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A review by rachelb36
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog
2.0
2.5 stars
It was interesting to learn about the Sioux people - their culture and history, etc. However, this book is more political rhetoric than memoir. Crow Dog recounts events from growing up in the 1960s and 1970s on a reservation. The book was published in 1990, so the nearness of events likely has influenced her opinions about race, which are quite generalized and unfair.
She attended a Catholic school, and during those times, Catholic schools were very strict (and unbiblical!) in their approach to education.
"[The beatings at school] had such a bad effect upon me that I hated and mistrusted every white person on sight, because I met only one kind. It was not until much later that I met sincere white people I could relate to and be friends with. Racism breeds racism in reverse." p 34
I cringe when I read this type of thing being perpetuated by people who are supposed to love others in response to God's love for them, but we can't change the past. We can only apologize that it ever happened, and attempt to do better going forward.
However, while I understand the sentiment of hating the people who hate you, I feel it's an illogical, and immature, position to hold as an adult. More racism will never right the original racism - it only keeps the cycle going.
And for all her talk of meeting "sincere" white people and becoming friends with them, she still seems to hate whites. Her assumptions about white people are terribly incorrect in many ways, and she made blanket, derogatory statements about whites on nearly every other page. Whenever the tiniest thing went wrong in her life, she always found a way to blame whites for it.
She also had strong statements to make about "half-bloods," whom she doesn't view as being "real" Indians - despite the fact that she is actually half-white herself! She sees herself as being a special exception; she considers herself a "whole-blood" because she practices the traditional religion of the Sioux.
She kept saying how brave she was and how everyone kept telling her she was brave during the American Indian Movement (AIM) stand at Wounded Knee, when she was 8 months pregnant, eventually giving birth there. In reality, she was selfish and immature. I was appalled at her failure to protect her unborn child. She tells how one day the government declared a cease-fire so that the women and children could leave, unharmed, but she decides to stay, stating, "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die here... I have nothing to live for out there." p 132
She also states, "One morning.... the feds opened [gunfire] upon me... some of the shots barely missed... all the men were overprotective, worrying about me." p 133
I certainly wouldn't consider that overprotective!
The timeline was very frustrating - Crow Dog kept jumping back and forth between multiple timeframes, without giving references so readers knew where she was in the story. In addition to all of this, there are also several sexual details given and quite a bit of language.
I've read that some of her historical reporting is not accurate, though I don't know it that's true or not. I would be interested in reading other accounts from Native American Indians to see how their accounts of the same time differed or remained the same.
It was interesting to learn about the Sioux people - their culture and history, etc. However, this book is more political rhetoric than memoir. Crow Dog recounts events from growing up in the 1960s and 1970s on a reservation. The book was published in 1990, so the nearness of events likely has influenced her opinions about race, which are quite generalized and unfair.
She attended a Catholic school, and during those times, Catholic schools were very strict (and unbiblical!) in their approach to education.
"[The beatings at school] had such a bad effect upon me that I hated and mistrusted every white person on sight, because I met only one kind. It was not until much later that I met sincere white people I could relate to and be friends with. Racism breeds racism in reverse." p 34
I cringe when I read this type of thing being perpetuated by people who are supposed to love others in response to God's love for them, but we can't change the past. We can only apologize that it ever happened, and attempt to do better going forward.
However, while I understand the sentiment of hating the people who hate you, I feel it's an illogical, and immature, position to hold as an adult. More racism will never right the original racism - it only keeps the cycle going.
And for all her talk of meeting "sincere" white people and becoming friends with them, she still seems to hate whites. Her assumptions about white people are terribly incorrect in many ways, and she made blanket, derogatory statements about whites on nearly every other page. Whenever the tiniest thing went wrong in her life, she always found a way to blame whites for it.
She also had strong statements to make about "half-bloods," whom she doesn't view as being "real" Indians - despite the fact that she is actually half-white herself! She sees herself as being a special exception; she considers herself a "whole-blood" because she practices the traditional religion of the Sioux.
She kept saying how brave she was and how everyone kept telling her she was brave during the American Indian Movement (AIM) stand at Wounded Knee, when she was 8 months pregnant, eventually giving birth there. In reality, she was selfish and immature. I was appalled at her failure to protect her unborn child. She tells how one day the government declared a cease-fire so that the women and children could leave, unharmed, but she decides to stay, stating, "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die here... I have nothing to live for out there." p 132
She also states, "One morning.... the feds opened [gunfire] upon me... some of the shots barely missed... all the men were overprotective, worrying about me." p 133
I certainly wouldn't consider that overprotective!
The timeline was very frustrating - Crow Dog kept jumping back and forth between multiple timeframes, without giving references so readers knew where she was in the story. In addition to all of this, there are also several sexual details given and quite a bit of language.
I've read that some of her historical reporting is not accurate, though I don't know it that's true or not. I would be interested in reading other accounts from Native American Indians to see how their accounts of the same time differed or remained the same.