My take-away: that northerners were as racist as southerners. If Germany can pay reparations to survivors of Holocaust survivors while providing a good social safety net for their citizens, the US should do something similar for Native Americans.
My take-away: that northerners were as racist as southerners. If Germany can pay reparations to survivors of Holocaust survivors while providing a good social safety net for their citizens, the US should do something similar for Native Americans.
With slavery, Jim Crow laws, the genocide against Native Americans, and the Holocaust, there was a common denominator: the oppressors perceived the their victims as less than human. That’s always the rationalization for horrible treatment of “the other.”
Everyone has the potential to dehumanise someone they perceive as "the enemy". Every time I catch myself gloating over the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine this week, I have to stop and remind myself that these figures represent so many more young guys who won't be coming home to their families.
Thank you for this. I wonder how long this war would last if Putin and his closest supporters had to be the ones actually fighting in the fields of battle.......
I often thought when I was in college, that if the leaders of countries had to fight it out in an arena, we would have less wars. It is tragic when presidents send our military to fight in order to line the pockets of the military industrial complex, rather than to preserve our democracy. I couldn't understand how someone like George Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld could send soldiers to die for the reasons they manufactured. This to me, is another example of seeing a group of people as less than human. Yes, soldiers signed up for their jobs, but not with the idea that they were expendable because someone wanted to get rich with wartime profits or wanted to throw their weight around because they had the power and had seen too many John Wayne movies. Our leaders should be more mature and moral than that. We are lucky to have so many dedicated and talented people in the military. They should not be sent to war unless the president felt the war was important enough to send their own loved ones into that battle.
I read an opinion piece decades ago speaking to this issue and suggesting that contentious leaders unable to resolve issues diplomatically simply be forced to a duel or similar, period - eliminating all the nasty, heartbreaking, and unnecessary losses and associated aspects of all-out war. It made so much sense to me! Still does. In reality, things wouldn't be all that simple, but at the very least, it may make most "leaders" think twice..
This comes to mind, slightly off topic, but maybe not. From George Saunders’s acceptance speech “what seems other is actually not other at all, but just us on a different day.” Thinking back, may be truer than I want to admit. Like many, I had to learn so much and discard what should never have been taught.
True, Jeri. I learned the lost cause with my mother’s milk, and I’ve been struggling to unlearn it for the past fifteen years. So thankful for Dr. Richardson and this group, for the assist in a very difficult effort.
The dead Chinese stacked like cord wood for the winter in Montana were primarily murder victims and of course their murderers were not pursued as the populace of Chinese workers were sub-human and the laws didn’t protect them.
"the oppressors perceived the their victims as less than human"
Michael, perhaps that is true.
Or, perhaps the people who put in place the Jim Crow laws and killed other humans wantonly and without reason were just selfish and brutish and intent on their own outcomes.
Perhaps it was as simple as "I want that, you have that, now you are dead".
In the case of Jim Crow, one MUST read, "By Hands Now Known: Jim Crows Legal Executioners".
In this book we see people killed for stupid reasons and for fun. Just folks who want to enjoy the troubles of others. Not those that "dehumanize" them.
Those that want to have some fun killing someone under legal circumstances where it is OK.
Yes, of course...but it doesn’t have the immediate, emotional response. Just take a look at pictures of people attending a lynching, celebrating, actually.
They still are, Jerry: Boston has been consistently rated as the most racist city in the USA. As I observe the struggles Canada is going through to try to legislate reparations to their First People, I doubt that the US is in any condition to even begin that conversation. Something academics have begun to do: many of us begin academic conference sessions with the acknowledgement that we are all standing on land stolen from indigenous people (the specific groups are usually identified by name) and that we owe them not just acknowledgement but also reparations. Some of my colleagues have begun to include this kind of information on their signature lines in official university emails as well. This is a trend going across the USA and Canada.
Well, Boston has a mayor who is Taiwanese-American, a police commissioner who is Black, at least three Black city councilors, two who are Hispanic and one who, from her headscarf appears to be Muslim. I represented several women who were members of the Fire Department ( and women of color), and their view was that Black and Hispanic firefighters were well-accepted, if they were male. Does the city still struggle with racism? Of course. But take surveys like the one you cite with many grains of salt.
I am very ashamed of the way we treated the Indian people, and sadly all people of color... or anyone we judge as "different" as if each if each of us is not an amazing unique creation, yet in the same breath proclaim ourselves a great Christian nation.
Jesus was not "white". According to scripture, He was born within a Jewish family. He was accused of being a criminal by the Pharisees and executed by the Roman government. Yet He commanded "peace"," love one another as I have loved you and gave up myself for you...."
If we are of this faith, though imperfect we can read about and witness the gradual and or sudden transformation of those who truly work to live out their faith also asking forgiveness many times when we know we have spoken hurtful words or done things we know within our beings are wrong. Other faiths also practice acts of goodness and kindness: Indians (remember the story of how they helped the first European explorers to survive their first harsh winter and the Indian woman who lead Lewis and Clark to the west coast of our country....and also the use of native language during World War II as code to send important secret messages to our troops. We have fought side by side for our freedoms: people of all colors, tribes,,,,etc, for Freedom and we must continue to fight together for this most precious ideal.
I hear much compassion and a call to recognize injustice and "love one another" in very practical ways. At the same time, I am troubled by the "we" in your first sentence, "the way we treated the Indian people." I think that makes it too easy for folks to dismiss this history, and the call for reparation, especially if, like me, their ancestors came from outside the US, and had no connection to the early atrocities. "We didn't do this, so why should we have to pay?" I think a call to reparation requires a more complex connection between present day citizens and the horrific history (even to the present day) of injustice and atrocities committed against people of color in our country.
"We" didn't do it, but "we" benefited and still benefit from the seizure of indigenous lands and the genocide of the indigenous people. We need to acknowledge that, not to beat ourselves up but to at least recognize whose land we are on and ensure that we are not contributing to their continued oppression.
Thank you Allen. That is exactly what I meant by a more complex connection between present day citizens and the horrific history.... It's another messaging challenge, so that more and more of us see the need for full justice.
Yes, Chaplin Terry. As a mom to teenage children, and as a Christian, I wanted them to learn to serve others and to learn to love and respect all people. We helped to repair homes in the mountains of NC. We spoke with one of the Indian families there. It was at the time when casinos had been approved. The couple were strong and faithful
christians. They were opposed to casinos but they made this comment, "....but maybe our little Indian children will have shoes." A culture. a language, a home. land or the ability to move from place to place to hunt....the introduction of alchohol....horrors!
We can not understand until we get to know one another.....and even then we cannot know the horror of being treated with an attitude of disgust....unless we experience it.
Thank you Emily. I love hearing about the hands-on, in person way that you are educating your children about love and service and respect for the "others." Your personal story can go a long way to expanding understanding, and with that a growing call for justice and reparation.
My impression is that you are speaking to poverty. Those who don’t live on reservations aren’t necessarily recipients of casino wealth or benefits. Since the Casino industry was entirely fostered under tribal authority I guess I am not sure what part of “we”it is that are “repaying.”
During some research in eastern Oregon for a book project, I encountered jealously among whites regarding the stronger casino-driven economy on a reservation versus that in the adjacent city. This was about 12 years ago.
Northerners were not as racist as Southerners. That is wrong. Europe to Russia was always a mess. Germans led, with Hitler elected following Mussolini elected - the Austrians, the French, the Poles, the Russians, the Italians, the unholy Vatican, Pope Pius VI, Czechoslovakians. the Spanish, the Portuguese, AND FDR - who turned away boats loaded with Jews, as the Brits before Churchill enabled Hitler - the Holocaust in Europe reflected the human experience most everywhere. Study India, Grandi and South Africa..
Sandy, don't forget what the English did to the Irish - forbid them to practice their religion, speak their language, own land, vote, and the list goes on, much the same as they did in other parts of their empire, and would have done here, given the chance.
History is so unkind to the myths and better story we create to mask the century of invasion and subjugation of the lands and people we know as America the Beautiful. Because history does not let us claim that we didn't have a hand in the subjugation and cruelty that is conquering, we will continue to write a new story, a new narrative exalting the values expressed in our Declaration of Indepence about the equality of all mankind or the Sunday School lessons that aculturate another generation of children denied the truth of what man does to man and the destruction that derives from war, conquering, and progress. Our past will become our present when the history get written by the next majority who conquer and gain access to facts and narrative lived by them. We polish our narrative so that history does not replace our beliefs with another's reality. Once the pursestrings of reparation are untied, all our myths become known for what they are, lies to cover the true sins of the residents in our past.
I read two fascinating books this year that dig deep into two chapters of the past that you describe:
- "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" by David Grann.
- "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History" by S.C. Gwynne.
We know the past treatment of native people was beyond horrible. Learning the details involving specific individuals and places is revelatory — in a very disturbing way.
Fred, wow!!! beautifully written and true. Thank you for taking time to express yourself.
We need to look into your words and see ourselves. We can always do something kind especially if we ask the question (seriously) What if it were me,,,,my children?
Add Canada, too. Unlike the U.S., it has long publicly acknowledged its sins against the Indigenous peoples, and 40 years go enshrined rights for them in a constitutional act.
My take-away: that northerners were as racist as southerners. If Germany can pay reparations to survivors of Holocaust survivors while providing a good social safety net for their citizens, the US should do something similar for Native Americans.
With slavery, Jim Crow laws, the genocide against Native Americans, and the Holocaust, there was a common denominator: the oppressors perceived the their victims as less than human. That’s always the rationalization for horrible treatment of “the other.”
Everyone has the potential to dehumanise someone they perceive as "the enemy". Every time I catch myself gloating over the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine this week, I have to stop and remind myself that these figures represent so many more young guys who won't be coming home to their families.
The enemy I faced in the jungles I finally realized was not the enemy. He was just trying to kill me because I was just trying to kill him.
Pat,
Sounds like you must have been in Vietnam. Yes, you were stuck in a bad spot for bad reasons, no doubt, but, thanks for your service.
Definitely, it was not your fault.
Well said. Thank you for going when you had to.
Talia, exactly. My boyish fantasies about enemy annihilation are tempered by my geezers' empathy with the loved ones left behind.
And ther are always loved ones left behind, unless you look at the Nazis who killed their children before themselves.
Thank you for this. I wonder how long this war would last if Putin and his closest supporters had to be the ones actually fighting in the fields of battle.......
“It’s always the old who lead us to the wars, always the young who fall” - Phil Ochs
The young are taken advantaged of. And the old know it.
I often thought when I was in college, that if the leaders of countries had to fight it out in an arena, we would have less wars. It is tragic when presidents send our military to fight in order to line the pockets of the military industrial complex, rather than to preserve our democracy. I couldn't understand how someone like George Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld could send soldiers to die for the reasons they manufactured. This to me, is another example of seeing a group of people as less than human. Yes, soldiers signed up for their jobs, but not with the idea that they were expendable because someone wanted to get rich with wartime profits or wanted to throw their weight around because they had the power and had seen too many John Wayne movies. Our leaders should be more mature and moral than that. We are lucky to have so many dedicated and talented people in the military. They should not be sent to war unless the president felt the war was important enough to send their own loved ones into that battle.
I read an opinion piece decades ago speaking to this issue and suggesting that contentious leaders unable to resolve issues diplomatically simply be forced to a duel or similar, period - eliminating all the nasty, heartbreaking, and unnecessary losses and associated aspects of all-out war. It made so much sense to me! Still does. In reality, things wouldn't be all that simple, but at the very least, it may make most "leaders" think twice..
Or fell out of windows.
This comes to mind, slightly off topic, but maybe not. From George Saunders’s acceptance speech “what seems other is actually not other at all, but just us on a different day.” Thinking back, may be truer than I want to admit. Like many, I had to learn so much and discard what should never have been taught.
True, Jeri. I learned the lost cause with my mother’s milk, and I’ve been struggling to unlearn it for the past fifteen years. So thankful for Dr. Richardson and this group, for the assist in a very difficult effort.
The dead Chinese stacked like cord wood for the winter in Montana were primarily murder victims and of course their murderers were not pursued as the populace of Chinese workers were sub-human and the laws didn’t protect them.
Oh dear, another atrocity that I didn't know about.
"the oppressors perceived the their victims as less than human"
Michael, perhaps that is true.
Or, perhaps the people who put in place the Jim Crow laws and killed other humans wantonly and without reason were just selfish and brutish and intent on their own outcomes.
Perhaps it was as simple as "I want that, you have that, now you are dead".
In the case of Jim Crow, one MUST read, "By Hands Now Known: Jim Crows Legal Executioners".
In this book we see people killed for stupid reasons and for fun. Just folks who want to enjoy the troubles of others. Not those that "dehumanize" them.
Those that want to have some fun killing someone under legal circumstances where it is OK.
Doesn't "killing for fun" imply dehumanization?
Yes, of course...but it doesn’t have the immediate, emotional response. Just take a look at pictures of people attending a lynching, celebrating, actually.
Weren't some lynching attendees forced to watch too as an example of the consequences of stepping out of line?
Exactly.
Just as Magas see people seeking asylum. Put 'em on a bus and dump them in the freezing cold on Christmas Eve.
They still are, Jerry: Boston has been consistently rated as the most racist city in the USA. As I observe the struggles Canada is going through to try to legislate reparations to their First People, I doubt that the US is in any condition to even begin that conversation. Something academics have begun to do: many of us begin academic conference sessions with the acknowledgement that we are all standing on land stolen from indigenous people (the specific groups are usually identified by name) and that we owe them not just acknowledgement but also reparations. Some of my colleagues have begun to include this kind of information on their signature lines in official university emails as well. This is a trend going across the USA and Canada.
Well, Boston has a mayor who is Taiwanese-American, a police commissioner who is Black, at least three Black city councilors, two who are Hispanic and one who, from her headscarf appears to be Muslim. I represented several women who were members of the Fire Department ( and women of color), and their view was that Black and Hispanic firefighters were well-accepted, if they were male. Does the city still struggle with racism? Of course. But take surveys like the one you cite with many grains of salt.
Yes these recent elected officials make my heart sing! I voted for them all!
Miigwech.
I am very ashamed of the way we treated the Indian people, and sadly all people of color... or anyone we judge as "different" as if each if each of us is not an amazing unique creation, yet in the same breath proclaim ourselves a great Christian nation.
Jesus was not "white". According to scripture, He was born within a Jewish family. He was accused of being a criminal by the Pharisees and executed by the Roman government. Yet He commanded "peace"," love one another as I have loved you and gave up myself for you...."
If we are of this faith, though imperfect we can read about and witness the gradual and or sudden transformation of those who truly work to live out their faith also asking forgiveness many times when we know we have spoken hurtful words or done things we know within our beings are wrong. Other faiths also practice acts of goodness and kindness: Indians (remember the story of how they helped the first European explorers to survive their first harsh winter and the Indian woman who lead Lewis and Clark to the west coast of our country....and also the use of native language during World War II as code to send important secret messages to our troops. We have fought side by side for our freedoms: people of all colors, tribes,,,,etc, for Freedom and we must continue to fight together for this most precious ideal.
I hear much compassion and a call to recognize injustice and "love one another" in very practical ways. At the same time, I am troubled by the "we" in your first sentence, "the way we treated the Indian people." I think that makes it too easy for folks to dismiss this history, and the call for reparation, especially if, like me, their ancestors came from outside the US, and had no connection to the early atrocities. "We didn't do this, so why should we have to pay?" I think a call to reparation requires a more complex connection between present day citizens and the horrific history (even to the present day) of injustice and atrocities committed against people of color in our country.
"We" didn't do it, but "we" benefited and still benefit from the seizure of indigenous lands and the genocide of the indigenous people. We need to acknowledge that, not to beat ourselves up but to at least recognize whose land we are on and ensure that we are not contributing to their continued oppression.
Thank you Allen. That is exactly what I meant by a more complex connection between present day citizens and the horrific history.... It's another messaging challenge, so that more and more of us see the need for full justice.
Yes, Chaplin Terry. As a mom to teenage children, and as a Christian, I wanted them to learn to serve others and to learn to love and respect all people. We helped to repair homes in the mountains of NC. We spoke with one of the Indian families there. It was at the time when casinos had been approved. The couple were strong and faithful
christians. They were opposed to casinos but they made this comment, "....but maybe our little Indian children will have shoes." A culture. a language, a home. land or the ability to move from place to place to hunt....the introduction of alchohol....horrors!
We can not understand until we get to know one another.....and even then we cannot know the horror of being treated with an attitude of disgust....unless we experience it.
Thank you Emily. I love hearing about the hands-on, in person way that you are educating your children about love and service and respect for the "others." Your personal story can go a long way to expanding understanding, and with that a growing call for justice and reparation.
Sadly, we are only repaying Native Americans that happen to be in the tribe where gambling has been sanctioned. And then handsomely, but only then.
The vast majority of Native Americans do not live on reservations.
Yes, but what is your point?
My impression is that you are speaking to poverty. Those who don’t live on reservations aren’t necessarily recipients of casino wealth or benefits. Since the Casino industry was entirely fostered under tribal authority I guess I am not sure what part of “we”it is that are “repaying.”
Pat,
To support your own words: "We" are not repaying anybody for anything.
In the case of Casino money, the tribes, on their own capitalist initiative, are making their own money.
Yes.
During some research in eastern Oregon for a book project, I encountered jealously among whites regarding the stronger casino-driven economy on a reservation versus that in the adjacent city. This was about 12 years ago.
Michael, jealousy and greed have always been catastrophic enemies of generosity and the freedom and security to be kind.
Northerners were not as racist as Southerners. That is wrong. Europe to Russia was always a mess. Germans led, with Hitler elected following Mussolini elected - the Austrians, the French, the Poles, the Russians, the Italians, the unholy Vatican, Pope Pius VI, Czechoslovakians. the Spanish, the Portuguese, AND FDR - who turned away boats loaded with Jews, as the Brits before Churchill enabled Hitler - the Holocaust in Europe reflected the human experience most everywhere. Study India, Grandi and South Africa..
Sandy, don't forget what the English did to the Irish - forbid them to practice their religion, speak their language, own land, vote, and the list goes on, much the same as they did in other parts of their empire, and would have done here, given the chance.
History is so unkind to the myths and better story we create to mask the century of invasion and subjugation of the lands and people we know as America the Beautiful. Because history does not let us claim that we didn't have a hand in the subjugation and cruelty that is conquering, we will continue to write a new story, a new narrative exalting the values expressed in our Declaration of Indepence about the equality of all mankind or the Sunday School lessons that aculturate another generation of children denied the truth of what man does to man and the destruction that derives from war, conquering, and progress. Our past will become our present when the history get written by the next majority who conquer and gain access to facts and narrative lived by them. We polish our narrative so that history does not replace our beliefs with another's reality. Once the pursestrings of reparation are untied, all our myths become known for what they are, lies to cover the true sins of the residents in our past.
I read two fascinating books this year that dig deep into two chapters of the past that you describe:
- "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" by David Grann.
- "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History" by S.C. Gwynne.
We know the past treatment of native people was beyond horrible. Learning the details involving specific individuals and places is revelatory — in a very disturbing way.
Thanks for the recommendations. Enjoy your thinking and knowledge shared.
Fred, wow!!! beautifully written and true. Thank you for taking time to express yourself.
We need to look into your words and see ourselves. We can always do something kind especially if we ask the question (seriously) What if it were me,,,,my children?
We are "residents of the present."
I think maybe you are on to something.
Add Canada, too. Unlike the U.S., it has long publicly acknowledged its sins against the Indigenous peoples, and 40 years go enshrined rights for them in a constitutional act.