Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2004
Abstract
Genocide of the Mind is hardly the happiest of titles. Not only is the metaphor itself a muddle impossible to imagine, but the collection's dominant tone is more about cultural survival, not cultural genocide, as the editor herself indicates in explaining the title: "This anthology is a testament to American Indian consciousness continuing to circulate, regardless of past or present genocidal attempts, whether cerebral, endemic, systematic, or otherwise." Confusing, too, is the book's ostensible focus on the "urban Indian" and the sad history of Relocation as government policy. This is what Vine Deloria Jr.'s foreword would have us believe, and the first section of essays is indeed about "Keeping the Home Fires Burning in Urban Circles." But the collection is ultimately, like many such anthologies, a hodgepodge of essays arranged into various ad hoc categories, such as "Young American Indians," "Native Languages," and "Indians as Mascots." The title of the final section, "Who We Are," offers a clearer summation, after all, of this collection's articulation of Native identity. In sum, while many of the essays do "write back" against the Euro-American ideology of cultural genocide, the reader seeking a focused raison d'être here may well come away disappointed.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 24:4 (Fall 2004). Copyright © 2005 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.