I am blessed to have many friends who are of the First People of this land. Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa, James Bay Cree, Mississippi Choctaw, and others with mixed ancestry. I say blessed because these women and men have taught me incredible lessons of acceptance, courage, persistence, humor, joy, friendship, and love. They have shared their language, which is truly in danger of being lost. They have shared their stories, traditions, songs, sorrows and struggles. You might wonder, why am I singling out my Native sisters and brothers from all other friends in my world? It is quite simple and quite complicated all at the same time.
When the Europeans came to this land they committed genocide. Let's call it what it was. Columbus made a discovery all right, a personal discovery - he landed in a new place. A new place that was already occupied by hundreds of Tribes representing millions of people, each of which had their own culture, language, and tradition. Did you know the US and the Russians and other countries are still doing that today? Like in the Arctic. Countries are rushing to "claim" this territory as their own. Russia even sent two mini-submersables up there and went under the ice to plant their flag in the ocean floor. "MINE!" they shouted in Russian! Did I mention there are tens of thousands of Native people living there already? The Inuit and Sami. Sound familiar?
By the 1870's the European conquerors had rounded up most of these "savages" (my friends' ancestors) and by then either infected them with small pox, massacred them, marched them to death on trails to prison camps called reservations, or removed them from their deeply loved homelands and placed them on reservations. The US government came up with a strategy of how to deal with the Indian problem. "Kill the Indian and save the man". Schools were set up, often by Christian missionaries, to assimilate these people into European culture. Tens of thousands of youngsters were put into these "schools". Children were kidnapped from their families and forced to go. Some Indian families were so poor they could not feed or care for their children and so made what I imagine to be a heartbreaking decision to send their children away to these schools so they could survive.
The goal of the boarding schools? Destroy the Indian. Destroy the language, spiritual beliefs, the culture of an entire race of people. Cut their hair. Dowse them with kerosene to kill the lice that of course they must carry. Physically and sexually abuse them. Use them as slave labor. Many children died. Many never saw their families again. Many learned to be ashamed of who they were, of their families' beliefs and culture, of their language. I can only imagine this horror. This cultural annihilation sanctioned by the US Government, We the People, went on through the 1970's. I was in high school in the 1970's. I had no idea.
Why did I have no idea about this? Why did I not know of this terrible chapter in human history until I was into my late 20's? Because the cultural genocide still continues. It continues in the way that our history books don't tell the true stories of the conquest of this country. It continues in the way that the media never shares stories about the 565 federally recognized Tribal Nations, unless it involves some sensational story or an uprising. It continues in the way that we non-Indian people continue to remain ignorant about our neighbors' lives and culture, instead of making the effort to learn about their world, their struggles, their joys, the ways that mainstream culture continues to oppress them, and how we can make change within OUR communities that will help to make all our lives better.
It is true, we did not directly commit the atrocities of the past. But our ancestors did. And we are all responsible for the world we live in. The web of life thing. The pebble in the pond with the ripples thing. I, for one, am truly sorry for what happened to the Native people of this land, for what happened to Native peoples all over the world (and is still happening, just look at the Amazon). I don't want this to ever happen again. And I believe part of the reason that discrimination and oppression continue today is because we have not yet erased the ignorance that presently defines the cultural understanding of our Native sisters and brothers. Ignorance breeds fear and mistrust, it perpetuates stereotypes. But the good news is ignorance is curable.
So I single out my Native friends to honor them for who they are and where they came from. I respect them as members of Nations different than my own. I respect them for the courage and resiliency that defines them. And I thank them for taking my hand when I reach out to them. Perhaps we can now walk together into a future defined not by hatred and fear, but friendship and trust.
Love thy neighbor.
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