Christine reminds me periodically how dangerous it is for me as a european-american white person to put indigenous north american peoples and histories constantly on a pedestal, and how easy it is to slip into some newfangled version of the “noble savage” bullshit. I also keep trying to resist the pull of becoming some kind of myopic Dawn of Everything fanboy. AND YET ever since reading that book, I find myself coming to any/every political analysis wondering: why doesn’t this writer start with a treatment of the n.am indigenous critique? Why on earth would anyone start a massive critique of the mess that europe hath wrought by looking exclusively to european-worldview ideas for solutions?

So basically I’m wondering, after reading just the introduction, whether I’m gonna be able to get much out of this. But I’m gonna try!