The United States and the European colonies preceding it have over 500 years of violent, genocidal history against Native American communities that relentlessly persists to this day.
Recent efforts to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) remind us that hate towards the AI/AN (American Indian/Alaskan Native) community is still a nationwide epidemic.
According to 2018 data, the CDC states almost 50% of Indigenous women experience contact sexual violence. To increase awareness of this growing crisis, people began bombarding social media platforms with images of red handprints painted over their mouths. The red handprint symbolizes the systemic silence surrounding Indigenous women and girls that have been taken from the community.
These “Stolen Sisters” are wives, mothers, and daughters that will never return home.
Data corresponding to missing and murdered Native women is criminally underreported. The lack of coverage and media representation to find these women, compared with their white counterparts, is despicable. The U.S Government Accountability Office states:
“The total number of missing or murdered Indigenous women—referred to as American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women in this report— is unknown because, for several reasons, federal databases do not contain comprehensive national data on all AI/AN women reported missing.”
The United States has repeatedly cast Indigenous women aside, their voices squashed under the United States’ boot. So much so, in fact, that there is no data on who these missing and murdered Indigenous women are, or how many have been stolen from their communities. The opposite of love is indifference, and the United States government is choosing to remain indifferent.
-CULTURE Society Incorporated
Comments