Arguments over Genocide and "federal Indian law"

Dear Friends,

This country and our world need transformation so deeply that we must all begin wherever we can.  I’ve been working for about ten years on a book manuscript titled: “Arguments over Genocide: The War of Words over Cherokee Removal in the Congress and the Supreme Court.” In the hour-long podcast linked to below, I seek to show how these arguments from the 1820s and 1830s—these arguments over what would become the Trail of Tears—continue to determine the law, policy, and conduct of the United States to this day. This podcast is a detailed indictment of the Supreme Court and its “federal Indian law” that even experts in the field can learn from. Every American should know about the depth of our/their complicity in this ongoing injustice. It’s not enough to know that the United States treaties with the Native Nations have been broken—that’s just the beginning of the horror: the beginning of the system of domination and dehumanization the Supreme Court has built on that foundation. The situation is akin to that before Brown v. Board of Education when a system of racism and bigotry that the Supreme Court had been maintaining for decades was the law of the land was revealed as a violation of the Constitution.  I would be very grateful if you would read or listen to my podcast and—if you find it worthy—share it widely.  In any case, I would love to hear what you think of it.

The text is available on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354060889

Or you can listen on Vimeo: 

All the Best,

Steve Schwartzberg