Response

Abstract

Response Sylvester Johnson (bio) Smith invites us to observe critical features of colonialism and what these imply for Native studies. Among these is the fact that colonialism has been integral to the U.S. nation-state. The genocide of Native Americans has been essential and integral to fulfilling the imperatives of U.S. nationalism and expansion.1 At the same time, the nation is a sacred principle, and it should come as no surprise that well-meaning liberal critiques of U.S. imperialism do not problematize the roots of violence in America itself but rather seek to portray imperialism and colonial violence as quintessentially un-American and foreign to the history of an American ethos, as a betrayal of a genuine American patriotism. To paraphrase Émile Durkheim, to do otherwise would mean violating the taboo against desecrating the totemic nation. Yet breaching such a taboo is precisely what Smith calls for. I believe Smith is right to recognize the value of Native feminist responses as theory and as radical, insofar as Native women's activism and careful analysis have made visible the roots of hatred, genocide, and brutality within the U.S. nation-state, as part and parcel of an American ethos, not as a deviation from this ethos. In her effort to infuse Native studies with the critical orientation proffered by the theology of Native feminist activists, Smith aims to locate the analytical terrain of this theology on the map of theory. I want to respond particularly to Smith's central contention that theology (the master's house) is a useful means by which to dismantle the colonialist implements of heteropatriachal nationalism (the master's tools, if I have correctly parsed her analogy). Smith insightfully explains why Native American feminist theology makes a difference in the interpretation of power, religious belief, and the nation-state. "Liberation theology," she says, "brings to Native studies an explicit concern for the victims of colonialism." [End Page 112] This open commitment to postcolonial victims is the dominant impetus for articulating ethical norms and an interpretive framework in Native American liberation theology. Smith implies that the discipline of comparative religious studies, by contrast, foregoes articulating an explicit ethical agenda allied in the interests of such victims, opting instead for intellectual neutrality and objectivity. This latter implication is more often than not the case, but important exceptions are patent. The decisive issue, it seems to me, is the analytic that governs assessments of power and the scope of inquiry. This is evident in a number of academic disciplines. Whether in cultural studies, religious studies, or theology, for instance, African American intellectuals have attempted to foreground the strategies whereby racial supremacy has obtained in dehumanizing forms of representation, physical death or violence, and psychological terror. The same pattern is evident with feminist theory, Jewish studies, or postcolonial discourses. All demonstrate some explicit commitment to examining social suffering as a problem. Such studies also assume an ethical orientation patently condemning violence and openly identifying with victims of such violence. All of these analytics have emerged in direct relationship to empirical histories of violence, genocide, repression, terror, and so on. The body of theory represented in the works of Judith Butler or Michel Foucault, for instance, is not theology, but their writing explicitly condemns heteropatriarchal violence and has direct ethical implications. What determines the analytical vectors in these discourses, then, is not theology versus religious studies but rather an intellectual stance toward social suffering that might feature in any discipline or discourse. Such a stance examines violence as a subject meriting keen intellectual attention and critical explanation that aids solutions to social problems. For this reason, I think Smith is correct to argue that "the master's house" of theology (with its analytical inflection as articulated by Native feminist activists) has much to contribute toward dismantling the veritable problems of nationalism. This same point might become obvious by recognizing, conversely, that theological discourse is not innately or inevitably committed to victims of social suffering. From Abiel Abbot's sermonic defense of Native American genocide to John Saffin's vigorous theological promotion of slavery to contemporary para-church movements aiming to outlaw homosexuality in America, it is evident that...