Veni, vidi... vora (Devourer of WoRLdS !!! )

"I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend--to grasp what was happening around and within me....Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so and direct our theorizing towards this end."

-B. Hooks (1991, pp.1-2)

This excerpt preceded the chapter on "Theory-Based, Model-Based Community Practice (Hardcastle, Powers, 2004, pg.33)" It came right before the HOW TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER: 101 instructions to social work in practice. The opening of the chapter talked about group risistance as a difficult concept, how as social workers if we can identify a "opinion leader" we should isolate them from the group and convince them to join us/follow our lead-

so that later, the rest of the group will be more "receptive to change"...

Well, talk about fighting fire with fire-

Am I to understand that, in order to fight generations of shady happenings, broken treaties, and historical trauma in NDN country

creating secret alliances at "special meetings"

is going to help gain the trust and cooperation of the clients that I work with/for???

If the "opinion leader" pulls a Anna Mae Aquash and refuses to cooperate, then what, brute force?

Would Dickie Wilson qualify as an "opinion leader"???

How do such techniques of mental gymnastic prowess usually work, besides allowing us as social workers to consider our client bases as- not as smart as us, since we can apparently get them to "behave" however we see fit using undergraduate level phycology...

Furthermore, Indigenous people have been fighting with scientist for generations, all but screaming from the rooftops: We have a right to practice our religion, our medicines, our wholeistic ways of life and reacting to it!

Our religions were outlawed, our medicines were sprayed with pesticides, our ways were stolen as we were robbed of our children, and they were robbed of themselves...

In the aftermath of all these bad feelings,

in a book intended to educate me on Community Practice

I am reading about X and Y if E-I-E-I-OOOOO!

The reality we are facing here people is this:

1 nation divided by another nation= dead indians!!!

Same old recepie here folks.

If an NDN said:

"I came to Ceremony, desperate. I wanted to comprehend--to grasp what was happening around and within me.... Indian medicine is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. Ceremony fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so, and direct our people to this end." B. Pihnêefich (1995, Spiritual Biography, p.17)

Such an NDN would be hailed as a bullshit-o-logist, a plastic medicine man, a new ager! He would be seen as someone too fake to be a real NDN, and too published to be ignored. In short, he would be eaten alive by apples, book ndns, traditionalists, & white people alike. He would also recive fan mail, have several blondes trying to date him, he would receive invitations to speak at universities & hippy elementary schools during November (and his short, mediocre book would probably receive several pristeigous awards simply because his family survived long enough for him to become a published indian).

After receiving his awards, Mr. Pihnêefich would die penny less and alone in a tragic farm accident on his homosexual cousin's dude ranch in Arizona (alas, this would be all B. Pihnêefich was remembered for).

And yet, the same statement using "Theory" instead of ceremony is considered a heart-felt exploration of one social workers quest for the truth?

What it is, is mental masturbation

made valid

by virtue of belonging to the system

the same system that has attempted to invalidate

Indigenous Knowledge

& Indigenous Truth

for centuries.

In short, "resistance can take many forms and can be explained in many different ways (Hardcastle, Powers, 2004)." But, you know what???

Sometimes, RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED.

Think about it.