god is red // vine deloria
God is Red // by Vine Deloria
This book fucks with everything you think about the world, about time, about space, about being. Evvvvverything. In a really wonderful way, though. It's invigorating, and confusing, and pisses you off plenty. But it's not the kind of anger where you want to 'get out in the streets', or 'change the world', it's really unsatisfying in that sense. The only thing left for you to do is try and understand. It's not a religious text, either. As my professor says, it's not religion, it's the way of being. He studied under Vine Deloria, and says that he was a giant ass most of the time, and that some chapters of this book are over the top. I didn't think that they were overdone, however. I think that each chapter was as drastic as necessary to create such a reaction. It also includes various criticisms of mainstream images of american indians as well as so-called progressive approaches. This book takes you all the way from why modern images of indians are fucked up, to why minutes and seconds are fucked up. Super duper strongly recommend!