A Public Pedagogy of White Victimhood: (Im)Moral Facts,Settler Identity,and Genocide Denial in Dakota Homeland

Abstract

This article examines dominant discourses driving southern Minnesota’s white public pedagogy of the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, focusing specifically on hardline separations between fact and opinion that divert citizens from acknowledging the moral significance of their state’s genocidal founding. Supported by objectivist discourses enshrined in today’s Common Core Standards, the regional need to distinguish fact from opinion reveals highly situated white-supremacist roots when historicized, originating in primary-source materials that perplexingly frame white “victimhood” and Dakota “savagery” as objective moral knowledge. Critically analyzing recent acts of fact-checking performed by members of a regional settler discourse community, this article shows such “objective” knowledge at work, persistently thriving on age-old notions of white-settler identity and white community belonging. Ultimately, this article exposes the ongoing persuasive power of the primary sources’ dominant discourse, the anti-Indian sublime, and its role in erasing moral facts about regional crimes against humanity.

Keywords

public pedagogy critical discourse analysis public history genocide studies U.S.–Dakota War

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