Descendant of the Native American Genocide
Thirsty. My bones were thirsty for remembrance, truth and connection. My intention when learning about our country’s history was to learn about the land we walk upon and what was hiding beneath the surface. I knew about the genocide that America was “founded” on, but little did I know there were millions of bodies crying out for recognition drenched in the blood that makes up our soil. The blood in my own veins scream in sorrow yet sing a peaceful song of healing. Hungry. For so long my heart has been hungry for a sense of identity and understanding. My whole body stiff, ears ringing, head throbbing, and insides turning, I proceed to take my first steps on the read road of learning to heal my lineage through the information this class provides.
A black hole from our history books missing has been governed by comfortability, guilt and shame. The five-century-long cycle of European genocide this country was built on, is still covered up by a Thanksgiving story and the idea of a friendly encounter with Christopher Columbus. The timeline of events was and still is slaughtering and abolishing Native American culture, people, women, minds, emotions, and identity. The elimination of 98 to 99% of America’s Indigenous population includes dehumanization, classification, relocation, separation, sterilization, and extermination.
The genocide still continues on reservations today where there are uranium deposits making lands inhabitable with radioactive waste. There are lack of resources, pipelines underground, alcoholism, drug addiction, and lack of government funding. Most homes do not have running water or electricity and barely have enough money to survive. Not to mention in the beginning of 2018, there was a bill passed removing all medicare from reservations. Genocide is NOT over in this country is still being disregarded. This has made my blood boil with anger, guilt and shame. I am, now more than ever, motivated to somehow make a difference in the way we view and recognize the 3rd world countries in America and how we can work together as a human race to revolutionize racism, discrimination, and poverty amongst the Native American Communities.. Education on this topic is the first step in taking action to help change these conditions.
I find the raw emotions I have experienced from learning about these statistics and facts taught me to allow myself to feel again and not run away from the uncomfortability when confronting the past after years of being numb.. Just reading the material Stan has assigned for us, unlocked and opened many doors of healing I never knew existed..
Praying with the water recently was an experience I will never forget… My bones ached with flashbacks that came to vision.. My skin throbbed with blood and sorrow.. My womb felt violated with sickness.. My legs felt weak and my organs cramped… My heart burned and I couldn’t breathe.. I was experiencing every bodily reaction I hadn’t faced from past traumatic experiences.. My spirit, the whole time, was guiding and praying over my inner child through this beautiful yet painful healing of my open wounds. For the first time in my life, my mind and body didn’t freeze with remembrance and I was able to allow myself to feel everything I wish I had forgotten.. It allowed me to recognize and reconnect to my darkness without fear of consumption.. I advise we all look in the mirror and remind ourselves it’s okay to feel emotions that aren’t always pleasant to address.. I truly believe because the readings in this class go so deep into expression of emotions, I was able to become vulnerable again within myself and my past, taking steps on the road to recovery of PTSD.
The personal experiences we learn from Darryl, Paula, and Ortiz share a deep pain that is valuable and necessary to acknowledge. There is a special authenticity when hearing history and the outcome of the genocide from a first person perspective. The hardships of colonization of the mind and the heart has made its mark on human DNA and the generations to come. Making the choice to learn about the real genocidal history of America is important for our emotional development as a human race.
A clear topic and theme of individualism from “The Savages in the Mirror” by Paula Gunn Allen, has proven to be another conditioned train of thought we must break free of. We see many Americans operate off this self serving individualistic mindset that clearly leads to loneliness, anger and submission. “..schools and other institutions are designed to teach and reinforce the principle that group experiences are painful, anti-human, demoralizing, the infants in Orwell’s 1984 were taught through pain to fear music and flowers. Loneliness, the beloved of the American Hero, is a soiling clinging snake. It is strangling the life out of people, the families around us, killed by the murderous creation of our minds. Yet it is seductive, hypnotic in it’s murderous intent, because however fiercely loved, solitude is not really possible, in this world after all.” (The Savages in the Mirror, Page 31).
The healing of my lineage and own colonized and conditioned outlook on history has been very beneficial to my path on the red road. I remember one day during class, I felt this wave of guilt and shame of my own skin color arose. It’s always been very confusing being a mix blood. I went to Stan after class that day and started balling my eyes out. He explained to me that the pain I was feeling was a collective pain society had failed to process for hundreds of years. He mentioned it was not white people who were the enemy, it is the individualistic selfish mindset of society.
Separation is the goal of mass control and we continue to be fed this through classism, racism, and stereotypes. We are conditioned to separate ourselves from our peers and this results in assuming the worst of each other. This assumption is a fear based analysis lead to the massacre of the Native American race. Our police force and gangs still practice this form of fear and continue to kill innocent people.. The majority has forgotten we are all related…And at this point, the vicious cycle of killing is engraved in our psyches as a defense mechanism. This may be a primal instinct, but I believe human beings are conscious enough to find a different alternative. There is a lack of communication we have developed as a human race and being honest with each other is foreign. We are all related in diversity but we are not all the same.. It’s important we understand the differences of tribulations in societies and privileges of different skin colors. It’s a fantasy to live in a controlled environment on the land of mass genocide and say we all have the same benefits.
When I expressed these deep feelings of grief and hatred towards my own skin color, I felt unimportant and selfish in comparison to the murder and oppression my native ancestors experienced. These deep rooted scars of perception started when I was young, living in a community of 89% Hispanics.. Being one of the only “white” kids in class, I was harshly made fun of by my peers but treated far more superior by my teachers. I had seen the difference of behavior towards my brown peers, even my brown father, so I allowed the kids to bully me, call me names in spanish, throw food at me, and scale my worth basis on my skin color.. I felt this rejection was validated because of the privileges that I carried seeping through the color of my skin. This type of behavior is the same thing that happens to any minor race in any social setting, especially as a child. I was put into a category of the same white settlers that invaded these lands. This is an example of the conditioned individualistic mindset that continued to navigate my own self worth until recently. Stan reminded me to stop ignoring my European ancestors and start thanking my mother who chose to love a man of a different racial group than her own. As a mix blood I am a product of love and I am learning to stand strong in this diversity. The only thing that matters is love. Funny to think that one moment of expressing suppressed feelings can do to change a person’s life forever… May we continue to find relations in all of our diversities and love parts of ourselves that we were once ashamed of..
My role as a human being is to love mother earth, pray for all creation and be a vessel of service for Creator. This class has sparked a desire in my heart to continue to educate myself and others about the truth of this country. We must learn to create productive ways we can heal the past and transform the future to benefit the generations to come. This class and Stan’s lectures have also inspired me this November to vote for the first time in my life. Maybe, we as a society have a voice in one way or another. I will find that voice and speak up with resilience in a society that doesn’t recognize Native Americans as real people. First I find this through education, listening, optimism, and reconnection to nature.
If we continue to treat the land with annihilation of her beauty, with disrespect, and inconsideration of her beating life force, we will have to face the consequences of actions. “When the land itself dies, it is certainty that no humans can survive. The struggle which confronts us-all of us-is thus a struggle to save our collective habitat, to maintain it’s survivable environment, not only for ourselves but also for generations to come.” (Since The Predator Came, notes from A Native Son, by Ward Churchill. Page 166) One day, our society and the government will have to listen to the 7th Generation because human spirits are thirsty for a taste of genuine and real connection. It is our job as young adults, to heal our ancestral roots, create new social norms, break free of false allegations and limitations, and be a fiery ball of light evolvement establishing revolutionary change through our presence alone. Connection of the heart to the mind is the key to unity. “No one can save us, but we must learn how to save ourselves- all of ourselves. We cannot do it unless we have models of community; America needs to become a tribe.” (Savages in the Mirror, Page 32)
