A review by haileyboehner
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King

4.0

I have a hard time giving this review, due to the fact that I am obviously a privileged white descendant of colonizers, and that I look at the information in this book as such an integral and important part of North American history that all community members should be aware of. I also found King's writing phenomenal for the kind of stories he was telling. While the the history is so important and much is horrifying, there is also a lot of heavy legal jargon that one must sort through to get the full picture of how Indigenous communities were(and ARE) treated in North America. King adds humor and satire to a topic that is so difficult to make light of - but he also illustrates his point eloquently. Yet it is legal issues that I really had trouble staying focused on, even when I am extremely interested in the topic.

This book was written a while ago (eight years ago) but still holds relevance today, especially in Canadian news dealing with the pipelines and intrusion to Wet'suwet'en territory this year by the government. It is sickening and horrifying to just see history/government policy(that didn't work in the first place) to cycle over and over again. I sincerely hope that my generation can do better.

4/5