aeleni's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

ncragoe's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

A real mix, but very solid overall, and often very powerful. There are admittedly a handful of essays scattered throughout the book where the authors try to fight generalizations with generalizations and racisms with racisms, but that kind of thing is both easy to fall into and also quite common when works are collected from a broad array of authors.
The poems by Maurice Kenny I thought were particularly hard-hitting and beautifully done.

gitli57's review

Go to review page

challenging informative reflective

4.0

From the back cover - "Genocide of the Mind is a moving and inspiring collection of essays that records the determination of people from over twenty-five different nations to bring the Native American experience into the 21st Century."

I read this not long after it was published in 2003 and revisited it this year (2021). I was a bit saddened but not really surprised at how relevant it still is. Issues around identity and how we express identity are still a reality for many of us in NDN Country. Concerns about the disappearance of many of our languages are even more urgent now than then. The Washington Football Team notwithstanding, there is still much work to be done around racist imagery and mascots used by athletic teams. Racism and stereotyping by the dominant culture and its media machine still abound as does a seemingly willful ignorance about the diversity of experience and expression that is Native America.

So this diverse collection of essays with some poetry mixed in still packs a punch. Like any compilation, it is a mixed bag for voice and style and your mileage may vary.

emmc's review

Go to review page

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

poisoned_icecream's review

Go to review page

5.0

There is a lot of diverse voices from different tribes in this book. It is hard to hear of the murder of so many Indians by whites, but it is very important that their history is not forgotten.
More...