and the Requirimiento as if this was the alpha and omega of Spanish law in the New World. The Recopilacion, which contained laws that superceded nearly everything in the Laws of Burgos, is not discussed at all. This type of research might be acceptable in law schools, but, to a historian, this will come across as a deliberate omission and fabrication in the line of Ward Churchill. The author's discussion on Vitoria also lacks context and merely cites the same quotes that Hanke used over and over again. The author's discusion, conclusions, and distortions are clealy slanted on this point as well. Lastly, the tone of this book seeps with anti-European sentiment to the point that the reader will quickly realize that the book isn't about scholarship but passing judgment on the European countries that colonized the New World.
An extraordinary treatment of law affecting native peoples.......2002-10-06
Having studied, taught and practiced Federal Indian law for nearly twenty years, I believe that this is the finest examination of the historical roots of legal colonialism in the Americas yet written. Williams is masterful in his research and examination of the Christian, European foundations for the invasion of the Western Hemisphere. Although I disagree with Williams' conclusions about the writings of Franciscus de Victoria, his discussion of the Elizabethan colonization of Ireland and, through extension of the same legal doctrines, native North America, is excellent.
Required for native/history majors and everyone else in N.A........1999-07-11
This book is a methodically brings the legal thought of the western world into context of how it relates to the American Indian, a necessary background to the subject. This is done by reviewing medival and reform period of history, the seperation of church and state and land laws, and followed up by the occupation of North America. How this subjecation came to be and how laws not used equally facilitated the holocast in North America. I am glad i read it and have considered doing a second MA at the institution Robert A Williams teaches and have bought his second book and look forward to reading it AFTER i reread the american indian in western legal thought (ps keep a dictionary handy).
Average customer rating:
- Baldwin is brilliant
- Classic American essays
- Greatest American book of essays written in the twentieth century
- brilliant, vivid, and incisive insights that shd be read
- Angry, humorous, reflective essays on being a black American
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Notes of a Native Son (Beacon Paperback)
James Baldwin
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Book Description
Originally published in 1955, James Baldwin's first nonfiction book has become a classic. These searing essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad remain as powerful today as when they were written.
Customer Reviews:
Baldwin is brilliant.......2006-09-16
Baldwin's reasoning, deduction and ability to convey deeply personal thoughts with such command and authority are part of what make this book of essays so riveting.
In "Notes of a Native Son" I began to understand more about the author through his relationship, or lack of relationship, with his father. And in "Equal in Paris or Stranger in the Village," I was transported into a dimension of racial prejudice that I have never experienced through prose before. As powerful today as it was then. A must read.
Classic American essays.......2005-10-19
Originally published in 1955 these essays are now considered American classics. Baldwin writes with tremendous pain, humor, and insight into the situation of what was then , 'the Negro' in America. He writes with insight into the situation of the young writer striving to locate himself in relation to Western civilization as a whole-which he feels he can never wholly belong to as he strives to belong to it. He writes most powerfully about the day of the dying of his father, and the birth of his youngest sister. His description of his own family situation, and of his father's life is instructive of the whole history of insult and injury which had long been the lot of the black in America. His estrangement from his father, and yet understanding of the story of his father's suffering is one of the powerful sections of the book.
It seems to me this book also has an effect unintended and unforeseen by Baldwin. Reading it fifty years later one understands how far America has come in transforming itself in regard to the racial question. Much of the kind of discrimination Baldwin so eloquently describes in for instance his story of his first jobs, does not exist in the same way any more.
In this sense the book also has along with its literary value , value as a historical document.
Greatest American book of essays written in the twentieth century.......2005-10-06
Baldwin writes with a force and an eloquence that will take your breath away mastery--a powerful preacher on the page. What he has to say about the state of race relations in this country is still relevant today, almost half a century after this book was first published. I consider Baldwin our greatest twentieth-century African American writer and one of the greatest American writers ever. He is courageous, passionate, visionary, and a masterful writer.
brilliant, vivid, and incisive insights that shd be read.......2005-07-14
This is an absolutely wonderful book of essays about growing up, making a career, and being black in the US in the 1950-60s. Just the chapter on his step-father - an angry, brilliant, difficult man - is worth the price of admission. Beyond the black experience, everyone who has fought with a tough dad will empathise with Baldwin. Then there is a piece on living in France as a young writer, again it is unbelievably dense, funny, and moving, a true masterpiece of the genre of autobiographical essays. His style is so cool and clear, so icily brilliant, that any aspiring writer can study the style, as did I.
This book, in my opinion, has Baldwin's best work in it, of a quality that earns him a place in the literary canon. The essays really are far far better than any of his novels, in my opinion. While some of them are less than excellent journalistic pieces (A Fly in the Buttermilk about school integration), the best ones are, well, the best.
Warmly recommended.
Angry, humorous, reflective essays on being a black American.......2004-10-24
The ten essays in this collection were originally published in Commentary, Partisan Review, Harper's, and other national periodicals during the late 1940s and early 1950s; Baldwin revised a few essays, arranged them by theme, and added "Autobiographical Notes" as a preface. They are among the most compelling, insightful pieces ever written on what it means to be an American and, in particular, what means to be a black American. "The story of the Negro in America is the story of America," Baldwin writes, "or, more precisely, it is the story of Americans. It is not a pretty story: the story of a people is never very pretty."
"Everybody's Protest Novel" and "Many Thousands Gone" both discuss the portrayal of blacks in American fiction (beginning with "Uncle Tom's Cabin") and contain harsh criticism of Richard Wright's "Native Son"--comments which permanently ended their tempestuous friendship. Baldwin next directs his ire (and wit) at the ridiculous stereotypes in the all-black film "Carmen Jones." These are not mere reviews, however; the strength of these three essays is Baldwin's ability to offer general comments about societal matters based on a few examples. The second essay is particularly noteworthy because Baldwin writes as if he, like most of his readers, were white. This technique allow him to imply that, on the one hand, as a native-born American, he can easily comprehend the view of the "dominant" culture, yet, on the other hand, the black experience is something white Americans will never understand--that the majority assumption is "that the black man, to become truly human and acceptable, must first become like us."
The next three essays offer social commentary. "The Harlem Ghetto" describes life in Baldwin's neighborhood, examines the importance of the Negro press, and (undoubtedly with the readers of Commentary in mind) focuses especially on the ongoing tensions between Jews and blacks. In "Journey to Atlanta," Baldwin tells how his brother's church quartet was sent by the Progressive Party to Atlanta, ostensibly to sing at church events, but inevitably as free labor for canvassing activities--with no pay, poor lodging, and substandard food. In the end, the four young men were left to fend for themselves, struggling to earn money for their tickets back to New York. The final essay, "Notes of a Native Son," is a poignant eulogy for Baldwin's stepfather, including a hair-raising account of Baldwin's near-suicidal attempt to rebel again Jim Crow rules in New Jersey.
Baldwin's life in Europe takes up the last section. The first three essays describe the "social limbo" that greets Americans--white and black--in Paris and the "invisibility" of American blacks there; it includes the horrifying account of Baldwin's arrest and imprisonment for a hotel bedsheet stolen by an acquaintance. The final essay ends the collection on a humorous, sometimes touching, and ultimately contemplative note: what it's like to be not simply the only black man living in a Swiss resort but the only black man most of the villagers have ever seen. Baldwin realizes that "no road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking at me as a stranger."
What's astonishing about these essays is the balance between Baldwin's justified rage and his ability to laugh at the world--and at himself. Many of the essays resemble short stories in their structure and tension and humor, and Baldwin's writing is just as strong when he's angry as when he's lighthearted. Most important, none of these essays have dated in any significant way, and they still offer stirring insights on race and society in America.
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