Wielding Words like Weapons: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1995–2005

by Ward Churchill, Barbara Alice Mann (Foreword)

Wielding Words like Weapons is a collection of acclaimed American Indian Movement activist-intellectual Ward Churchill’s essays in indigenism, selected from material written during the decade 1995–2005. It includes a range of formats, from sharply framed book reviews and equally pointed polemics and op-eds to more formal essays designed to reach both scholarly and popular audiences. The selection also represents the broad range of topics addressed in Churchill’s scholarship, including the fallacies of archeological and anthropological orthodoxy such as the insistence of “cannibalogists” that American Indians were traditionally maneaters, Hollywood’s cinematic degradations of native people, questions of American Indian identity, the historical and ongoing genocide of North America’s native peoples, and the systematic distortion of the political and legal history of U.S.-Indian relations. Less typical of Churchill’s oeuvre are the essays commemorating Cherokee anthropologist Robert K. Thomas and Yankton Sioux legal scholar and theologian Vine Deloria Jr. More unusual still is his profoundly personal effort to come to grips with the life and death of his late wife, Leah Renae Kelly, thereby illuminating in very human terms the grim and lasting effects of Canada’s residential schools upon the country’s indigenous peoples. A foreword by Seneca historian Barbara Alice Mann describes the sustained efforts by police and intelligence agencies as well as university administrators and other academic adversaries to discredit or otherwise “neutralize” both the man and his work. Also included are both the initial “stream-of-consciousness” version of Churchill’s famous—or notorious—“little Eichmanns” opinion piece analyzing the causes of the attacks on 9/11, as well as the counterpart essay in which his argument was fully developed.

616 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2015

About the author

Ward Churchill (Keetowah Cherokee) has achieved an unparalleled reputation as a scholar-activist and analyst of indigenous issues. He was a Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, from 1990 till 2007; a leading member of the American Indian Movement (AIM); and has been a delegate to the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations. He is the author of numerous books, including A Little Matter of Genocide, Fantasies of the Master Race, and Struggle for the Land.

Reviews

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ward Churchill's 'Wielding Words Like Weapons' is a powerful collection of essays covering a wide range of topics though focus on various aspects of colonization. The essays vary widely in length and format, but never in passion and commitment to a vision of a future with a clear sense of justice.

Churchill's work is powerful in two senses. First, he is very blunt and unwavering in perspective and political commitments. He is unafraid to make assessments that others shy away from or speak about in softer tones. For example, in his introduction he decry's the use of euphemism like post-colonialism that tend to obfuscate what we are actually talking about, that is, colonialism: "colonialism is colonialism, not something else". Another example many will be familiar with is his controversal essay 'Some People Push Back' publish a day after the attacks against the US on September eleventh 2001. For some his acerbic style is too much, and his work (that essay in particular) is ridiculed for being too radical, crazy, and/or even dangerous, but this brings us to the other reason why his work is powerful. For all his so-called controversial positions, Churchill is careful to construct rigorous arguments in support of them backed by copious amounts of sources and citations. Even if one ultimately disagrees with Churchill's claims and conclusions, or at least with how he delivers them, it is hard to argue against them.

It is difficult to summarize the entire book of essays, but many of the essays complement each other well. 'Subverting the Law of Nations' covers the relationship between American Indians, the US government, and international law. Part of Churchill's argument is that the way the US floats its own laws and international law in regards to Native American's is extrapolated to the US relationship with he rest of the world. This essay helps to illuminate the next essay 'The United States and the Genocide Convention'. Churchill explores the history of US dragging its feet on approving the UN Genocide convention until it had successfully watered it down so it might not have to atone for its own genocide of native Americans. In 'To judge them by the Standards of Their Time' Churchill takes up similar themes and expands them to different aspects of US subversion of international law to cover up its criminal history. He traces the US history of war crimes against Native Americans and outlines what laws the US were breaking. Likewise, he demonstrates through example after example of US military actions that US war crimes are the rule rather than the exception.

This book is difficult to read, not because it is written by an academic, but because of the horrible atrocities it discusses and the implications for everyone living in occupied North America. It becomes clear that first the US is a colonial state and that US colonialism is ongoing. Second, that the US colonial system is a violent bi-partisan machine that cannot be simply re-directed by voting for the right candidate or the 'lesser of two evils'. Lastly, if the US bi-partisain colonial project that cannot be voted out, what actions must we engage in to overturn this system and finally end colonialism?

[Mills College Library]

305.897 C5635 2017