In Thursday at the end of lecture a point was brought up about the fact that the army uses code names such as "Crazy Horse" and "Ipache" to refer to their own men and devices, but also use terms like "Jeronimo " and repeatedly refer to enemy territory as "Injun" territory in warfare. This reminded me of an article by Andrea Smith called Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy. It refers to the rationalization that powers go through when colonizing and committing genocide in foreign territories. She begins by saying that indigenous peoples must always be disappearing so non-indigenous can rationalize their claim to the now "vanished" peoples land. Another way in which they rationalize the taking of lands says, "The living performance of 'playing Indian' by non-Indian peoples depends upon the physical and psychological removal, even death, of real Indians." This quote specifically refers to Indians and explains some of the psychology behind the army referring to themselves as well as the enemy as Indians. By telling themselves that they are the new Native Americans of the land, white colonists have no problem removing and killing those they believe to be the foreigners in what is now their land. This psychological justification for genocide and colonial take over is a method still used today, as we discussed in class and saw in the video on Thursday.
I found your post very interesting! I agree with the point you made about the psychological justification for genocide and the colonial take over methods. It seems as if genocide is the only way countries can gain power. I was wondering if you had any other examples of Native American names used to identify the "enemy" and how the trend has progressed through out history? :)
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