Cultural-erasure denial licensed apartheid and Native American dispossession

Evidence

The same reasoning was used by advocates of apartheid in South Africa. There was no African culture, they said, so why not put Africans on reservations called homelands and institute an apartheid state? The same approach was used during the extermination of the American Indian nations. There was no Native American culture, so why not “cleanse” the American Indians and put the survivors on reservations? — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 385

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the ‘empty land’ logic shown in other colonial contexts — the denial of pre-existing culture as precondition for dispossession. — connects to: Euphemistic labeling historically legitimized dispossession of native peoples. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 287; Framing natives as uncivilized precludes their equal citizenship. — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 86; U.S. treatment of Native Americans constituted genocide through varied means including education — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1191 (+3 more)