In Lisa Poupart’s article called “The Familiar Face of Genocide:  Internalized Oppression among American Indians,” she stated that genocidal acts carried out against Indian people were founded upon unjust means of “Western constructions of abject Otherness” (87).  Poupart expressed that American Indians have been socially conditioned by hundreds of years of oppression to behave in a way that prohibits them from expressing real pain and suffering (88).  Poupart uses other claims from the works of Bravehart, Debruyn, and Hill, among others, to support her argument.

Poupart stated that this forbidden suffering supports Bravehart’s and Debruyn’s argument that Western dominant society has contributed to the stereotype that American Indians are stoic savages incapable of feelings such as grieving and suffering (89).

Poupart supports Shirley Hill’s observation, in which she calls a “raw unhealing wound” (Hill, 1074).  Bravehart’s and Debruyn’s assert that it should also be defined as “Historical Unresolved Grief Syndrome,” again resulting from mass victimization and cultural genocide (88-89, 92).    Poupart argued that American Indian people’s long-held suffering is not acknowledged, nor is it widely accepted by the white dominant culture. The suffering and pain Poupart is discussing here is American Indian experiences of colonization, forced removal, forced relocation, and racism (88-89).

This issue is evident in epidemic cases of alcohol and drug abuse among American Indians today. Bravehart and Debruyn viewed alcoholism among Indians as a “self-destructive behavior resulting from internalized oppression and aggression” (89).

Poupart emphasizes the importance of remembering what the ancestors of American Indians endured.  Poupart stated that “recounting the subjugation of our ancestors” through the practices of oral tradition and cultural preservation is resistance against “Westernized constructions of abject Otherness” (87-88).  Internal oppression is manifested externally in the high domestic violence and homicide rates in Indian country today.

In a strong statement, Poupart asserted the following:

“When we, as marginalized Others, internalize and portray our inferiority in these ways, we become a sort of “self-fulfilling prophecy,” as we provide the dominant culture with evidence to support our continued objectification, disempowerment, and exploitation. When marginalized Others internalize the dominant subject position, we become our own oppressors as we carry our abjection within. We view ourselves and our group(s) as essentially responsible for our political, economic, social, and cultural disempowerment. The dominant culture no longer needs to overtly force, threaten, or coerce our disempowerment, for now we enforce it within ourselves and within our communities of Others” (90).

Here, Poupart is stating that if American Indians continue to hurt one another, they continue to disempower themselves and reinforce and sustain the white dominant society’s hope that American Indians should disappear.  Is she also suggesting that American Indian communities are the root of the problem?  Suggesting a belligerent nation?  Poupart implied that the white dominant society doesn’t need to force or threaten American Indians because they are on their Indian reservations, committing all kinds of crimes against themselves.  Making Indian reservations look like warzones of self-destruction.
Poupart prolongs this discussion from violence in American Indian communities to the traumas experienced by American Indians during the boarding school era and wraps it all up in the need for a discussion, or what she called a “consciousness-raising talk” of family and community violence (96).  Poupart concludes with no comforting suggestions or treatment, but the need to raise awareness and two nauseating poems about internal oppression.

Poupart provided broad overviews of well-known problems in American Indian communities, and her article adds further awareness of them.  Poupart’s article is not a research article, but an exploratory piece that addresses internal and external oppression caused by colonialism, rejection by the white dominant society, and by the white patriarchal system that does not accept matrilineal cultures.

I have to agree with Poupart, even though this article was published back in 2003, and we already know that those same issues that she addressed are still a big problem in American Indian communities today.  American Indians are raising awareness, and it is very important to younger American Indian generations today. I have even been part of social movement protests, such as Idle No More and Change the Mascot, on other issues.  All in all, we’re becoming stronger in this area.

As American Indians gain knowledge about historical trauma, they are more likely to discuss it openly.  As more discussions are held, communities come together to figure out how to solve their problems, but it takes time, education, and re-engagement.  American Indians do need to demand more from their tribal government leaders, and their leaders need to demand more from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the BIA needs to demand more from Congress.

Internal oppression seems to have integrated into newer forms of oppression as American Indian nations grow and more American Indians reside off Indian reservations and live in metropolitan areas.  The younger American Indian generations are living in a fast-changing environment as technology advances.  It is important that we continue to preserve our American Indian ancestors’ traditions, language, and land, as it will be increasingly difficult with advancing technology.

Bibliography:

Poupart, Lisa M. “The Familiar Face of Genocide: Internalized Oppression among American Indians.”Hypatia 18, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 86-100. DOI: 10.1353/hyp.2003.0036.