Not billions of years ago. My Great-Grandmother before she passed away remembered a time when she was allowed to live with her people freely, a time when she was allowed to speak her native language and practice the religious beliefs that had been taught to her since birth. She remembered being forced to leave behind the only way she had ever lived to move to squalid conditions on a reservation. She also remembers the winter that most of her people starved to death on that reservation, because the rations they were promised them never came, men begging to be given something for their dying wives and children to eat, women boiling bones in water for "dinner". I hate to think about the position her Mother & father were in, because how do you explain this to a young girl? Had they not been forced onto the reservation they would have had food to eat, because they could provide for themselves.
So no, not billions of years ago, not billions of years ago at all. Not that long ago, and still it continues. Then of course we had the audacity to enter into a war to stop Hitler and the horrid things he did not so long after. Where was America's justice and compassion while these things were happening on its own soil. It is clearly a case of do as I say not as I do.
Why are Native Americans such a special people? That's hilarious! Because to America, they're not, not at all. You don't hear about Wounded Knee or what happened at the *beep* or even what happened on the reservation where my Great-grandmother spent her remaining youth. You hear about Little Big Horn, where those "savages" attacked and killed the great George Armstrong Custer. He needed shot, and I'm sure he's rotting in hell for all the women, children and elderly people he massacred on the *beep* and in other places. Though we hear about the Holocaust, we read about other things of this nature. But in American schools they do not teach or speak about the things they did wrong, the horrible things that were done to these people. The horrid conditions they were forced into, the horrid treatment they received. No we don't read about that, we're not taught about that. Nor do we read about how in the 1970's many many Native women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent. So no, the Native Americans are not viewed as "special" in fact it's quite the opposite, not viewed at all. Almost forgotten, really. Ignored. And still treated and viewed as second class people.
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bigpoppa206
11 years ago
Best post and eloquently put! Now if they would only return the Black Hills.
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