Silent Victims: Hate Crimes against Native Americans (review)

Though reading about hate crimes in Indian Country can prove depressing, I held a feeling of hope after reading this book. Barbara Perry has uncovered themes that arise from the Native American victims and also left the reader armed with possible concrete steps for change. Perry’s research interviews of nearly three hundred Native Americans from the Southwest Four Corners region, the Great Lakes, and the Northern Plains regions provide unique qualitative insights into the cycle of oppression and the cumulative effects of hate crimes. This book’s purpose is to provide individual accounts while arguing that many hate crimes go unreported. Further, it contends that hate crimes are but one of many systemic practices that justify and maintain subordination of Native peoples, especially during times of activism. This book effectively reaches its objectives by succinctly contextualizing hate crimes within a historical and contemporary model of oppression, which could enlighten anyone interested in violence in Indian Country. The writing is straightforward and concise, which enables the reader to clearly follow the line of logic and remain engaged throughout.

This book is divided into three major sections. The first establishes the historical and sociopolitical context for hate crimes in the United States against Native Americans. The second section focuses on the findings from Perry’s qualitative research and the cumulative impact of violence on the community. The last section demonstrates how activism and promotion of cultural education could strengthen the sovereignty of Native nations.

Within the first section of the book Perry summarizes how marginalization and oppression of Native peoples have occurred and persisted throughout history. The historical overview of the ethnocidal and genocidal institutionalized practices are documented, bringing to light recent research to support her argument. One instance is the section on forced sterilization of Native women, which is not common knowledge for many readers. Though this section is only a few pages in length, Perry clearly describes and links sterilization to dehumanization and ethnocidal practices occurring until the 1970s.

Beginning in chapter 4, Perry’s qualitative interviews link to supporting literature, arguing that stereotypes and imagery reinforce cultural imperialism and the “othering” of Native peoples. Her research examples include majority views of Native Americans as “primitive” or connected with nature. The recent literature on racial mascots and implications of stereotypical images complements this chapter nicely. Overall, the interviews illustrate and convey distress around Native persons’ belief of white people’s perception of them, that is, as mere objects and/or a subordinate class. These mental images are clearly tied to historical colonial imperialism. Perry argues that this perception is linked to factual events and systemic practices instead of viewing them as paranoid fancies.

The second section focuses on contextualizing hate-crime victimization within a socioeconomic, power, and oppression framework that continues to support ongoing colonization in the United States today. The themes that arose from the literature include the normativity of violence in Indian Country and its function to remind a person of his or her place in geographical, economic, and cultural terms. Two other themes were retaliatory violence following a demonstration of activism for sovereign rights and lack of law enforcement to protect or aide in the harassment or attack. These hate crimes are further facilitated by “mechanisms, such as stereotypes, language, legislation and job segregation” (137). The author further includes daily microaggressions as other forms of oppression that serve to maintain the racial hierarchy in the United States. These daily perpetuations are not technically illegal but over time cause similar psychological stress. For instance, one interviewee described being purposely skipped over while waiting in a check-out line, and others described accounts of racial profiling by law enforcement. Though this is not a hate crime in and of itself, Perry argues that the individual does experience increased pressure and may link this to prior harassments and violence experienced, causing despair and further reinforcing the current hegemony in the United States. Her argument is well made during this section.

Particularly illuminative of...