Mothers of Our Nations: Indigenous Women Address the World

This particular writing by Winona Laduke, clearly articulates the many frustrations that women of color have with the Feminist Movement-mainly composed of ideologies that are beneficial to Caucasian women. In addition, it also addresses the frustration of not even being represented as a category of people whose issues are deemed significant in the eyes of the United Nations. The author clearly articulates the plight of many indigenous groups in the world, and their utter survival in a world of capitalism and industrilization. Winona Laduke also goes into state how various actions, such as uranium mining, and other mechanisms of creating toxic waste have left many indigenous groups with birth defects, and other health issues. I feel that this particular article is a message to not only feminism, but also to many of us who have privilege and benefit from globalization, world trade, and industrilization (just to name a few) regardless of our race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. So that would include, myself as an African-American (regardless of the fact that I do not have the privilege of race or gender). I must assert the fact that too often, we as African-American people do not acknowledge the fact that we have some form of privilege, and mainly "play" race as the primary oppression. It is quite painful to see how the lifestyle and practices of others is almost annihilating groups of people who have probably had a longer history and culture than so-called "modern civilizations." This also brings up the subject of supremacy, and who is considered to be apart of the "primitive" world. On page 527, the author calls for us to acknowledge indigenous populations as "people," which indicates that industrialized nations have deemed various groups of people as subhuman, and therefore not worthy of human rights. Such was the same ideology placed on people of the African continent, which again shows the interconnection of the different struggles worldwide.