In remembrance of Inuk MMIW and environmental activist Diem (Delilah) Saunders
Moral violence is invisible violence. What Toni Morrison made the point of calling that received reality of the West makes this form of incrimination possible.
How else could they insinuate that a young Indigenous man is a thief at the same time as they are stealing the land that belongs to him? Or to call someone who is Indigenous unwilling to work, when they have stolen their mode of subsistence out from underneath them? That they always want something? The received idea that they receive money from the State, when they don’t. Is the received idea closer to what would be easier to live with? Accepting the received idea allows us not to think or get the questions right. Victim-blaming in itself is just that.
Why considering the moral issue on an individual level goes against collective responsibility
Bringing into question the moral character of an obvious victim in plain sight is inviting violence from bystanders.
Moral violence is harder to see because how the other person feels about the slight or accusation is put down to their state of mind or their past experiences by the aggressor, making the humiliation the victim's problem and their responsibility.
The aggressor is taking a false moral stand as a means to an end. Third party management is an example. The eliminating gesture is how the aggressor will take the first step onto their backs by inverting meaning. Our take on the situation can be from a racial category of thought. Tainting the perception of others as to their consciences deprives them of the compassion that we would otherwise feel in response to the violence they experience in front of us.
On Wind River Reservation, we see the same intent in the physical violence from an ongoing epidemic of head injuries caused by non-Indigenous Americans (see Celine-Marie Pascale, 2021). The physical attempt to make thinking and then survival difficult because of the resulting brain injuries. Moral violence tends to take the form of incessant micro-aggressions that similarly make thinking difficult.
Why is moral reciprocity the issue here?
Is it religion that makes our indifference an option?
Pretext and persecution
It has always been about stealing other people's land and belongings and not religious persecution. Religion presents itself under the guise of morality to license immorality. In Canada, they put the Church in that role to subvert the moral question and take the children.
Collective denial is just delaying a response and collective emotion until the effect or damage is irreversible. If the same people also create a false image of themselves, what will stop them from creating a false image of the person who will call their false image into question?
Moral violence then becomes vigilantism. It can take the form of false allegations of fraud or assault or the sexual abuse of children. This is about taking people out until there is nobody left to forcefully represent their people. Silencing in response to an argument about legitimacy poses the question of where identity politics come from? The reason why it is not about what people actually do is because that would involve the rule of law. Why do ad hominem attacks rarely start on paper? The question is not why but what is the trap, if we are going to keep away from it and strengthen sovereignty measures instead.