Oppressed groups strategically expand genocide rhetoric to claim agency and challenge stigma

Evidence

Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs (1997) document a cholera epidemic that killed some 500 people in a rain forest region in eastern Venezuela. Public health officials classified most of the people who were infected by and died from cholera as “Warao,” that is, members of an etnia, an “indigenous ethnic group.” In combating the threat to the legitimacy of public health institutions posed by alarmingly high rates of mortality, officials often characterized “indigenous culture” as the key “risk factor” in shaping patterns of morbidity and mortality. Many members of communities in which cases were concentrated cited national and transnational patterns of land expropriation and environmental degradation in charging that the epidemic constituted an act of genocide. This rhetoric provided them with a means of challenging stigmatizing images, regaining a sense of agency, and calling attention to the conditions in which they were living (in which infant mortality stands at 36 percent in some areas). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 277 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Genocide accusations fade once marginalized groups gain institutional power; Oppressed groups can adopt and police the racist ideas used against them — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 516; Dismissing genocide accusations as rhetorical serves dominant racial interests — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 251 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Groups expand the genocide label to encompass structural neglect and land dispossession. #exemplifies (0.93) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 277