Contact us at: whispernthunder1@gmail.comTHE WAR ON WOMEN
~ Orannhawk
Editor's Note: To be read with Orannhawk's other
article in this issue: The War Continues
I am a woman, I am Native and I am a survivor.
I am among the 1 in 3 Native women who have
been victims of sexual assault, one of the 17%
who has lived through stalking, and 1 out of an
estimated 1.5 million assaulted by an intimate
partner. I am also one of the 75-80% who did
not reveal all of the acts of violence perpetrated
against me.
I did fight back. I hit hard, and I carried a gun and
knives with me ... everywhere. However, the full
extent of the story I kept deep inside, unwilling to
burden anyone else with the damage, the
repercussions that cut into my soul, with wounds
that festered for years until I found the courage
to face it all and heal.
It was a road that I never thought I would walk,
a journey that I would not wish on anyone, and I
grieve for those who never had the opportunity
to heal, those whose lives were stripped away with the acts of war. For it is true, the act of rape, of assault on a woman, is an act of war against all women.
Healing comes in many forms, and as an individual, I did heal. As women, First Nations women, we are in a state of warfare, survival and healing. From that first step on our native soil, the objective of colonial control and calculated genocide has prevailed. The stain of this corruption washed over the generations of honoring and celebrating Native women as sacred, integral members of society. Respect and honor were replaced with contempt and with the viewpoint that we are nothing more than property to be used.
This mindset is not new. It is based on fanatical beliefs of power and control, from the same minds that created the concept of Manifest Destiny; to take what you want and justify it as an act of divine providence. Francis Parkman, a white historian wrote, "Indians were destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power..."
This is the fundamentalist, Machiavellian power wielded by the elite for over five hundred years, the same individuals who justified the rapes, assaults and murder of thousands of First Nations people; from the outright massacres to the boarding schools, to infected blankets and booze, and the end result has always been with the colonialist goal of annihilating an entire race of people.
Strip away everything that has meaning to us, everything that is Sacred and Real and Traditional and supplement it with colonialist toxins and eventually the infection spreads. For each man who has raped and assaulted a woman, there is a sea of unending sadness from the Ancestors, a current that will continue to surge to the next generation unless we, as Native people turn the tide.
Statistically, violent crime against Native women is more than twice the rates of similar atrocities against women of white or black origins. Assaulting a woman is a horrific crime, be it at the hands of a loved one, an acquaintance or an unknown assailant. However, at the hands of medical practitioners, under thinly veiled lies and deceptions, many did not escape the harsh reality of the theft of their rights as women. Under the Nixon administration, Indian Health Services followed a plan of what can only be viewed as calculated eugenics. Hitler utilized a
similar eugenics plan in Nazi Germany, in the attempts to enforce racial and ethnic cleansing and exterminate a race deemed undesirable.
Lehman Brightman, founder and President of United Native Americans Inc. estimated that between 1973 and 1976, approximately 60,000 to 70,000 (if not more) Native women were forcibly sterilized as a part of the continued genocidal purge of Native people. Sterilization of Native women, and young teen girls was common in the 1970's.The overwhelming evidence of the procedures shows that the majority of the sterilizations were conducted without prior knowledge or consent and often under duress and threats.
In her book Conquest (2005), author Andrea Smith connects "this use of sexual violence as a tool of genocide, with early boarding school abuse, medical experimentation in native communities, and the (U.S.) colonization of Native Women’s reproductive health." According to Smith, communities of color, including Native communities "… continue to inform the contemporary population control movement. Native women are targeted because their ability to reproduce continues to stand in the way of the continuing conquest of Native lands."
There are many viewpoints and discussions on why there are sexual assaults and domestic violence among Indigenous people. The violence against Native women should be considered one of the warning signs of the poisons spread by colonialists. I see it as a sign of the blatant disconnect from tradition, culture, identity, and the overall unity that has been suppressed and under the heel of the colonialist foot, determined to choke the life from the Indigenous people it deems inferior.
We are fighting a battle to survive, to hold onto the rights we have as women, to stand strong, to stand respected and honored among our people. It is not a time to stand in silence. Silence is a blindfold when a sister, a mother, a child, or an elder is abused. Silence is the wound that never heals, the emptiness that haunts you.
I stood in that silence for years, and although I have not revealed all of the details, I am not quiet about it anymore. I was not raised to be meek or submissive and if you know me personally, you already know that my occasional silence is one of observation, then action, not of weakness or fear.
As women, we are now under siege by none other than the political machine. No surprise to most of us, it is after all, an election year.
It is disturbing and alarming though, to read the documentation regarding women's rights, including the fact that one political party wants to "redefine rape" along with a change in the legal terminology of 'victim' to 'accuser.' If this proves to be the outcome, then the voices of more women will be silenced.
There are other distressing budget cuts, bills, and amendments that will eliminate food, health care and other assistance to low-income families, the elderly, women and children and essentially strip women of our human and civil rights, and with the deliberate racist ideology, will attempt to smother the voices who do stand in defiance of assaults and rape.
Unfortunately, this is an ideology force-fed throughout the years under the guise of education, racial stereotyping, politics, and religions, with the ongoing acts of genocide present in the shadows.
There are no quick fixes to these issues, to turning the tide of violence against women, but there are steps for all of us to take in reclaiming who we are, to instill strength and provide a safe harbor for those who are suffering in silence. One of these steps must be a victory against the structure built upon false power and the colonialist doctrine of genocide. Parkman's degrading statement "Indians were destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power ..." will only come about if we allow it.
I am a woman, I am Native, I am a survivor, and I will not be silent.
Statistics: http://www.ndcaws.org/facts/related_issues/native_american.html