Andrea Smith's use of expropriation is geared towards the cultural genocide of Native Americans. In this heartfelt article, we discovered another tragedy caused by white supremacy that occurred during the 17th century. Native American children were taken away from their families and placed in boarding schools far from their homes, in complete isolation, in the hope that the settlers would lose their cultural identity and assimilate into the dominant white, Christian world. If you were not white and Christian and did not speak English, you were considered deviant from the “norm” and drastic measures were taken to further prevent “deviant” individuals from entering society. It was also important that these boarding schools were as far away from their families as possible, so that no escape could occur. There was only a need to run forward towards a society where these children will never have to look back in order to hold a place. As for prevention, “settlers thought it was more convenient to engage in cultural rather than physical genocide (36).” But this made me angry mostly because, first, these actions are placed within an economic value and, second, the physical suffering was still present. It is disturbing to learn how identity theft must evolve around economic means in this money-hungry society. It is even more disturbing to see how the United States believes that reparations are a sufficient way to repair damage that will never heal. Is money the only motivation for our actions? Before even considering emotional damage, should we only look at the damage we put into our wallets? The emptiness in your pocket cannot be compared to the emptiness of your cultural assets, of a... means of paper......all to gain nothing in return, diminishing them further. It was interesting to read about Bourdieu's concept of habitus, as the place where one sees and belongs in the world, as minorities are becoming trapped in a world where they don't really have a sense of belonging. If they are robbed of their identity and stuck at the bottom of white supremacy, then they will look at the world from a negative point of view. It is truly heartbreaking and one must understand that this should be stopped. There shouldn't be a “norm” because we are all human and more or less all the same despite our differences. No one should have their identity taken away or feel like they belong nowhere because we have all been given this one life, and it should be lived for our right to live simply to be who we are and not lived by others.
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