Cases of genocide carried out as policy may be found in historical documents as well as in the oral histories of Indigenous communities.
Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizThe objective of US authorities was to terminate their existence as peoples - not as random individuals. This is the very definition of modern genocide.
Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizThe importance of the term "genocide" for many Indigenous Peoples is that it is more than a term or an accusation; it is a word created in the wake of the Shoah in Europe to describe what happens when a people are targeted by a government for extermination, as were the Jews of Europe, and which is the term used in the most important international law related to concerned Indigenous Peoples, as the only international human rights law that pertains specifically to collectivities of people rather than individuals.
Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizHow will the family unit be destroyed? ...[T]he demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz