Mr. Gerlach's first guest column this week drew an argument from one of my fellow beneficiaries of white conquest and privilege that Indians raped and killed us and each other, so we conquerors need not feel bad for raping and killing them. Our red brothers are victims of war, says the commenter. The best thing we can do for them is turn them all into white people. Anything else (reparations, cultural respect, support for tribal sovereignty) is just a disgusting Democrat plot to foster a dependent voting class.
Permit me a moment to wash out my mouth....
The "War Happens" argument has rarely stopped nations from seeking to reverse history. The Romans and the Turks successfully conquered the Holy Land, but that didn't stop the Brits from marching in a century ago to reclaim Palestine for the Jews. The Nazis conquered France in 1940, but that didn't stop the Allies from swimming across on D-Day. The Soviets beat back the Nazis and reconquered Eastern Europe fair and square in 1944 and 1945, but instead of accepting their victors' spoils and their efforts to assimilate the Warsaw Pact countries into one stable Slavic empire, we beat back the Soviet conquest through war by proxy and deficit spending. Arguing "War Happens" guarantees war will happen again... and you'll find comfort in the argument only until a bigger kid moves to your block.
But discussing (or dismissing) the American Indian problem in terms of war misses the point.
Allow for a moment an utterly naïve Eurocentric view. Accept for the sake of argument the offensive notion that in the 19th century, we white folks were good guys, and those red savages were bad guys. Even in that John Wayne&ndashGeronimo, Kirk&ndashKlingons world, we didn't just fight and win a war.
After we had effectively defeated, disarmed, and contained the enemy (think Kirk and the Gorn at Vasquez Rocks, or MacArthur and Umezu on the Missouri), we didn't help our enemy up our rebuild their economic infrastructure. We sustained a decades-long campaign of physical, psychological, and sexual torture... on their children.
Mr. Kurtz links to this story of institutional abuse of Indian children right here in South Dakota. The details horrify: Indian children taken by force from their parents, falsely labeled "orphans," whipped and molested by perverts cloaked in holy robes. But hey, an eye for an eye, a rape for a rape—that's the way we defenders of the Judeo-Christian way roll, right?
We subjected a defeated people to cultural destruction that imposed ongoing social costs:
The church caused the drinking and other problems former students experience. As a result, the tribe must sponsor chemical-dependency, suicide-prevention, anger-management, and many other programs, which is an enormous economic burden. At Sisseton Wahpeton, we just had three suicides, all youngsters in their 20s, and this happens frequently. Why? It's the result of how we elders were treated as children—an effect that continues through the generations [Howard Wanna, quoted by Stephanie Woodard, "South Dakota Boarding School Survivors Detail Sexual Abuse," Indian Country, 2011.07.13].
Another survivor of our psychosexual warfare puts the damage in personal terms:
What I want is to talk about Tekakwitha [the "orphanage" in Sisseton]. They took away our sense of belonging to anyone, our opportunities to develop relationships. They kept us off balance by sending us here and there without warning. But they could never take away the truth: that what they were doing was wrong. I want everyone to know what happened to us there [Mary-Catherine Renville, in Woodard, 2011.07.13].
We need to know what happened here in South Dakota. Steel yourself, and read Woodard's article and the three detailed eyewitness accounts of how we didn't just beat the Indians, but beat them, over and over. Then ask yourself: is all fair in war?
And the next time some comfortable wasicu advocates assimilation as the logical conclusion to white-red war, ask yourself: if you were an Indian, would you want to grow up to be just like white folks with history like this?
Some who want to keep God out of politics will not like some of this but this topic is not just about politics, it is about right and wrong.
First of all, might does not make right.
But then for my attitude that the true soveriegn had some effect on this. I am not blaming God for the bad that happened, we need to take responsibility for that our selves.
Why are there reservations in every state of this union. It might be that God wanted ALL of us to see the mess we make when we massacre people for their land. How could such successful elimination of millions of people result in over five hundred tribes still having a remnent left, unless there was a God making sure we would see what we did. I once met a Native American in a homeless shelter who told me he had been sober and a Christian for fifteen years and wished there was a purpose for his life. This of course did not fit my assumption that if you live good that your life will work out ok. Mine had not either but I was only thinking of his situation at the time. So when faced with an impossible question I prayed for an answer. One came in my mind right away and it seemed almost to negative to say. I told him that in the Bible there were many wars and a few times the people had been so totally bad that God let them be totally wiped out. But quite often a remnant would be left and there would be a purpose for them. I told him that what came to mind when I prayed was that his misery had a purpose in us seeing the damage we had done. I also said that I sincerely hoped he had a positive purpose also. A week later he was asked if he could serve on the homeless coalition in Sioux Falls.
Another situation I noticed was when I started farming in the late seventies. The towns around here were having their centenials since it was one hundred years since this area was settled my white people. They started giving century awards to farms that had been in the family for one hundred years. Not more than about one percent recieved awards back then. Most of those who took the free land had not kept it. Now days many get this award but they are not decendants of the homesteaders. The biggest cost per bushel in farming is land cost. Those who got free stolen land did not keep it. Does the Christian right see this as God's blessing on us keeping the land. After 140 years farmers still think they need subsidies to keep their land. This is not a blessed situation when the soil is very good.
When the pilgrims and other groups came to the east coast many got along with the Natives. Some of those tribes have never had war with us to this day. That is why the BIA does not recognize them as tribes since they feel the money should go to those who suffered. The first fifty years of this country any criminal that fled to the Appalatian Mts was free from the law. This total lack of justice resulted in an almost total lose of religion in this country which was a prerequisite to the Great Awakening in 1830. So the first people moving west were criminals. The Indians did not have a Thanksgiving with these people. That is when the real wars with natives started. The attitude on the east coast is that we can settle here and the way the Indians treated criminals made us think they were bad people. Once public opinion is against you it is real hard to change it. That was true with slavery, masacring Indians, Tea Partiers, abortion, and etc. It is always easier to see the other persons mistake than to see our own. Understanding is a gift of the Holy Spirit, so I pray that I have some so I am not as stupid as human beings are capable of.
Meanwhile, no deal yet on raising the debt ceiling as DEFAULT still looms and is coming in "2 and 2" (what Chuck Wollery from "Love Connection use to always say before going to break: "We'll be back in 2 and 2"). Yes that looming deadline with REAL consequences for us all is in 2 weeks and 2 days.
No matter what those in robes did to natives and others, that was likely a small part of the population or those were some awfully busy abusers.
There is a large element of hypocrisy or historical blindness on the part of some Native Americans. They have opportunities to escape poverty and drugs if they take them. The tribes slaughtered each other, stole others horses, raped women of the other tribes, and enslaved them. That was no more justified than what whites did to them.
There is plenty of trash to go around, but at some point what did or did not happen to our ancestors ceases to be relevant. In the Balkans, battles that happened hundreds of years ago were used as justification for genocide. That kind of lunacy is the flip side of using such as excuses for failure today.
Wow, Doug. So, support progressive causes unless they are working with aboriginals fighting for equal human rights? Woster was right: you hate Indians, don't you?
"They have opportunities" should read "we have opportunities," Mr. Wiken. We've all slaughtered each other. Recall James T. Kirk's line: “We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands.
But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.â€
I agree with Doug Wiken above; well said. (Don't faint that we actually agree with each other for once!)
I recently discovered that both my husband's ancestor and my ancestor were brought to the US as indentured servants on the same ship after being on the losing side on a war in Scotland. They were both able to move on evidently after a time and moved westward. Wars sadly happen and will more sadly continue to happen. People are what they determine to make of themselves, but they can't be successful if they continue to live in the past and be victims of past injustices.
"Success" is what white people say it is, right Nonnie?
Rewild the West.
White people, the shoe is about to drop on your other foot.
Wiken is an idealist on this topic. In a sane world without prejudice, he would be right. The world we're in is neither.
And Doug, it is never the prerogative of the oppressor to demand forgiveness from the oppressed.
You're not the only one who has had trouble keeping that straight.
Although none of us can solve the problems on the reservation, we need to give Native Americans the same respect as we would our neighbors, family and friends.
Mr. Black: "Although none of us can solve the problems in South Dakota, we need to give Republicans the same respect as we would our neighbors, family and friends."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pbso85eeNo
Larry, I respect the Native Americans more than I do the job Congress has done not passing a budget for the US in over 800 days...democrats and republicans included.
I am not demanding forgiveness for anything from anybody and am not particularly interested in "reconciliation".
The sad (depending on your perspective) fact is that Native Americans need to reconcile themselves to the fact that 100 years ago their ancestors lost wars to brutal power coupled with arrogant ignorance and manifest destiny.
Then make the best of a bad situation. Take advantage of education opportunities. Forget about emulating Black and Hispanic gang life and give themselves, their parents and their ancestors reason for pride. They have the same distribution of talent and capability as any other group.
That they make their own lives miserable to demonstrate how terrible white oppression is is one of the saddest things I see around here.
A neighbor and I moved nearly 200 desks to the Ideal school so that the Native community there would have a place for summer school and community meetings if they wanted it.
I am not involved with that, but I was told several Ideal women have a dozen or so kids working on various projects. It is a small start, but better than nothing. I suspect the 102F weather here may slow that down.
Native Americans may have lost the war, but they also lost when it came to the US government honoring the treaties negotiated with them. I am not an expert and I don't have the answer but any solutions will require recognition of these agreements.
I will also take exception to Wiken's statement that the Indian people have the same capability as any other group. Innate capability, yes. But in real life, no. Not when the infant mortality rate is three times that of the rest of the US. Not when schools and health care are underfunded to the extent they are. Not when children, crowded into small, substandard homes with an average of 17 people, are deprived of the necessary sleep they need to perform at school. Not when there is a 70% high school dropout rate. Not when addictions and sexual abuse and inadequate resources to adddress these plagues contribute to a youth suicide epidemic that is for the most part ignored by the outside world. By the time these youth would have a chance to "take advantage of education opportunities" their options have already been destroyed. We must address these third world conditions to have any chance for solutions.
Finally, I will also take exception to the depersonalizing generalizations made about Indian people as if they are a homogenous group. Demographic data describes populations, not individuals. And we must listen to the individuals who have found pathways that can lead to solutions for others.
Douglas, not that I am in any way condoning it... but it could be argued that forming gangs IS the best way to make the best of a bad situation. It's happened with virtually every wave of immigration as society divides into the "haves" and the "have nots." I'm just sayin...
Think about it. The Boston Tea Party was a "gang."
So were the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
The observation by one of the "gang members" (I believe it was Benny Franklin) was something to the effect of "we all gotta hang together or we gonna hang separately."
There is leadership there. Recognize them and work with them.
20 soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in the Wounded Knee Massacre where 300 Native Americans lost their lives. Most of the army deaths were attributed to the friendly fire of the Hotchkiss machine guns. Troopers opened fire on women and children, sometimes hunting them down as far as two miles before killing them.
I would like anyone of the "suck it up/you have the same opportunities as I do" group to be born in poverty, live with addicted parents and corrupt law enforcement and political leaders, a constant string of lies, no stability in your schools, conflicting messages about your faith, the better than average chance that you have siblings from multiple other fathers, living in waste and hatred and disgust and tell me how much hope, faith, self esteem and courage you would have at 18 when you are considered an "adult".
SO easy to judge when you have never had to live the life they do. Why don't they leave? Their kids for God's sake and they are beaten down before they ever have a fighting chance. Go there and see rather then sitting there and judging.
Shane
A good job on the NA part Corey but your characterization of the cold war as some sort of unnecessary misunderstanding is breathtakingly naive:
1) did the soviets simply "reconquer" Eastern Europe from the Nazis?
2) where they really somehow entitled to enslave and exploit the populations of all Eastern Bloc countries as part of their 'victors spoils' as you suggest?
3) there is a moral difference in the approach of the United States to our former enemies (Germany and Japan) after WWII vs. the approach of Soviet Russia to the Eastern block countries and you turn this around into some sort of implication that we (U.S.) should have 'accepted' the Warsaw Pact countries as some sort of mythical 'stable Slavic empire'.
your views on the post WWII era my friend are left wing clap-trap. One cannot recognize (much less accept) an empire where the barb-wired and guard towers go up to keep the population from leaving. As well read as you are have you not read any Solzhenitsyn???
Oh, Carl, I do not underestimate the real threats freedom and civilization faced from Soviet Russia, communism, and global thermonuclear war. But my point is to highlight the naïeté of the oversimplified conqueror's excuse. The white-privilege apologetics to which I was originally responding negate the basis for the response to evil empires you want. Accept the commenter's position, and the Soviets could have said they had just as much right to hold and dominate Eastern Europe as the U.S. to hold Dakota Territory. (If I really put on my left-wing clap-trap hat, I could argue the Russians had even more justification for seizing Eastern Europe, to ensure they had a security buffer after withstanding two invasions from Germany in three decades... but geopolitics is well beyond the scope of the original commenter's argument.)
We must recognize that conquest by itself does not justify subsequent occupation or oppression. I agree with your moral distinction between America's treatment of West Germany and Japan and Russia's treatment of East Germany, Poland, et al. The commenter's apologetics can not.
(Solzhenitsyn! Yes, I've read The Gulag Archipelago and August 1914. Is Solzhenitsyn in the Rutland curriculum?)
Update: http://buffalosfire.com/?p=2814
Interesting read: http://64.38.12.138/News/2011/002373.asp