“Women of colour live in the dangerous intersections of gender and race” (Smith, 2005 pg.1). The mainstream anti violence movement has failed to fully understand the impact of race and how it corresponds with violence (Smith, 2005). Andrea Smith claims in her book that colonialism is both racist and sexist. She says that most of the focus has been on how colonialism affected Native men leaving the women largely behind. Colonizers came with ideas about race and gender and applied them to the Native Americans they met. Colonialism though thought of as a past occurrence never truly stopped; it only changed forms. Changing to fit into the current ideas of the time. First off, colonizers killed Native people. After a time, a different route was tried, kill the culture and convert to Christianity, make the savage civilized; enter residential schools. Taking away the land or polluting it came next. After (and during) came sterilization, kill future generations, or at least curb population growth. After sterilization became faux pas, long-acting hormonal birth control is handed out like candy at a July 1st parade; meanwhile American Indians are being used as test subjects for pharmaceutical companies. Finally, if all else fails, send them to prison.

This was required reading for a course I’m taking right now. This was my intro paragraph for the paper I had to write about it. It’s worth the read.