It has been another very long spell without a post on this site. One would think I’d be writing about the victory of Donald Trump at the least but no, I haven’t been motivated to do that.
This morning however the incidents at Standing Rock have motivated me. Donald Trump will be just another footnote in the history of the USA but I feel that the incidents at Standing Rock are more important than even the election of the demagogue Trump. Republicans and Democrats will continue to fight each other and try to reverse gains the others have made each election cycle but the Native Americans have had to fight their “white man” oppressors ever since America was still a British colony.
Just in the past twenty or years or so mainstream education – mostly in the universities – have started to admit the truth about the history of the USA regarding the Natives. The ‘White Man’ did steal land, did break treaties, did murder and kill, did commit genocide! And then they pushed these great, ancient people onto land that they thought no white person would ever want.
And so here we are in 2016 seeing the same injustices, the same greed as that which I had previously thought we’d left behind for a time when man wasn’t as sophisticated, wasn’t as educated as we are now. That land that the government back in the 1800s thought no white man would ever want? Guess what, white man now wants it, the militarized police show up and ‘white man’ breaks another treaty! Seeing these images shows me that nothing has changed and it has torn a huge rip in my heart and made me question if I even want to be an American, if I even want to be associated with this country anymore (regardless of Trump). And this isn’t some emotional, stupid proclamation that many Americans do when the election doesn’t go their way and they say they are moving to Canada. Everyone in my immediate family has citizenship in Japan except for me. So it isn’t unrealistic that should America – especially under Trump – continue down a dark path that I might make a play for citizenship in Japan.
America was founded by immigrants who happily renounced their citizenship to a foreign land for a new identity and loyalty to the United States. Yet it is very difficult for the American mind to even conceive that someone might want to give up USA citizenship. It makes absolutely no sense to them.
But regardless of a move as drastic as that, I’m absolutely aghast at how the USA continues to treat the Native Americans and it absolutely warmed my heart to see veterans go and stand with the many Nations that had gathered there. The ‘Red Man’ had fought and been very much abused but look what happens when white veterans show up. A victory is soon won and the government gets the balls to do the right thing.
I am very disappointed that it took Obama so long to give these people the victory they deserved. What happened to ‘Hope and Change?” When I cast my vote for him I was buying into the luxury retail version of ‘Hope and Change’ but instead those shirts now can be found for 50 cents at Goodwill. They were worn often for the first four years, must less the second four years and now are cast aside, faded and torn rags, at discount price for the very few who still believe.
In my 39 years of life, it has been instilled in me that America is “exceptional” as Obama formally proclaimed. Yet, with the events at Standing Rock America is still the same country that abused Natives, it is still the same country that puts Robber Barons in charge of the country, and with the events at Standing Rock and the election of Trump is still a country which combines the two above.
If future historians, a few thousand years from now had to use one or two words to describe America from its birth until the year 2016 then I truly believe those words should be profit and greed.
Love this guy
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