photo credit: www.unheralded.fish
I’m not a fan of guilt or shame.
I have a particularly hard time with them in their role as culture-police; mechanisms embedded in the ethos to modify social behavior. Dishonor shouldn’t compel sororicide or homicide or suicide. Taking the blame isn’t the same as taking responsibility.
But I do feel guilty. And ashamed. You should, too.
This isn’t my usual post. This isn’t a retrospective on my writing tools, a discourse on how word processors affect writing style, an update on my creative process. This post is about our collective guilt and our national shame. This is about Standing Rock.
I grew up in the 1950s. Grew up white in a world where people freely, obliviously used the term “Indian giver.” Where the “dime-store” / “cigar-store” Indian adorned Main Street. Where a ridiculous white guy greeted Howdy Doody with “Kowabunga! Me, heap big chief, Thunderthud, need-um squaw.” Where Jay Silverheels’ character in the epic hit TV series The Lone Ranger was named “Tonto” (“stupid” in Spanish) and spoke a flawed, pidgin English. Where the ubiquitous Westerns made Cowboys good guys and Injuns bad guys, and the oh-so rare good-guy Indian was invariably played by someone of European – typically Italian – descent (Sal Mineo, Victor Mature).
Despite the barrage of derogatory, racist stereotypes, I always pretended to be an Indian. I wish I could say that even as little kid, my “one-with-nature” instincts impelled that choice; more than likely I was simply brainwashed by the romantic notion of the Noble Savage. I pretended to be Tarzan, too.
Then, in 1961, the 5th and 6th graders of Washington Elementary School did the story of Squanto for their Thanksgiving play. It broke my heart. We killed them. They welcomed us, and we killed them. Killed them all with our stupid germs. WE did. I was 8 years old. Old enough to know that I was somehow complicit in a terrible, unforgivable wrong.
I know it still. You need to know it. Deep down. In your heart, in your bones.
It doesn’t matter that we didn’t serve under Custer and slaughter innocents at Little Big Horn. Doesn’t matter that we didn’t dispense small-pox infected blankets in a vile act of germ warfare. That we didn’t murder the warriors of Wounded Knee. Didn’t drive free people into the slavery of the missions, didn’t force the Cherokee down the Trail of Tears, didn’t personally rip children from their mothers’ arms and rip every shred of their native humanity from them.
It doesn’t matter, because it was done in our name. Wait, what? You weren’t alive then? Your ancestors were still in Latvia during the Indian Wars? You’re one-gazillionth Indian?
So what.
Whether or not our family lines stretch back to Plymouth Rock, we are here because the Pilgrims came, claimed, and killed. We get to be Americans because the Americans before us engaged in systematic genocide and oppression. We get to enjoy our lovely, privileged American lives because our government – our elected representatives – deliberately broke every single one of the more than 370 ratified treaties it signed with Native American Tribes.
And we’re doing it again.
Writers with more immediate access, more political acumen, and more personal right to this story are telling it better than ever I could.
Click HERE for answers to FAQs about Standing Rock litigation (the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit).
Click HERE for a clear, concise explanation of the whole sitch, everything you need to know.
Click HERE for some ways to help.
A part of me simply cannot believe everyone does not own the guilt I own for the atrocities, the broken promises, the racism, the rapes, the destruction, the disrespect, the utter, abject cruelty we have imposed on sovereign peoples for no other reason than we wanted to live where they were living. A part of me simply cannot believe everyone does not feel the shame I feel that even now – even as I write this – we are perpetuating this hideous legacy of immorality, injustice, and tyranny.
This must stop. Demand it. Write or call your reps, your senators, your president, the judge hearing this case. Spread the word. Stand with Standing Rock.
I would certainly wish them the very best in their struggle. Alas, big oil is an equal opportunities abuser of anyone and anything that gets in its way. Shell have a shameful record too, and they didn’t win many friends in Ireland when they engaged in the system to bring gas ashore in Mayo. Well, they won a few friends, I suppose. Pocket-sized friends.
I’ve always considered the Americas to be founded on genocide stretching back to the Conquistadors. And Europeans extended their welcome east and south too, into Asia, Australia and Africa, lest the Americas should feel left out. Not much escaped our beady eyes. Look for straight lines on a map, and there be monsters (of a different kind).
Well said, Dec. True enough about big oil’s global abuse policy. In the States, that abuse is hugely political; with no caps on campaign fundraising, big oil has long been deeply entrenched in our halls of government. As you note, by re-drawing the maps of the world, by carving it up into neat, profitable slices, colonization is intrinsically and essentially exploitative and evil. Still, now he has nothing to lose, Obama has been doing some real good here and there. Fingers crossed he’ll be the first U.S. Pres ever to uphold a treaty signed with a Native American Tribe, the first ever to defend the rights of our indigenous peoples against the might and violence of corporate greed.