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Related: About this forumRewrite: The Protests At Standing Rock | The Last Word | MSNBC
Published on Aug 26, 2016
In the Rewrite, Lawrence explains why a protest by Native Americans in North Dakota reminds us of the history American always tries to forget.
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Transcript:
Dakota means friend...friendly. The people who gave that name to the Dakotas have, sadly, never been treated as friends. The people whose language was used to name the Dakotas and Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other states, the Native American tribes, the people who were here before us long before us, have never been treated as friends. They have been treated as enemies..more harshly than any other enemy. In any of this countrys wars. After all of our major wars we signed peace treaties and live by those treaties. After world war II when we made peace with Germany we then did everything we possibly could to rebuild Germany. No Native American tribe has ever been treated as well as we treated Germans after World War II.
The original sin of this country is that we invaders shot and murdered our way across the land killing every Native American that we could, and making treaties with the rest. This country was founded on genocide before the word genocide was invented. Before there was a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. When we finally stopped actively killing Native Americans for the crime of living here before us, we then proceeded to violate every treaty we made with the Tribes. Every. Single. Treaty. We piled crime on top of crime against a people whose offense against us was simply that they lived where we wanted to live. We dont feel the guilt of the crimes because we pretend they happened a very long time ago, in ancient history. And we actively suppress the memories of those crimes.. but there are people alive today whose grandparents were in the business of killing the Native Americans. Thats how recent these crimes are.
Every once in a while there is a painful and morally embarrassing reminder, as there is this week in North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation where hundreds of people have gathered and camped out in opposition to an interstate pipeline being built from North Dakota to Illinois. The protest in being led by this countrys original environmentalists. Native Americans. For hundreds of years they were our only environmentalists. The only people who thought that land and rivers should be preserved in their natural state. The only people who thought a mountain or a prairie or a river could be a sacred place.
Yesterday a federal judge heard arguments from the tribes against the federal governments approval of the pipeline and said he will deliver his decision on whether the pipeline can proceed next month. There are now over ninety tribes gathered in protest of that pipeline. That protest will surely continue even if the judge allows construction to proceed. And so we face the prospect next month of the descendants of the first people to ever set foot on that land,.. being arrested by the descendants of the invaders who seized that land. Arrested for trespassing. That we still have Native Americans left in this country to be arrested for trespassing on their own land is testament, not to the mercy of the genocidal invaders who seized and occupied their land, but to the stunning strength and the five hundred years of endurance and the undying dignity of the people who were here long before us. The people who have always known; what is truly sacred in this world.
Qanisqineq
(4,826 posts)In Mandan, ND. I returned to my home state this year after nearly 20 years away. I had forgotten the racism that existed against the Native Americans. It seems more blatant than before.
Donkees
(31,450 posts)in support here, and around the world. Messages are even being sent in the name of rivers and oceans, supporting the Missouri river.
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)Connecticut and Massachusetts are Algonquian not Siouan (Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, et al).
Otherwise, thanks for posting!
Donkees
(31,450 posts)"The people whose language was used to name the Dakotas and Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other states, the Native American tribes, the people who were here before us long before us, have never been treated as friends"
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)Thanks for pointing that out.
downeastdaniel
(497 posts)turbinetree
(24,711 posts)Again, to you
Donkees (Wado)
This is the history-------------------------
http://reddirtsite.com/The-Great-Sioux-Nation-Flyer.pdf
http://zinnedproject.org/materials/indigenous-peoples-history-of-the-us/
Donkees
(31,450 posts)In todays news, Native Americans issues are world issues. In everything from climate change, to who has a say over the limited natural resources left to the most powerful country on Earth (the United States) Native Nations are the canary in the coal mine and the last line of defense in a world ruled by greed and the senselessness that greed breeds.
In Dakota culture, (my father was Ihanktonwan Dakota/Yankton Sioux) we tell stories about the Eya or Iya. It was a monster with a voracious appetite that would eat whole nations. They said that within its belly you could see at night the glow of the campfires of the people trapped by its greed. For me, this monster is the personification of the mindless hunger that the colonialists from Europe brought to our shores. Always there has to be a profit, even for nations. The bottom line is about what and how much they can consumeand must consume. If they stop consumption, what they call growth, stops and their world falls apart. That is because their world is the Iya.
Our goal with this newsmagazine is to break the people out of the Iya and to free our own nations so they can march out of itlike they did in the stories of old. And this is why we take as our name Pollen Nation because we are the people, the five-fingered beings who know the original instructionsthat growth, true growth is not about massive, unending consumption of our Mother. True growth lies in the incredible capacity of our Mother, the Earth, Ina Maka to sustain us and nurture us, her children. Our story is about that relationship and the pollen my mothers people, the Diné (Navajo) pray with represents that relationship, the Pollen path. The path of wholeness and of hozho (harmony).
In that light, Pollen Nation magazines first articles will focus on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes fight to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across their treaty territory. Our goal is to give a platform for Native voices and a home for well-written journalism, essays and photojournalism about this issueand many others. We want Pollen Nation to grow a generation of Indigenous writers and thinkers and make sure their work is seen by the largest audience possible. Please join us in this endeavor. Check out our Contact Us page to submit story ideas.
turbinetree
(24,711 posts)He can end this continued racism of the current use of Manifest Destiny and Doctrine of Discovery now, he can honor the treaties
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Wado
Donkees
(31,450 posts)turbinetree
(24,711 posts)information-----------------u-na-li-i (friend)
Wado
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)It was rumored earlier this year MSNBC was dumping him, we would only have Rachel left. I think they reconsidered. Wicked smart Lawrence.
Google the clip where he let Orly Taitz have it years back. Wonderful.