Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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October 5, 1992
Minneapolis Star Tribune
attention: Jim Dawson
Staff Writer
I
enjoyed talking with you today. Enclosed
is an commentary article for the Star Tribune, as
we discussed. I have submitted a number
of letters to the editor and commentary articles to the Star Tribune
in
the past, in response to various articles in your newspaper. Euro-American newspapers, including the Star
Tribune, have consistently refused to print not only my writing,
but that
of other members of the Anishinabe Ojibway community, generally on the
grounds
that our Aboriginal Indigenous perspective is “inflammatory.” How do the editors think that their articles
are to us? The articles which the
Euro-American media has written about “Indians” almost invariably
include
inaccuracies and mis-statements which denigrate the Anishinabe Ojibway
people. We read the Euro-Americans’
writing, and
say, “here they go again with their lies.
Can’t they tell the truth, or are they pathological liars?” Some of the Euro-Americans’ misconceptions
are hilarious, but some of them are seriously damaging.
In the past, particularly when we did not
speak English fluently, we could not defend ourselves.
The
relationship which the Euro-Americans have tried to
promote with Anishinabe Ojibway people since Hitler has been a
paternalistic
one, “father knows best” patronizing, as well as covertly genocidal. (Prior to the Third Reich’s efficient
application of an old European colonial strategy, their relationship
toward us
was an openly genocidal one.) Such
paternalism reinforces the Euro-Americans’ “superior” hierarchial
position in
their own eyes, inflating their egos at the expense of other people. Paternalism blames the victims of
Euro-American violence, by drawing the victims into the structure of
their
schemes of stealing and re-defining them.
A person has to be either brainwashed or into S & M to be
suckered
into this vicious mind game and crooked con.
Euro-American paternalism also follows the Machiavellian
prescription of
keeping occupied people powerless and isolated. The
Euro-Americans have tried to constrain descriptions of
“reality” and history to their own limited versions, and have tried to
re-define and re-name the Anishinabe Ojibway (“Chippewa Indians”) and
other
Aboriginal Indigenous people (“Indians” and “Native Americans”) to fit
their
own agenda of entrenching their hold on our Continent.
The
élite of the Euro-American hierarchy centers its
priorities on the G.N.P., on “making money.”
The Great White Father is only concerned with his own people,
and lets
the rest of the human beings on this continent go without—he is greedy
and he does
not belong here. He uses an European
Sovereignty to steal from the Aboriginal Indigenous people, who have
our own
Sovereignty very deeply rooted in this land.
He promotes violence rather than promoting harmony.
All you have to do is look at the
destruction of the land all across this continent, and at the violence
in the
cities. The environment has been ruined
for the benefit of a few who the Great White Father calls his “chosen
people.” This has to stop.
These issues really have to be addressed; it
can’t go on like this.
The
Great White Father is a terrible role model, with his
greed and his violence and self-destructive behavior.
The “Indian” stereotype created by the White man is not any
better: drunken, lazy, dirty, savage, primitive, etc., etc., etc.,
“Indian.” Just recently, the
newspaper
printed the news that the Churches apologized to the “Indians.” Their apology is meaningless; they are lying
again. The Churches are apologizing to
the wrong people. They are apologizing
to the people that they created, who have White patrilineal ancestry. These people are not the people against whom
the Churches focussed their genocidal activities. There
are no “Indians” here, just European subject people filling
an invented European stereotype. The
Churches have yet to even admit that there are Anishinabe Ojibway and
other
Aboriginal Indigenous People here. The
Churches need to deal honestly with the genocide that they have
committed, and
also with their violently destructive world-view.
The
United States’ Constitution is one in a long series of
European government documents which denies the legitimacy of Anishinabe
Ojibway
and other Aboriginal Indigenous Nations’ right to exist as Sovereign
peoples on
our own land. We have (using the
“Indians” as a front) been defined, under European law, as
“uncivilized,” and
therefor without claim—under racist Euro-American statutes and U.S.
Supreme
Court decisions—to what has been our land, as Nations, since time
immemorial. If you study the history of
United States “claim” to eminent domain on this Continent, you will
find that
it rests firmly on the genocidal Judeo-Christian hocus-pocus of
claiming
somebody else’s land “in the name of God;” in the Genesis prescription
of
giving everything a different name in order to claim it.
The Anishinabe Ojibway religion, the
Midewiwin, is much older than Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and
Buddhism all
put together. Our tradition goes back
for more than four ice ages, to the beginning of human time.
We,
the Anishinabe Ojibway People, have a right to exist as a
Sovereign Nation on our own land. We
are a non-violent people, and we have an ancient, non-violent religion,
the
Midewiwin, which we call “Grandfather,” and which is inseparable from
Grandmother Earth.
We
can back up what we say, including that the majority of
“Indians” are in fact White people. You
are welcome to come visit, and look at our research.
Wub-e-keniew
a.k.a. Francis
Blake, Jr.
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