leifalreadyexists 's review for:

Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Sean Coulthard

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Among the heavy and detestable slur of those onerous voices advocating "recognition, recognition; history is getting better" (as if Hegelian progress were a matter of the state's inevitable good graces), Coulthard's intervention is a sharp, refreshing call. What do liberal recognition and toleration mean if not accompanied by redistribution? Why make recourse to the increasingly-expert indigenous legislative appeal when, historically, they make little material difference?

Spurred on by the Idle No More movement, Coulthard asks: why not decide on non-capitalist change, direct action, and gendered justice? Music to my ears. He traces a genealogy of thought from [a:Karl Marx|7084|Karl Marx|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1396838092p2/7084.jpg], [a:Friedrich Nietzsche|1938|Friedrich Nietzsche|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1455294131p2/1938.jpg] and [a:Frantz Fanon|37728|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1258146314p2/37728.jpg] to [a:Nancy Fraser|265536|Nancy Fraser|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1413924198p2/265536.jpg] and [a:Leanne Simpson|2857904|Leanne Simpson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1416765343p2/2857904.jpg]; the aim here is straightforward: free for action the principles of indigenous action. Whether returning to the importance of land, distinguishing resentment from ressentiment, or tracing out the relationship between gendered discrimination and indigenous/colonial structures, Coulthard is always worth reading.