Letter: Has Peratrovich been co-opted?

Elizabeth Peratrovitch's pride, strength and inspiring words have in my lifetime become integral to colonial Alaskan mythology, and are increasingly incorporated into the national colonial myth of democratic equality and opportunity. 

Peratrovich advocated resistance and called out hypocrisy and bigotry, rife in Anglo-America, but her ultimate goal was assimilation and acceptance into a colonial system with a racial hierarchy, and a system obsessed with our elimination as the legal historical owners of colonized Alaska.

As white America adopts her as a symbol of the power of democratic rhetoric, as pretendian feminists claim her as their champion, we should focus instead on her primary message. Rather than trying to incorporate her into the nationalist colonial myth quietly assimilating, let's embrace her resistance.

Peratrovich was foremost an Indigenous observer and opponent of the colonizers' racial hierarchy

We should not let their culture incorporate her into their self-serving narrative. 

Dave Stephenson

Kagwaantaan Tlingit, Juneau