Steven Newcomb: Indian law and policy came from the colonizers

The ideas typically called “U.S. federal Indian law and policy” are the result of the colonizers using language to maintain a “conception of reality” constructed by elite white men of the past. It was their job to use ideas and arguments to build a reality system in which the United States is conceived of as the top-dog, existing in a dominating position in relation to a sub-order reality that those elite white men constructed for the captivity of our original nations. It was the goal of the United States to create a system of persuasion, a tightly structured system of arguments, that would be passed from one generation to the next, and thereby prove most useful and profitable to the United States of America by working to rob our nations of our free existence and our territories and resources.

The ideas and arguments typically called U.S. federal Indian law and policy are the result of that persuasive use of human language in an effort to disempower our original nations while empowering the United States. Thus, it stands to reason that persuasion and persuasive skills are of great importance for every original nation, for every original nation leader, and for everyone who advocates on behalf of an original nation. Despite this, how often does the importance of rhetoric (persuasion) get identified as critically importance for our nations? Seldom if at all, is about right.

The art of persuasion is necessary for developing arguments and for critiquing the arguments of our opponents. Every one of our nations and every one of our leaders must deal on a daily basis with the arguments put forward by an opposing side. The colonizing society’s use of arguments against our nations is incessant and never-ending. Yet, how much time do we spend analyzing and critiquing the arguments of other side, and developing our own responses?

Law and politics are rhetorical (persuasive) through and through. Given that fact, how can we effectively deal with the ideas and arguments that constitute U.S. federal Indian law and policy without understanding the art of persuasion and continually working to developing and improve our skills in that discipline? Studying federal Indian law as an expression of “their law” is not the same as studying federal Indian law as an expression of “rhetoric” (persuasive strategy) from our own perspective. One reason for framing the dominating society as dominating is because of its adroit use of persuasion (rhetoric) in ways that maintain the mental image of the United States as existing over the top of our originally and still rightfully free nations and our territories.