Genocide. So color me macabre, or masochistic, or just call me "Debby Downer". It's a subject I've concerned myself since high school. At one time, I even considered getting my PhD in "comparative genocide studies." (Yes, you can do that--at Clark University is Worcester, for example). I decided against it, and earned my PhD in another field, but I have published on the subject (in peer-reviewed journals), and incorporate some of these (and more recent) insights into genocide in my classes at a local community college.
Indeed, despite the fact that I (thankfully) did not make the study of genocide my "profession", my concern with genocide has continued unabated--not least of all because the AFTERMATH of genocide (and its denial) stares me in the face every day--in the students who attend my classes. But that is a diary for another day. In fact, it's probably the more pertinent one. But the subject cannot even be broached without first establishing the "facts of the case."
And that's what this diary is intended to do. Yesterday, a long-time poster was banned for a claptrap diary challenging the notion that genocide was ever committed against American Indians in this country. It was racist, revisionist crap, and clearly designed to stir up shit.
That's not what this diary is intended to do. On the contrary, it's intended to CLEAR up some shit. Shit that rises again and again, if not to the top, then at least to the water line, here on DailyKos and elsewhere. It is the transcript of an invited lecture that I held at a university about ten years ago, sponsored by multiple departments, including Native American Studies, Germanic Studies, and several student groups--one of them a Palestinian right-to-exist organization. I posted it yesterday as a comment to the banned diarist's entry. Someone suggested that I post it as a stand-alone.
Ten years have passed since I held this lecture. Since then, my thoughts on genocide have developed in new directions and covered territory that ought NOT be new, but--even to me--WAS new. However, I cannot address those thoughts, ideas, theories here without first establishing the "facts" as I (and many others) know them.
This is a pretty good summary of the basic issues involved in any discussion of genocide against American Indians in this country. I post it here as a resource, not as an invitation to a duel at high noon.
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