Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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“Hey,
Chief!” “Hey
... Indian!” “Can you make it
rain?” “Ugh! Do
you live in a tee-pee?”
“Can you make a fire by rubbing two sticks together ... do you
use
smoke-signals? ... How much wampum you got?
... You smokum peace-pipe? ... You got-um fat squaw? ... “ These are all stereotypes and projections
which promote the mythological identity of “Indian.”
It
wasn’t too long ago that the professional Indians in
Minneapolis got national media attention by speaking against the racist
mascots
of the big-league sports teams, as well as of the schools.
Now these professional Indians have a new
theme, “save the Indian culture.”
Bleeding-heart White liberals [another stereotype] are riding
shotgun
for the Big-Bucks Indians who make a living promoting the Indian images
of the
moment: save the Chippewa language; shake-the-sweat-lodge shamans; and
Wellstone and Inouye’s cult of Indian Religion. The
crooked Treaties of the last century excluded the Aboriginal
Indigenous people—the only religion at the Treaty meetings was
Judeo-Christianity.
Friend-of-the-Indian Bishops prayed over the Treaty participants
and
their stereotypes, and then they began preying on the Aboriginal
Indigenous
people, and the Good Christians haven’t stopped. The
Indian Freedom of Religion Act legislation currently under
consideration by the United States Senate is one more attempt to
unilaterally
draw the Aboriginal Indigenous people under the jurisdiction of racist
Roman
Law and Judeo-Christianity.
During
the mascot-stereotype protests at the Hubert Humphrey
stadium, B.I.A. Big Chief Earl “Vouchers” Barlow sat in a skybox doing
the
Tomahawk chop, while the other Wanna-be Indian leaders used the Atlanta
Braves’
Indian symbols to feather their own nests, and these clowns also
dressed up as
caricatured painted, beaded and feathered Indians for the national
media. The National Indian Leaders were
not
addressing the needs of the people in the Red Ghettos—they were
following the
agenda of the National Council of Churches and the other people who
were
funding them, promoting racism and scapegoating so that their exalted
leaders
would retain their position in the hierarchy.
The
reality of U.S. history is that the Euro-Americans have
all but destroyed the Aboriginal Indigenous cultures of these two
continents,
and what is being promoted is now as “Chippewa” is a White man’s
re-interpretation which has nothing to do with the Ahnishinahbæótjibway. The
Indian
stereotypes which are being so obligingly portrayed by Wanna-Be Indians
insulate the people of the mainstream immigrant culture from facing the
heinous
genocide of more than a billion Aboriginal Indigenous people, and the
other
atrocities of Western European civilization.
When a White Wanna-be gets a racist, stereotypical question
like, “can
you make it rain,” that Wanna-be takes it as a compliment, “I’ve
finally
arrived, because that [other] White person thinks I’m an real Indian.” These Wanna-be Indians are the ones who
actively promote degrading and demeaning stereotypes of Aboriginal
Indigenous
people. The Wanna-be’s who so
desperately crave the artificial identity of Indian may not realize
that all
stereotypes—no matter how complimentary they may seem—have another
side, and
provide an easy avenue for scapegoating, etc.
Stereotyping and labelling also make it almost impossible to
deal with
the underlying causes of the racism that they portray.
The
narrow world-view of which Roman Law is a part, depends
on an artificial hierarchy sustained by self-serving illusions like
scapegoating and stereotyping. The
world has reached the point where we can no longer afford to waste the
human
resources which are destroyed by racism, stereotyping, and other
vicious
illusions. Whether it’s nappy-headed
papooses eating watermelons, Amos ‘n Andy, drug-dealer gangsters or Ten
Little
Indians, the time has come to trash these obsolete stereotypes. If racism and other hierarchical insults
make you feel good—take a long look in the mirror, you should really
have a
good laugh.
RED LAKE
SCHOOL BUCKS:
According
to the Sunday, July 17, Bemidji Pioneer, there are
only fourteen “taxpayers” on the Red Lake Reservation, and they all
live in
Redby. The article quotes
Superintendent Schmidt, “We have to rely on state and federal funding. The impact aid supplements the state aid we
receive. The idea behind the funding is
that it is designed for Indian reservations because of no tax base.” This sounds like pork barrel, doesn’t
it? Someone slopping at the public
trough, and all of those lazy Indians are on welfare, eh?
Well
... who gets the high-paying jobs? Hey,
who gets the contracts and
sub-contracts them out at a big profit?
Since the Treaties, compulsory Indian school-education has
provided
lucrative jobs for the White community, paid for out of Aboriginal
Indigenous
peoples resources. Where are the
billions of dollars of supposed “Indian money?” Where
is it actually spent?
Would the town whose mascot is the original ecocidal resource
thief and
his Big Blue Ox (and that other wooden Indian down the block, shading
his eyes
looking for graft and hand-outs) have any economic base, not to mention
a “tax
base,” if it were not for Ahnishinahbæótjibway land and
natural resources?
There
is a certain in-group of Whites who are using Indians
as a get-rich-quick economic system. As
wards of the government under Trusteeship, Indians have no political
clout, and
have always been exploited by unscrupulous Whites.
The latest shakedown about Red Lake School funding obscures the
real issue, which is compulsory school education as child-abuse, again. The “good students” at the Red Lake Schools
are being trained to be pow-wow Indian mascots for the White man,
drumming up
business for the tourist industry and the rest of the regional White
infrastructure. Can you imagine what
will happen to one of these kids when they try to apply for a real job
at a big
corporation, and they have to fill out their resume: “I speakum
Chippewa ...
wear feathers and heap-many beads and do-um pow-wow dancing ... Ugh, me
Indian!” According to the grapevine,
the programs which are going to get cut in the recent “budget crunch”
are the
ones which actually give the kids access to some real job skills:
transportation outside the red-lined I.S.D. 38 into the “white”
schools, and
vocational education like welding and mechanics, which gives the
students
self-esteem and incentive to take on more responsibility, including
continuing
their education.
To
all of you people who are hollering about the tax base and
the “welfare mothers,” let’s have a Constitutional Amendment, to repeal
the
provisions that your White racist Founding Fathers wrote about “Indians
not
taxed”—and thereby without representation or Constitutional rights. I’ll bet that the people who predictably
raise the issues of “taxes” and “welfare mothers” every election, won’t
get off
their dead asses to help make a level playing field, where everybody
has an
equal chance to steal the Aboriginal Indigenous peoples’ wealth, and
shares the
illusion of the elusive pursuit of happiness.
To
the Lakota woman who called me Sunday: Thank
you for the encouragement, but I can’t
speak for you. There are people in your
community who can, and must, write your own history, and your own
present
perspective. If the Whites and the
Wanna-be’s try to assimilate into Aboriginal Indigenous culture, more
than
likely they’ll become better people, and show more responsibility for
Grandmother Earth. The problems come
when “outsiders” try to act like Indians, who don’t know anything about
the
Aboriginal Indigenous people, either.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
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