Tuesday night at the Wealthy Theatre, Native American author, activist, and scholar Andrea Smith delivered a lecture titled “Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide.” Smith, who has been a Nobel peace prize nominee and is currently a member of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, discussed sexual violence in native communities and sexual violence’s role in colonialism. Smith said that she came to this insight based on three realizations in her life—that as long as native peoples were destroying themselves through violence within their own communities that they did not need to be so focused on external threats, that there was a striking silence in native communities about rape, and that efforts by rape victims to seek support outside native communities was often met by opposition from other natives who opposed the “airing of the community’s dirty laundry” outside the native community.

Beginning with the argument that sexual violence is an inherent part of the colonial project, Smith gave several examples of how colonial thought and theory has been intertwined with an ideology of sexual domination. She discussed how the United States viewed the bodies of natives as “impure” and therefore “rapable” and explained how the mutilation of women’s genitals and public display of them at the Sand Creek Massacre was a manifestation of the sexual violence inherent in colonialism. It was also argued that patriarchy has played a key role in convincing people of the necessity of domination and that projecting a patriarchal view of natives onto them was necessary in order for the colonial project to succeed. Cultural appropriation, an ongoing aspect of colonialism, was also discussed as a form of sexual violence as it is an act of control and intervention that has its roots in the rhetoric of sexual domination, while it is manifest in its most crude way in books on “Native American sexuality” and spirituality. Environmental racism, with its notion that certain communities are “fit” for the dumping of nuclear and toxic waste (as they are impure or dirty) is a form of sexual violence, especially when it is considered that the first effects of environmental racism often manifest themselves in women’s reproductive organs. Similarly, the forced sterilization that targeted native women’s reproductive systems, both by the government and medical professionals as well as the various population control movements that arose out of the environmental movements in the United States, is also a form of sexual violence.

For Smith, violence, and specifically sexual violence, is an inherent part of a society centered on a patriarchal state and the struggle against colonization has to be a central part of organizing against domestic violence. Smith described how it is impossible for the state to be a solution to a problem that exists because of it and that laws created by the state to criminalize domestic violence more often put victims in jail than perpetrators. The criminalization approach is therefore flawed given that the approach exists in a society where fifty percent of men have indicated that they would rape if they could get away with it. Since nobody would seriously consider putting fifty percent of men in prison, the criminalization approach, based on the idea that there are a few isolated perpetrators of sexual violence is fundamentally flawed. The idea of “restorative justice” for sexual violence is also flawed as it does not address state violence at the same time nor does it work in a sexist society that often sides with the perpatrator.

Smith, who in her opening remarks stressed that she did not want to be seen simply as one with a unique analysis but rather as a part of a collective struggle, also shared several strategies and tactics for organizing. She stressed that it is important that those working for social change in the United States work to build truly mass movements, citing an example of people she met in Central America who discussed how they repeatedly mobilized 10 million people over a series of weeks while activists in the United States typically muster no more than 200 people and spend time walking in circles where they were able to get permits from the state to “exercise their right to free speech.” Central to creating a mass movement is a need to rethink the nonprofit industrial complex, as Smith discussed how foundation funding limits mobilizing by making organizations reliant on foundations rather than their base for support which discourages organizing to mobilize constituents and instead creates a movement that is accountable to foundations rather than working directly for those in need of a particular service. Instead, Smith argued that independent movements outside of the non-profit sector are needed and that non-profits need to be made accountable to an independent movement. Similarly, Smith argued that while it is important to have people “working from the inside,” such efforts will have little success if they are not backed by a strong independent movement outside of the institution.

In order to build such a movement, Smith said that it is important for resistance to develop not just in isolated communities but that it needs to be spread into other communities in order to effectively fight empire and capitalism. To spread such ideas, movements in the United States need to look at how they organize and need to think of ways to organize so that people can participate in social movements when they have time rather than demanding the extreme self-sacrifice that often characterizes activism in the United States. Smith also argued that movements need to develop more creative tactics such as effective use of the arts, street theatre, and music, and use those tactics for outreach rather than always relying on the overly intellectual arguments and the notion that people can be convinced of a particular position simply from a deluge of facts. Such approaches are necessary because they can be used to convince privileged people that they are not benefiting from their privilege in the long-term and that by shedding short-term gains they could achieve substantial improvements in their lives as it is real only a few people that have the majority of wealth and power in the United States.