400+ Years of Not Listening
(Links for more information are provided at the end of the article.)
So, this is going to be a rambling essay on my experiences discussing race. I’m not going to go into the conversations themselves, just the resultant thoughts that have occured to me during my quest to be a better man, better father, and a better patriot.
There are many conversations I’ve had over the years regarding our laws and institutions in the United States and many times, like tributaries to a river, these conversations inevitably turn toward disparities in sentencing or arrests on people of color. I am, after all, Shawn the INDIGENOUS Patriot. Comes with the territory.
Inevitably in these conversations, there’s always someone who asks the following: “Why do you focus so much on race? You must be racist.”
Why do conversations with a person of color focus on race so much? I can’t answer that for anyone but myself. What I will do, however, is my best to answer that from my limited perspective.
By now, unless you have had your head in the sand for the entirety of your life, you’ve come to understand the historical facts of Indigenous genocide as well as the enslavement of Indigenous and the African people forcibly brought to the “New World” in slave ships.
While there are other marginalized groups in the United States, you’ll come to understand why I single out the two above.
I think few people who consider themselves patriots with moral fiber would subscribe to the idea that the horrors of genocide and slavery were okay.
There is little in the way of comparable experiences similar to the history of Indigenous and black Americans in regard to that of European Americans.
Imagine a relationship with the land — an idea that it’s not owned by any single person but is of communal use. Your people have only known this land, and your creation myths revolve around it.
Imagine living where your roots have been for MILLENIA.
Imagine the language of your people, the religion that forms the core of your beliefs. It’s been with your family since time immemorial.
Now imagine having all of that stripped from you.
No land — you’re relocated.
No language — you’re beaten if you speak it.
No religion — you’re killed if you practice it.
No family — you’re sold, marched, or bred so that your roots are burnt to ashes and there’s nothing left connecting you to what you once were.
It’s hard to tell a person who has no roots, who has no land, who has lost their language and their religion that they should move on because we are “equal now”.
I believe it’s because historically the United States Government — through programs like the Trail of Tears (1) and schools like Carlisle (2)in regard to Indigenous Americans, as well as through the massacre in Tulsa(3), the Jim Crow era and police brutality in regard to black Americans (4), as well as a litany of other examples of systemic racism now and throughout history — have tried to prevent these disparate communities the regaining of old roots or the planting of their feet into the soil of America to grow new ones.
Your hair is cut and your skin is scrubbed because “your dirty people have lice”.
You’re force fed the religion of the colonizers who ruined your culture, your friends, and your family. (5)
The land you’re pushed onto is subpar in areas where the colonizers thought had no value, so even if you have some farming skills the soil in many cases is mediocre. (6)
If you’re not Indigenous or black American, where did your ancestors immigrate from? What’s your family crest? Do you have a Bible or other heirloom they brought over from the old world? Do you still have family there? If so, that’s great and I wish everyone had that.
What a lot of people do not know is that the Indigenous religion a lot of tribes currently practices comes from the Lakota because it was they that brought Indigenous rights to the attention of America in the 1970s since religious freedom for Indigenous Americans wasn’t actually even a thing until 1978. (7)
Many tribes lost their old ways through relocation and forced religious education / boarding schools like, as mentioned, Carlisle, so the closest thing they could find that would bring them back to their closeness to the earth were the teachings of the Lakota.
Ask a black American in 2020 what tribal group in Africa their ancestors are from and ask an Indigenous American to fluently speak their Native language.
A very small population will be able to answer both of these requests. A VERY small population.
I am not even qualified to speak on religion as it historically pertains to whatever regions the ancestors of black Americans were stolen from because I’m sure it runs the gamut.
But finding a black American in 2020, who’s ancestors were brought over during the slave trade, that has kept ties to their religion for the last 400 years is probably unlikely — if not altogether impossible
So to minimize the abuses on people of color with a statement of “All Lives Matter” is an inability, I offer, to empathize with the fact that this is just another method of saying, “Toe the line, race isn’t an issue because we say it isn’t.”
To cry about the removal of Confederate Statues and the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest because it’s “losing your history” is completely ironic to me — considering this country has had a penchant for stripping cultures of their history since 1776.
I’m not trying to lay historical guilt on anyone here. What I’m trying to do is give my perspective on one of the places I feel there’s a disconnect in our communication as a society.
I’m trying to explain why paying from my taxes for a statue representing the history of people who’s job it was to wipe out my OWN history is at least a little insulting.
I don’t want them destroyed — put them in a museum where someone else who actually cares about those statues can foot the bill.
I am attempting to give my thoughts on why dismissing racism in America when it’s ever present in our faces through mascots (8), disparities in media reporting (9) — and why the removal of the Confederate flag, Columbus, and the Skins name are so important to many of us.
It’s possible that one day we can move toward a more equitable future where discussions on race and perspective are more informed on the basis of historical trauma. We have a little work to do before that becomes a reality, however.
Let’s move into a mindset where we work toward community without the presence of monuments to oppressors looming over the minority populace, without racial profiling, excessive force, and where equal opportunity is a GOOD thing — then maybe we can agree that “All Lives Matter”.
Maybe, then, we can also share the beauty of our cultures and embrace our differences instead of acting like diversity is a plague to our society.
I’d like that.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling. Just wanted that off my chest.
I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and www.commongroundsocial. Just search for Indigenous Patriot.
Thank you for your time.
Wanishi!
Citations for further reading:
Trail of Tears (1)
Carlisle Boarding School CNN Article (2)
Tulsa Massacre (3)
Jim Crow Era (4)
Hair Cut and Culture Stripped (5)
Why are Reservations so Povery Stricken (6)
Indigenous Americans and Freedom of Religion (7)
The Mascot Issue (8)
Racial Bias in Media (9)
