Webb defends Jackson's genocidal actions

Following up on the decision to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, former senator Jim Webb tried to defend Andrew Jackson.

Jim Webb claims uninformed 'political correctness' used to denigrate Andrew Jackson

By Meteor Blades

Webb's claim:Robert Remini, Jackson’s most prominent biographer, wrote that his intent was to end the increasingly bloody Indian Wars and to protect the Indians from certain annihilation at the hands of an ever-expanding frontier population.The reality:As for Jackson’s alleged desire to protect the Indians from clashes with whites, it should not be forgotten that the forcible cession of millions of acres of Indian land was one of Jackson’s claims to fame. He did it to make space for white settlers throughout the South and for his personal profit in the real estate boom that followed the Indians’ ceding of land at gunpoint.

When the Tennessee River Valley in what is now Alabama was ceded, Jackson and his favored pals took 45,000 acres for themselves. As Steve Innskeep pointed out last year, “Jackson both created and scored in the greatest real estate bubble in the history of the United States up to that time.”

Indians who had allied themselves with Jackson in the so-called Red Stick Creek War were much praised by him, but when they later sought government payment for losses incurred in their support of Jackson, he told the secretary of war that their claims were a “complete tissue of groundless falsehood.”Comment:  Give Webb a Stereotype of the Month nomination for his ignorance of the definition of genocide, and for minimizing Jackson's genocidal actions. Removing the Indians was about stealing their land and eliminating them, not keeping them from harm.

Guns are central to America

White guys are killing us: Toxic, cowardly masculinity, our unhealable national illness

Race, guns and gender--the common denominator at the heart of so many problems--are what we need to talk about

By Chauncey DeVega[T]here is another little-discussed factor that helps to explain America’s obsessive and near pathological gun culture, unwillingness to treat gun violence as a public health crisis, Right-wing domestic terrorism, and propensity for mass shootings. It transcends all of those issues. But this factor is usually treated as verboten, something to not be unspoken of, because of the rage, threats of violence, and animus it inspires.

The common denominator is white masculinity and the particular ways that it is connected to American gun culture and the color line.

The gun is central to the founding of an American society where hierarchies of race and gender were central to the country’s Herrenvolk white racial settler democratic project. America was born as, and remains, a culture and society dedicated to maintaining the dominance, privilege, and power of white men over people of color and women. This was not an accident, bug, or a glitch. It was a feature.

Guns helped White America to commit genocide against First Nations peoples and to steal land under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The gun maintained Southern society as a white over black racial military dictatorship. The gun was also a tool for white elites to control the working classes and poor.Comment:  For more on gun control, see Guns as Penis Substitutes and Conservatives Let Mass Shootings Happen.

More September 11ths coming?

The Day White Innocence Died: An Indigenous Take on #September11

By Gyasi RossIt was undoubtedly a tragedy. But September 11th wasn’t a surprise, at least not for Native people and many people of color. No, Native people were already well aware of how destructive and evil people could be. How did we know? AMERICA TAUGHT US THAT; really, September 11th was only a surprise for white people and for those who didn’t realize that America had already perpetrated many September 11ths of its own. Native people knew that. We knew that America had a whole bunch of blood on its hands and that there was always a harvest season, always a reckoning. Sir Isaac Newton gave that harvest a name in his Third Law of Motion, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Oh yeah, that means that there will be more September 11ths as well—it’s inevitable unless America works to acknowledge and reconcile with its many victims of domestic terrorism against its own people. We see that energy right now—the current distrust of the federal government, the distrust of law enforcement and peoples’ movements of all colors that don’t believe in the legitimacy of the “powers that be,” like Idle No More, the Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter and the Tea Party. Obviously the viewpoints of those various movements are vastly different, but the energy is largely the same.

“We don’t believe you. This Nation is build upon raw power and deceit and not freedom, equality or opportunity.”

There will be more September 11ths unless we change, folks. God forbid, but unless we do something it will happen. There will be rectification for the Marias Massacre, for the Sand Creek Massacre, for Wounded Knee, for North Tulsa/Black Wall Street, the Mankato mass hanging, the Red Summer of 1919, Joe Coe, Emmett Till, internment camps of Japanese, Chinese Exclusion Act, slavery, Jim Crow, genocide, forced tubal ligation of Native women, Tuskegee experiments, etc., etc., etc.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the words of Ron Burgundy, “It’s science.” So, how do we stop this horrible cycle? Acknowledgment. Conversation. Painful conversation. Hell, restitution, reparations. Not punitive—just what the US owes. To wit, honor treaties with Native people and recognize aboriginal title, whether that be via monetary compensation (a disgusting compromise for many Native people, yet one that acknowledges practical realities) or specific performance. Monetary compensation for black folks for 40 acres and a mule—what is that in today’s dollars?

Formally apologize. Acknowledge. Treat us as human beings—the inhumane way that many white folks on this continent treated people of color for 400 years still influences the way they perceive us today, hence the incredibly disproportionate amount of deaths for Native and Black people at the hands of law enforcement.

Not civil rights—human rights—treat us like human beings.

Otherwise there will be more September 11ths. It’s physics. Natural law. We’re stuck with each other—none of us are going anyplace. But acknowledgment, reconciliation and restitution of America’s past crimes will move help us move to a new age, where we can get past these historical demons and actually start living in the 21st Century.

God bless the families of all who were harmed by September 11th. God also bless the families devastated by all instances of terrorism, including those perpetrated by the United States.Comment:  For more on terrorism, see America the Biggest Loser and Natives React to Charleston Shootings.

#AmericanLivesMatter most to Americans

“All Lives Matter” has always been a lie: The brutality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki echoes in Ferguson and Iraq today

Americans have always valued their own lives above any other—except when their fellow Americans are the "other"

By Arthur ChuIt shouldn’t be rocket science why invoking “All Lives Matter” is, at best, insensitive and, at worst, an active attempt to derail activism and deny reality. Nobody is disagreeing that all people’s lives do, in fact, matter and ought to matter equally.

The point is that right now they are not treated as though they matter equally. Some people’s lives are treated as precious, others as disposable garbage. If you really do believe all lives matter, then your focus should be on black lives, which are demonstrably the most neglected lives in our country and, for that matter, the world. Treating a focus on black lives as a “special interest” or parochial concern requires willful ignorance about what kind of world we actually live in.

The charitable interpretation is that #AllLivesMatter folks just aren’t aware of this–they conceive of our justice and law enforcement system as a basically decent system that basically works the way it should where any instances of police brutality or unjust killings are unfortunate exceptions to the rule. They think of activists as just taking a few of those exceptions and singling them out because the victims “happen to be black.”

You can push back on this with statistical evidence—statistics that aren’t new or shocking to anyone, that have been known for years before putting names and faces to them like Mike Brown and Sandra Bland made them go viral. You can point to the obvious signs of a culture of racism, the ever-present context of a racist history in which these events occur. You can demonstrate that you’re not “picking and choosing” victims by signal-boosting just as loudly when a white teenager is killed, demonstrating that it’s not that you don’t care about white victims, but white victims are comparatively rarer.

You keep tweeting and keep marching and keep writing articles and books hoping that you will eventually “raise awareness” enough that the #AllLivesMatter crowd will stop their pointless derailing and actually act like all lives matter.

For some of them, this might work. But I’m coming to think that for many, it doesn’t–because they do not, in fact, believe that all lives matter, and consciously or unconsciously are excluding quite a lot of people from the “all” in that phrase.

Look at President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and President Obama’s withdrawal, both of which are being furiously relitigated at the moment in the run-up to the Republican primaries. Both pro-war and anti-war pundits talk endlessly about the 4,491 American deaths in that war, either arguing that withdrawal “saved more American lives” or caused those Americans who had died to have “died in vain.”

Going totally unmentioned are the more than 100,000 Iraqi deaths (we think, no one has been able to keep accurate count) in that war, the majority of whom were civilians, killed by violence in the war, and the untold more who died from disease or privation. This is a number at least 20 times as high as the number of Americans killed, possibly 40 times as high.

But we treat our people’s deaths as fundamentally more meaningful than theirs. Even the liberal anti-war crowd reflexively talks about “American troops” being killed and “the deaths of American citizens.” Whatever you think of the war, the American troops who died volunteered to go and made the choice to be there, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis–including Iraqi children–died with no choice in the matter at all.Comment:  For more on Iraq, see Phony "Patriots" Love American Sniper and Why Do They Hate Us 2013?

Natives react to Charleston shootings

Some Natives reacting to the Charleston shootings noted our long history of racial violence:

A day of lament...

By Mark CharlesI lament the words of our political candidates who promise to lead America back to its former "greatness", ignorant of the fact that much of America's "greatness" was built on the exploitation and dehumanization of its people of color.

I lament that today the dominant culture in America is in shock because in the city of Charleston South Carolina one individual committed a single evil and heinous act of violence, while minority communities throughout the country are bracing themselves because the horrors of the past 500 years are continuing into their lifetime.

I lament with every person and community, throughout the history of this nation, who, due to the color of their skin, had to endure marginalization, silence, discrimination, beatings, lynching, cultural genocide, boarding schools, internment camps, mass incarceration, broken treaties, stolen lands, murder, slavery and discovery.

Today I lament that the United States of America does not share a common memory and therefore is incapable of experiencing true community.

Opinion / Making Sense of the Senseless

By Sherri MitchellIn the last 24 hours, I have seen posts that have blamed the NRA for their overbearing insistence that access to guns does not contribute to gun violence; the NRA in turn blamed one of the victims, claiming that his vote against guns in church made the victims less safe; another group blamed mental illness; while their opponents claimed that mental illness had simply become the catch-phrase for avoiding the larger problem, which was clearly psychotropic drugs. We blame, and blame, and blame, because it relieves us of taking any responsibility. The truth is that we are all complicit in the current state of affairs. By some unspoken, common agreement, Americans have chosen to overlook the fact that this country was founded on blood, and that it continues to thrive in blood. War has been the most significant and sustained truth guiding this country since its inception. And, despite all of the “progress” that has been made, American school children continue to be taught that genocide, slavery, and all other forms of subjugation and oppression, though terrible, are acceptable means to achieve noble ends. This is the true root of the problem. Until we are able to enter into meaningful dialogue about this truth, healing will not take place. And, we will all be doomed to repeat these devastating cycles over and over again.White America is complicit: Charleston, Dylann Roof and the country’s real race war

Questioning the motivations of the Charleston shooter is worse than obtuse. It is itself an act of violence

By Kali HollowayAt 21-years-old, Roof had fully absorbed the message his country has taught him, just like terrorists in every other country, in every other part of the world. He clung to the old American idea that white women are our most precious resource to be protected by any means, and felt it was his right as a white man to protect his birthright—this country and his privilege within it—which he saw as being taken from him. We are guns and violence and race hatred and systemic, codified, state-sanctioned terrorism against people of color and that is who we have always been. While our media is certain to attribute Roof’s heinous acts to mental illness (and the cops were careful to take him alive, which even the most innocent of black folks cannot count on), I consider him a particularly apt pupil. Just the latest of many. Though certainly not the last.Even President Obama had an opinion:

Obama rejects mass shootings as 'new normal' in America

"How can anyone call shootings the new normal," Obama might've explained, "when they go back to the Mystic Massacre of 1637?"

For more on the subject, see Conservatives Can't Handle Roof's Racism and Conservatives Make Excuses for Roof.

"White Man" = bogeyman

America’s grand historical deception: Why it pretends White Supremacy no longer exists

Violence against Black Americans is real and documented, so why does White America continue to deny it?

By Chauncey DeVegaFrom initial colonial and Imperial encounters, to the later intimacy of slavery and bonded labor, Black and brown people, aboriginal and other First Nations brothers and sisters, had to invent language to describe “The White Man” they encountered for the first time and then later came to regret having ever known.

“The White Man” became a ghost or a monster. (In fact, the robes of the Ku Klux Klan represent the ghosts of the Confederate dead who have returned to avenge themselves on now free black Americans.) He haunted. He killed. He raped. He destroyed.And:Tales of “The White Man” would be used to scare children into obedience, and like most folk tales and children’s stories they were lessons to prepare those youngsters for life in an unfair world. But “The White Man” is not a chimera. He is real. We see him when cops kill and abuse innocent and defenseless Black and brown people in America. he choked Eric Garner to death. He shot Tamir Rice, stole his childhood and his life. ”The White Man” maces and electrocutes Black people who are suffering from a stroke while sitting in their car. But America does not want to confront “The White Man,” because that would mean reflecting on its own behavior and culture of racialized violence.

The innocence and nobility of Whiteness and “The White Man” are bedrock lies for America and the West that dissolve under even the most minimal levels of critical inquiry. If America looked in the mirror at “The White Man” looking back, it could be either a moment of catharsis, where the violence and meanness of White Privilege and White Racism were owned and internalized with pride (yup! that is us, White America, what a good thing, let’s stop pretending we are surprised or ashamed!) or where upon seeing “The White Man” in his full glory a moment of White Fragility would freeze the viewer in stone as though he or she were touched by Medusa.Comment:  For more on white privilege, see Black Professor Criticizes White Men and Whites Can't Handle Racial Stress.

Why Indian mascots are anti-Indian

An excellent article makes a key point about mascots:

The invasion of America

The story of Native American dispossession is too easily swept aside, but new visualisations should make it unforgettable[T]he language used to chronicle the dispossession of native peoples–‘Indian’, ‘chief’, ‘warrior’, ‘tribe’, ‘squaw’ (as native women used to be called)–conjures up crude stereotypes and clouds the mind, making it difficult to see the wars of extermination, forced marches and expulsions for what they were. The story, which used to be celebratory, is now more often tragic and sentimental, rooted in the belief that the dispossession of native peoples was unjust but inevitable.Let me explain. The glorification of Indian warriors--in mascots, the military, and so forth--sends a pro-American, anti-Indian message.

How so? Because it furthers the American mythology of benign conquest. Our band of brave soldiers fought their band of savage warriors on horseback. Just like you saw in the movies.

We won because we were more noble and heroic; they lost. But we've extended the hand of friendship to our former foes. Let's forget our past differences and celebrate our common warrior heritage.

Slaughter, not skirmishes

How exactly is this anti-Indian? Because it reduces 500 years of conflicts to a few skirmishes where the "best side" won. It erases all the "wars of extermination, forced marches and expulsions," as the article puts it. All the times white people lied, cheated, and stole Native land and resources. Hundreds of broken treaties attesting to the white man's perfidy.

Moreover, it obscures the entire nature of Native America. The inhabitants weren't scattered bands of warriors on horseback. They were full-fledged nations with governments. They had complex laws, customs, languages, religions, arts, and sciences. The US didn't beat a few warriors in a fair or unfair fight. It decimated entire civilizations with its genocidal policies.

So talking about the strength and courage of Redskins or Warriors or Chiefs is a complete crock. It's designed to delude people into supporting the American mythology, the American way. The "conflicts" were "inevitable," so the story goes, so they couldn't be helped. Cultures "clashed," one side happened to win, and that's the end.

In particular, the "good guys" (Americans) won, so we'll pretend the "bad guys" (Indians) were good too. Both sides were good, so there's no need to question or challenge the mythology. We're all Americans now--North and South, black and white, American and Indian--so let's forget the past and move forward together.

That's what mascot lovers think. And that's what they want you to think. By challenging them, you're challenging the entire mythology of American goodness. They can't handle the truth, so they attack you instead. You lost, get over it, etc., etc.

All this because of the one-dimensional warrior stereotype.

For more on the subject, see Native Stereotyping = Anti-Indian Propaganda and "Redskins" = Pan-Indian Romanticism.

Rubio ignorant of US history

Marco Rubio doesn't know about America's history with Native Americans

By Scott SuttonSometimes politicians tweet helpful and insightful things. Other times, they tweet things that are regrettable at best and in denial of history at worst.

A tweet from 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) early Wednesday afternoon fits into that latter category.

You can see the tweet below, which we took a screenshot of because it seems destined for deletion.Gawker may have summed it up best with the snarky (and 100 percent correct) headline “Marco Rubio Remembers the Trail of Tears.”

Here’s what they had to say about the tweet:The conservative estimate of the US Native American population before the arrival of European settlers was over 12 million. Today, that number has been reduced by 95 percent.Here’s a quick list of just a few times America has been engaged in armed conflict in order to expand its territory:

Northwest Indian War
Winnebago War
Patriot War
Mexican-American War
Apache Wars
Puget Sound Wars
Utah War
Great Sioux War of 1786
Second Samoan Civil War
We didn’t even get into the 20th century with that list.My tweeted response to Rubio:

BlueCornComics ‏@bluecorncomics May 14
BlueCornComics retweeted Marco Rubio
Except for killing the Indians, adding slave states, taking land from Mexico, etc. How ignorant can @marcorubio get?

Who exactly was gaining freedom when the US expanded into Indian territory? Not the Indians, obviously. The settlers? If you define "freedom" as freely taking things from others, I guess.

In this context, the US is roughly like a bank robber. The criminal gains more "freedom"--more opportunity to live high on the hog--after he robs a bank. The stolen wealth increases his ability to act.

Only problem is, it decreases the freedom of those who were robbed. Their opportunities are limited by their loss of wealth. Whether it's buying goods such as food and medicine or services such as education, they have fewer choices.

When we're talking about fixed assets such as land, this is pretty much a zero-sum game. White men win, Indians lose. More "freedom" for some means less freedom for others.

At least Rubio is consistent, I guess. Like other conservatives, his political career is all about increasing the wealth "freedom" of rich white folks. He accomplishes this by cutting services to and raising taxes on poor brown folks.

"Expanding freedom" for the rich by contracting freedom for the poor...that could be the Republican slogan for 2016. Thanks for nothing, Rubio.

For more on America's colonizing efforts, see Debating Professor Grundy's Tweets and America Constructed to Erase Indians.

Debating Professor Grundy's tweets

Yesterday I posted this link about a black professor's tweets to Facebook:

Boston University Professor Tweets ‘Your White Ancestors Were Land Thieves, And Slave Owners–Nothing More’

I tagged the posting with this line:

I'd tweet that my ancestors were land thieves and slave-owners too if I knew it for sure.

Then added more comments:

My Mayflower ancestors

I don't understand the Ben Affleck "sanitize one's history" approach. I've posted before about my ancestor who may have massacred Indians.

Why wouldn't I? The only way it reflects on me is by showing how forthright I am.

If you go back enough generations, everyone's related to someone "bad." It probably doesn't require that many generations, either. Maybe half a dozen.

For every king or president in your family tree, you probably have several rapists, slave-owners, murderers, and so forth. Everyone does.

It's ridiculous to highlight one "good" ancestor as if that proves anything about you. Or proves anything, period.

I wouldn't give people a pass because their ancestors lived in Europe. Those people financed and managed the conquest of America and the slave trade. As well as oppressing their own people.

I wouldn't give people a pass if their ancestors came over "only" a few decades ago, either. Once you're here, you become complicit in the system. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

If people came over in 2015, I might give them a pass. They missed the last national election, so they haven't had much chance to change the system.

The Native aspects

A couple of Professor Grundy's tweets focused on Native history:



One Facebook friend criticized Grundy for these tweets:And this just shows that extremism and nuttiness are not just relegated to the conservative side of the spectrum. While there is definitely some truth to what she says, she paints with the same broad brush and selective history as those who criticized, say, the Baltimore protests and their ilk. In fact, the ancestors of the overwhelming majority of white people in the United States did not own slaves nor kill Natives. In fact, more died to secure their freedom in the Civil War. Yes, whites have benefited from those who did steal land and enslave humans, and certainly need to face up to that history and have a reckoning with it, but to reduce a diverse population of people to a simplistic caricature is as overly simplified and bigoted as anything coming out of the Tea Party. I mean, seriously, what exactly are Poles and Slovaks who worked the Chicago stock yards guilty of? What about Italian longshoremen in New York? Or Irish day laborers in Boston? Even on the so-called frontier, what about the Scots-Irish who would both fight and intermix with Southeastern Indian tribes? One of their descendants, btw, was Sequoyah. This isn't even to mention the rich, and yes, sometimes tragic, culture and history that came from the Europeans and Natives mixing in Mexico and the Southwest. My problem is that left-wing radicals can be as susceptible to divisive pseudo-intellectual bullshit that attempts to masquerade as legitimate grievance and historical redress. This is not the real McCoy and shouldn't be mistaken as such.My responses:

I don't have a problem with Grundy's five tweets. I'd try to avoid saying "all," as in all white people are Ben Affleck. But the percentage who call their ancestors benign terms like "pioneers" and "farmers" must be incredibly high. Perhaps 90-95% or more. So "all" isn't much of an exaggeration.

A phrase like "kill Natives" is obviously open to interpretation. Did most Americans point a gun at Natives and shoot them? No. Did most Americans vote for politicians who implemented policies that had the predictable effect of killing Natives? Yes. Therefore, most Americans did kill Natives indirectly if not directly.

Most Americans accepted a system in which some of them owned slaves or killed Natives. For the sake of argument, it doesn't matter much if most Americans benefited from theses crimes directly or indirectly. The point is they were complicit: guilty of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. They were not innocent "farmers" and "pioneers."

And again, no free passes for recent immigrants. Americans of every vintage are fighting against treaty rights, land-into-trust deals, and casino expansions. They're building on sacred sites such as Mauna Kea or Mt. Graham, or allowing it.

Unless recent immigrants are willing to stand up against these practices, and call their fellow Americans "land thieves," they might as well be land thieves themselves. Again, they're part of the solution or part of the problem. They don't get to be neutral if they're US citizens with the right to vote.

"She paints with the same broad brush and selective history"...you realize these are 140-character tweets, right? It's nutty to expect a nuanced argument in that limited space.

I'm guessing her academic papers and teachings are as nuanced as anyone else's. It's ridiculous to chastise her for being slightly inflammatory when she makes a completely valid point. Namely, that the word "pioneer" is a euphemism for people who routinely broke treaties, invaded "foreign" territory, and introduced diseases. And sometimes killed Natives outright.

For more on America's colonization and genocide, see Whites Destroy Other People's Homes and America Constructed to Erase Indians.

Whites destroy other people's homes

White America’s greatest delusion: “They do not know it, and they do not want to know it”

Pundits and politicians are all too eager to condemn violent protest. How quickly they forget our nation's history

By Tim WiseIt is bad enough that much of white America sees fit to lecture black people about the proper response to police brutality, economic devastation and perpetual marginality, having ourselves rarely been the targets of any of these. It is bad enough that we deign to instruct black people whose lives we have not lived, whose terrors we have not faced, and whose gauntlets we have not run, about violence; this, even as we enjoy the national bounty over which we currently claim possession solely as a result of violence. I beg to remind you, George Washington was not a practitioner of passive resistance. Neither the early colonists nor the nation’s founders fit within the Gandhian tradition. There were no sit-ins at King George’s palace, no horseback freedom rides to affect change. There were just guns, lots and lots of guns.

We are here because of blood, and mostly that of others; here because of our insatiable and rapacious desire to take by force the land and labor of those others. We are the last people on Earth with a right to ruminate upon the superior morality of peaceful protest. We have never believed in it and rarely practiced it. Rather, we have always taken what we desire, and when denied it we have turned to means utterly genocidal to make it so.

Which is why it always strikes me as precious the way so many white Americans insist (as if preening for a morality contest of some sorts) that “we don’t burn down our own neighborhoods when we get angry.” This, in supposed contrast to black and brown folks who engage in such presumptively self-destructive irrationality as this. On the one hand, it simply isn’t true. We do burn our own communities, we do riot, and for far less valid reasons than any for which persons of color have ever hoisted a brick, a rock, or a bottle. We do so when our teams lose the big game or win the big game; or because of something called Pumpkin Festival; or because veggie burritos cost $10 at Woodstock ’99 and there weren’t enough Porta-Potties by the time of the Limp Bizkit set; or because folks couldn’t get enough beer at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake; or because surfers (natch); or St. Patty’s Day in Albany; or because Penn State fired Joe Paterno; or because it’s a Sunday afternoon in Ames, Iowa; and we do it over and over and over again. Far from mere amateur hooliganism, our riots are indeed violent affairs that have been known to endanger the safety and lives of police, as with the infamous 1998 riot at Washington State University. To wit:

The crowd then attacked the officers from all sides for two hours with rocks, beer bottles, signposts, chairs, and pieces of concrete, allegedly cheering whenever an officer was struck and injured. Twenty-three officers were injured, some suffering concussions and broken bones.

Seventeen years later, one still waits for the avalanche of conservative ruminations regarding the pathologies of whites in Pullman, whose disrespect for authority suggests a larger culture of dysfunction, no doubt taught to them by their rural, corn-fed families and symbolized by the easily recognizable gang attire of Carhartt work coats and backwards baseball caps.

On the other hand, it is undeniably true that when it comes to our political anger and frustration (as contrasted with that brought on by alcohol and athletics) we white folks are pretty good at not torching our own communities. This is mostly because we are too busy eviscerating the communities of others—those against whom our anger is aimed. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Manila, and on down the line.Below:  White folks not torching their own neighborhood.

America constructed to erase Indians

Dichotomy of Declaration of Independence Highlights the Bi-polar Character of USA

By Mark CharlesAs a Native man one of the excuses I often hear for people’s ignorance regarding Native issues is “there are no Native Americans in my context.” I tell them, “Yes. That was by design. Your nation was intentionally constructed so you would never have to be faced with the reality that there were people here prior to Europe’s colonization.”

This is why our schools teach that America was “discovered.” It is why American Indian reservations were created. It is why the apology to Native peoples in 2009 was buried in an appropriations bill and never publicly mentioned by the White House or Congress. And it is why the professional football team located in our nation’s capitol continues to utilize the mascot “Redsk*ns.”

The United States of American has gone through incredible lengths to keep the public narrative regarding the indigenous peoples of this land in mythical terms. Because, the moment we stop being caricatures and become human, our nation must face the uncomfortable reality that the only reason it ever stated “All men are created equal” is because it has an incredibly narrow definition of who is actually human.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Tarantino: "Indians Have More or Less Disappeared and How Euro-Americans "Vanished" Indians.

America's "intentional ignorance" about racism

Noam Chomsky: “Intentional ignorance” fuels American racism

Linguist and activist tackles America's original sin in new interview

By Luke BrinkerThe harsh realities of American racism and how it functions are seldom acknowledged, Chomsky argues—the willful result of national myth-making and truth-shrouding.

“There is also a common variant of what has sometimes been called ‘intentional ignorance’ of what it is inconvenient to know: ‘Yes, bad things happened in the past, but let us put all of that behind us and march on to a glorious future, all sharing equally in the rights and opportunities of citizenry,’” he explains.

Intentional ignorance dates to the earliest days of settlement—when American colonists would reassure themselves that their displacement of Native Americans was part of a “humanitarian intervention” against “savagery”—and continues to the present day, undergirding discussions of African Americans’ alleged pathologies, for instance.

“The appalling statistics of today’s circumstances of African-American life can be confronted by other bitter residues of a shameful past, laments about black cultural inferiority, or worse, forgetting how our wealth and privilege was created in no small part by the centuries of torture and degradation of which we are the beneficiaries and they remain the victims,” Chomsky notes. “As for the very partial and hopelessly inadequate compensation that decency would require—that lies somewhere between the memory hole and anathema.”
Noam Chomsky on the Roots of American Racism

By George Yancy and Noam ChomskyG.Y.: This “intentional ignorance” regarding inconvenient truths about the suffering of African-Americans can also be used to frame the genocide of Native Americans. It was 18th century Swedish taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus who argued that Native Americans were governed by traits such as being “prone to anger,” a convenient myth for justifying the need for Native Americans to be “civilized” by whites. So, there are myths here as well. How does North America’s “amnesia” contribute to forms of racism directed uniquely toward Native Americans in our present moment and to their continual genocide?

N.C.: The useful myths began early on, and continue to the present. One of the first myths was formally established right after the King of England granted a Charter to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, declaring that conversion of the Indians to Christianity is “the principal end of this plantation.” The colonists at once created the Great Seal of the Colony, which depicts an Indian holding a spear pointing downward in a sign of peace, with a scroll coming from his mouth pleading with the colonists to “Come over and help us.” This may have been the first case of “humanitarian intervention”—and, curiously, it turned out like so many others.

Years later Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story mused about “the wisdom of Providence” that caused the natives to disappear like “the withered leaves of autumn” even though the colonists had “constantly respected” them. Needless to say, the colonists who did not choose “intentional ignorance” knew much better, and the most knowledgeable, like Gen. Henry Knox, the first secretary of war of the United States, described “the utter extirpation of all the Indians in most populous parts of the Union [by means] more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru.”

Knox went on to warn that “a future historian may mark the causes of this destruction of the human race in sable colors.” There were a few—very few—who did so, like the heroic Helen Jackson, who in 1880 provided a detailed account of that “sad revelation of broken faith, of violated treaties, and of inhuman acts of violence [that] will bring a flush of shame to the cheeks of those who love their country.” Jackson’s important book barely sold. She was neglected and dismissed in favor of the version presented by Theodore Roosevelt, who explained that “The expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries…has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place,” notably those who had been “extirpated” or expelled to destitution and misery.

The national poet, Walt Whitman, captured the general understanding when he wrote that “The nigger, like the Injun, will be eliminated; it is the law of the races, history… A superior grade of rats come and then all the minor rats are cleared out.” It wasn’t until the 1960s that the scale of the atrocities and their character began to enter even scholarship, and to some extent popular consciousness, though there is a long way to go.

That’s only a bare beginning of the shocking record of the Anglosphere and its settler-colonial version of imperialism, a form of imperialism that leads quite naturally to the “utter extirpation” of the indigenous population—and to “intentional ignorance” on the part of beneficiaries of the crimes.

Conservatives want to brainwash kids

Conservatives are trying to indoctrinate our youth in many ways. Every argument about teaching evolution or school prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance is about this. So are the attempts to politicize the textbook selection process or to ban ethnic studies as "divisive."

Lately, conservatives are trying to brainwash kids by straight-up changing the curriculum to emphasize Christianity and capitalism. Or by eliminating education altogether.

The latest examples of this:

Will Right-Wing Extremist Documentary Be Required Viewing in Florida?

By Tanya H. LeeD’Souza answers the charge of genocide this way: “In the two centuries after Columbus, the Native American population declined by 80 percent. But it wasn’t due to warfare. Rather, as historian William McNeil points out, they contracted diseases—measles, typhus, smallpox, cholera and malaria, to which they had no immunities. Now this is tragedy on a grand scale, but it’s not genocide because genocide implies an intention to wipe out a people.”

ICTMN asked three university professors to respond. Dr. James Riding In, Pawnee, associate professor of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University, says:

“D’Souza does not understand what genocide is. There is a UN convention that was adopted in 1948 that defines genocide. What the declaration on genocide says is that it’s the killing of members of a group… or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group…[or] inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part… [or] imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children to another group.

“All of these things happened to Indians. Yes, a lot of Indians died of disease and the population of the Americas declined over 90 percent after the arrival of Europeans. A big part of that population decline is attributed to disease, but there were survivors.

“Those survivors were trying to hold on to their culture, their beliefs, their way of life, their philosophies about life that had been developed in the distant past and were supposed to continue on indefinitely. What United States colonialism did was disrupt the future of Indigenous Peoples.”

Riding In notes, “U.S. policy was genocide. It was designed, to use the jargon of the time, to kill the savage and save the man. Well, there was a lot of killing of the man along the way. And women. And children.”

Oklahoma’s demented fight against AP history

A new bill would fight teaching "what's bad about America"

By Mary Elizabeth WilliamsIt may not be true that history is written by the victors, but in certain places, they’re making a hell of an effort to make sure it’s at least taught by them. In Oklahoma this week, a legislative committee took aim at Advanced Placement U.S. History classes in public schools.

House Bill 1380, introduced by Republican Rep. Dan Fisher, would “give sole control of curriculum and assessment to the state,” with particular regard to Advanced Placement classes offered for students to earn college credit. Fisher happens to be a member of the ominously named Black Robe Regiment, a group whose aims include “To educate all people and restore to its rightful place the Church in America (indeed, the entire earth)” and “To provide educational materials for use in the Church and for the American Public to restore our American History and the History of the American Church, so as to restore what has been lost by way of deception and historical revision.” Fisher claims the AP curriculum emphasizes “what is bad about America” and neglects the concept of “American exceptionalism.” College Board representative John Williamson, meanwhile, calls Fisher’s objections “mythology and not true.”

The simplistic notion that kids need to be taught “exceptionalism,” a pervasive and often flat out inaccurate, bathed-in-glory vision of American superiority, has led to multiple educational skirmishes over the past few years. In Colorado last year, a Board of Education member took issue with AP History’s “overly negative view” of slavery, noting, “Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!” In North Carolina this past December, the State Board of Education held a debate over the AP US History course’s omission of exceptionalism in its 70 page framework. Similar battles over educational “ideological bias” and the “negative aspects” of history have waged in Georgia and South Carolina.

Ignorance is bad for everybody. It only lowers the collective IQ when lawmakers still push to teach “intelligent design.” It similarly should never be a matter of any dispute that the Inquisition and the Crusades were bad ideas, and to take offense over pointing that out is inane. Likewise, these targeted, strategic attempts to force students—students who are intellectually sophisticated enough to take on college level coursework—to accept a propaganda-based curriculum is detrimental to critical thought as a whole. It should be absurd to promote any educational agenda that pushes jingoism as a lesson plan. It should never have gotten this far. And the reality of life in the 21st century is that we are sharing this planet with the rest of its inhabitants. It’s not just dumb and wrong to teach kids that we’re better than the rest of the world, and to attempt to conspicuously leave our past misdeeds from lessons—it’s bad diplomacy and it’s bad business. That’s not teaching exceptionalism; it’s teaching entitlement—not a useful quality on the global playing field.

There’s a profound insecurity at the heart of any agenda that presumes that if kids aren’t spoon fed a black and white fairy tale of our national greatness, they’ll have no pride or loyalty. Arrogance isn’t patriotism, and education isn’t indoctrination. And anyone who doesn’t comprehend that difference doesn’t just need a history lesson, he needs a dictionary.Fox Host: 'There Really Shouldn't Be Public Schools' Anymore

By Ahiza GarciaFox host Lisa "Kennedy" Montgomery suggested getting rid of the nation's public schools during a discussion on Thursday's "Outnumbered."

Kennedy's comments came during a segment about an Oklahoma bill, approved by a House committee, that seeks to eliminate AP US History. The bill asserts that the current iteration of the course doesn't show "American exceptionalism," instead highlighting "what is bad about America."

"There really shouldn't be public schools, should there?" Kennedy said. "I mean we should really go to a system where parents of every stripe have a choice, have a say in the kind of education their kids get because, when we have centralized, bureaucratic education doctrines and dogmas like this, that's exactly what happens."Comment:  For more on the subject, see Christian Curriculum Praises Trail of Tears, What Conservatives Consider Objective History, and Ethnic History Corrects American History.

Only white lives matter?

Disproportionate Emphasis on European and US Victimhood Is Racist

By Mark KarlinIt is human nature, in general, to associate with the identity group that an individual feels is most like him or her. That may be one explanation why so many in the Eurocentric nations and their white colonialized offshoots--including the US and Canada--are aghast at the killings of people like themselves, but hardly appear to notice or grieve for people of other colors and backgrounds who suffer horrible massacres.

That was the case in Rwanda, in 1994, when some 800,000 to a million men, women and children were slaughtered in a ghastly tribal bloodletting. The Eurocentric nations--which have instigated wars for oil and "counterinsurgency" that fuel Islamic fundamentalism--didn't lift a finger to stop the slaughter in Rwanda. Nor do many in Europe or the US remember how a genocide was carried out--because Rwanda is not a strategic fossil fuel supplier and is a nation of Black people--in Africa as Western nations went about their business.

BuzzFlash contends much of this double standard (regardless of the different circumstances of the murders) is due to racism. Europe and white descendent nations of European colonization (think of the US, Canada and Australia, for example) identify strongly with whites who look like them, raised with a shared European historical, cultural, economic and cult of "civilization" value structure.

On January 22, "The Daily Show" Senior International Foreign Correspondent Trevor Noah (famous in his own right as a noted South African comedian and social critic) engaged in an unusually solemn discussion (with Jon Stewart) of how the Eurocentric nations are ignoring the terror, slavery and mass murder of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Noah pointed out that during the same period of the Paris killings, perhaps as many as 2000 Nigerians were slaughtered by Boko Haram and only a few statements of pro forma condemnation were issued by the US government. Meanwhile, the approximately 300 school girls Boko Haram kidnapped are still not released, amidst reports they are being sold off as slave wives and also being used as child soldiers.

Are these lives of less value than the lives lost in Paris? Why are we not marching with signs "Je Suis Nigeria?" Not to factor race into that answer would be mistaken.Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Science of Racism and Indians, Blacks Are America's "Others."

US open about its evils?

The Torture Report and the Indian Wars

By Steve RussellWe are told we should cool our jets about torture because no other country has aired as much dirty laundry as we are wanting hung up for all to see.

Really?

Foreign Policy recently suggested that argument fails with a look at South Africa’s Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (1995-2002); the Netherlands’ report—Dossier Srebrenica (2002)—on the role of the Dutch army in the 1995 genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Brazil’s National Truth Commission report (2014); Germany’s two truth commissions in 1992 and 1995; Sweden’s investigation into the treatment of the Roma population (2010); Guatemala’s Commission for Historical Clarification (1997-1999); Bolivia’s National Commission for Investigation for Forced Disappearances (1982-1984); or Ecuador’s Truth Commission to Impede Impunity (2007-2009).

No, the United States is not out in front of the world in admitting the evil it has done.

No, a report on ethnic cleansing of American Indians, bounties on R**skin scalps and hides, confiscation of Indian property, and brainwashing Indian children would not be without historical precedent. There are reasons not to do it, but the novelty of the idea is not one.

Historical antecedents of police brutality

With the protests against police shootings in Ferguson and New York City, Native writers are noting that violence against minorities is nothing new.

The I Can’t Breathe Movement

By Dana LonehillBeing shot and killed by police is nothing new to people with darker skin. Maybe some people think it is because of the recent civil rights movement dubbed I Can’t Breathe, in honor of the many killed by police and justified. Natives, Blacks, and other minority groups alike all know this story. They make up most of the prison system to this day and have never been under represented in anything to do with acts of genocide. Police brutality and militarization of police are something that date back slave days and days of putting Indians on a reservation.

In researching and preparing to write this, I asked many people their opinions or for quotes. I found many. I could and should post them here, but instead in the simplest terms, I will just throw it down like this. This country was founded on brutality and racism, resulting in genocide. This country was never about apple pie and baseball.

And all the muddy, messed up past is not recorded in the history books. Sure they talk about slavery and praise Lincoln for “freeing the slaves” but do the schoolbooks include Lincoln signing the death sentences of 264 Dakota prisoners? Or the mass hanging of 38 of those prisoners in what is now the largest mass execution in America? The history books will tell you what they want you to think, like you will remember or care, but they won’t tell you the truth.

Violence in the form of brutality and death is nothing new in this country. It has been happening for hundred of years, it is the foundation of this country.Where's the Senate Torture Report on All the Violence Done to Natives?

By Boyd CothranFollowing the attacks of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush administration began constructing its legal response to the perceived terrorist threat. This response consisted of a series of legal opinions from the Department of Justice, many of them written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was then serving as a deputy assistant attorney general. The memorandums provided legal arguments to support the administration’s claim that detainees from the war in Afghanistan did not enjoy the protections of either the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Convention and that the War Crimes Act of 1996 also did not apply. Despite considerable disagreement from Secretary of State Colin Powell and others, the administration went ahead, and by December 2002, the Defense Department had drafted detailed policies for interrogation techniques. Then, in early March 2003, Yoo authored one of his most sweeping legal briefs in what came to be known as the infamous Torture Memos. In it, he set out not only a legal justification but also a historical connection between unlawful combatants in the current conflict and Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century.

Reading the eighty-one-page memorandum after it became available to the public in April 2008, I was surprised to discover that at a crucial point in his memorandum Yoo relied on U.S. attorney general George H. Williams’s 1873 opinion regarding the legality of denying Indian P.O.Ws fifth amendment due process rights. The opinion provided a legal justification for circumventing civilian jurisdiction to try the Modocs for murder by a military tribunal. “It cannot be pretended that a United States soldier is guilty of murder if he kills a public enemy in battle,” Williams wrote in 1873, “which would be the case if the municipal law was in force and applicable to an act committed under such circumstances.” The Modocs, Williams had argued, could be legally prosecuted and executed by the U.S. military as long as they were first declared criminals; the U.S. Army, in other words, could kill Indians who were deemed murderers without themselves becoming murderers.

One hundred thirty years later, Yoo resurrected this legal theory to support his expansive articulation of executive power and to maintain American innocence in the Global War on Terror. “The strictures that bind the Executive in its role as a magistrate enforcing the civil laws have no place in constraining the President in waging war,” Yoo argued. Enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, could be used on enemy combatants because federal criminal laws prohibiting assault and battery simply do not apply to such criminals. Within the eyes of American law, the enemy combatant was a criminal because the Modocs were criminals; the use of torture in the Global War on Terror was justified because hanging the Modoc was justified.

What does this all mean? Why is it important to recognize the historic roots of our current conversation about torture? Because history matters. Setting the record straight matters. In reckoning with the legacy of the September 11, 2001 and its aftermath Americans must confront the violence of the past and say "never again." But in doing so we must not think that these sort of judicially expedient accommodations are unprecedented. Too often we forget that the colonization and subjugation of the powerless are often carried out under the guise of the law. Williams constructed a legal opinion in 1873 to justify ends, which most Americans at the time would have viewed as necessary and justified. But in doing so, he created a means for others. A true accounting for the history of the use of torture in the war on terror will have to look far beyond the last decade to understand our longer use of the law to justify the unjust.Comment:  For more on the subject, see "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" and Grand Juries Won't Indict Killer Cops.

"America, nation of torturers"

America, nation of torturers: Stop saying “this isn’t who we are”—here’s the real truth

Terrible findings in the torture report "are not who we are," John Kerry claims. Well, here's a U.S. history lesson

By Charles DavisIt’s comforting for those whose actions are not aligned with their stated values to believe that what one does in real life is not what ultimately defines who one really is. It’s nice to think who we are is determined not by the things we did the day before, but by the stated ideals we hope to aspire to fulfill, starting tomorrow. In a nation-state founded by settler-colonial Protestants, the argument is familiar—it’s what’s deep down inside that gets one up into heaven, not the good or genocidal nature of what one does down here on Earth—and as with any half-decent lie, it’s relatable: as fallible human beings, we’d all rather like to believe that we’re not as bad as we are but as good as we say we would like to be.

While founded on the ethnic cleansing of the continent’s original inhabitants and the enslavement of its African workforce, the news—or rather, confirmation—that the CIA employed a revolting range of “enhanced” torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 is being portrayed by some as a vile exception to the United States’ otherwise exceptional history; a “stain on our values and history,” in the words of Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose committee released the report detailing the agency’s use of near-drownings and mock executions and sexual abuse to humiliate and demoralize a foreign “other” under the guise of gathering intelligence. These practices, the terrible things this country has again and again been shown to do, “are not who we are,” added Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, “the awful facts of this report” do not even “represent who they are,” he said of those awful people described in that report (“its important that this period not define the intelligence community in anyone’s mind,” he continued).

“Some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values,” President Barack Obama chimed in, crediting his government with, as always, correcting its own mistakes (“They aren’t picking up prisoners anymore,” Senator James Risch explained to CNN. “What they do is when they identify a high-value target, the target is droned.”).

As a rhetorical ploy, it’s understandable: Saying the United States has always been garbage is not going to be terribly popular in a nation that still fondly refers to a group of sadistic slave-owners as its “founding fathers”—so politicians savvy enough to know that openly embracing torture is not a good look for the world’s leading state-sponsor of holier-than-thou rhetoric, appeal to a history and set of values that never was and never were in practice, as a way to give political cover to their middling, public relations-minded critiques of the national-security state’s least defensible excesses. It’s entirely false, this narrative of extreme goodness marked by occasional self-correcting imperfection, but it satisfies our national ego to think the American phoenix rises from a store of ethically traded gold, not a pile of rotting trash.Comment:  For more on genocide, see Colonists Wanted Indians Dead and Lord Amherst's Genocidal Intent.

45th National Day of Mourning

National Day of Mourning Reflects on Thanksgiving’s Horrific, Bloody History

By Matt JuulWhile families across the country indulge on their Thanksgiving Day feasts, hundreds will gather at Cole’s Hill in Plymouth on Thursday to commemorate a different tradition: the National Day of Mourning.

The event, held annually on Thanksgiving, is meant to honor Native American ancestors who died due to the European invasion, and to expose the bloody history behind the November holiday.

Now in its 45th year, the National Day of Mourning’s organizers hope to shine a light on modern issues facing Native Americans today, as well as to bring more awareness to the real, horrific story behind Thanksgiving.

“I think there seems to be this myth in this country propagated about Thanksgiving that, ‘Oh, you know, the Pilgrims and the Indians all sat down to have a meal together and they were good friends and everybody lived happily ever after,” says Mahtowin Munro, co-leader of the United American Indians of New England, which organizes the annual event. “It’s really important for us to stand up and talk about what the reality was and to teach others about that reality.”This Thanksgiving, Let’s Talk About Genocide Rather Than Pilgrims and ‘Friendly Indians’

By Sonali KolhatkarFew people have put that context of violence on paper as eloquently as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, an American Indian activist and academic whose latest book, “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,” is now in its fifth printing in less than two months since it was released. In it, Dunbar-Ortiz teases out the complex web of intersecting American policies toward Native peoples that include land theft, dispossession, extermination, broken pledges, Christian missionaries and boarding schools, but also self-determination, resistance and survival. Dunbar-Ortiz refutes the Thanksgiving ideal, writing that “the idea of the gift-giving Indian helping to establish and enrich the development of the U.S. is an insidious smoke screen.” Rather than her book being one that is told from a collective indigenous people’s perspective, she writes, “This is a history of the United States.”

American Indians are not simply a footnote in our collective origin story. They are here because they have survived genocide. Today there are nearly 3 million American Indians, comprising more than 500 federally recognized indigenous communities and nations. In the late 1800s, after centuries of extermination, there were fewer than 1 million indigenous people left who had descended from 15 million inhabitants of the land that we now call the United States of America. In a Nov. 5 interview on “Uprising,” Dunbar-Ortiz told me that “the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 marks what people in the U.S. call ‘the end of the trail’—the last Indian. There was a [real] genocide and then a ‘narrative genocide’ in history.” It is this narrative genocide that Dunbar-Ortiz attempts to undermine, because, as she writes in her book, “it was crucial to make the reality and significance of Indigenous Peoples’ survival clear.”

To understand the magnitude of the genocide, it is instructive to lay out the pre-colonial sophistication of indigenous societies in the Americas. Not only were their agricultural systems highly developed to coexist with natural systems, they even invented methods of mass food storage, and charted trails within and between territories, many of which form the basis of the modern freeway system. Additionally, American Indians “were very healthy [and] lived long lives,” said Dunbar-Ortiz, “partly supported by excellent hygiene, which the Europeans always noted with some suspicion.” Many American Indian forms of self-government were matrilineal, which, explained Dunbar-Ortiz, was not simply “the opposite of patriarchy”; rather, it was a democratic form of government. In fact, “women were in charge of the food supply and the distribution of food.” There was also a rich and vibrant system of trade. These facts about pre-colonial Native American history “[don’t] make it out of the technical and archaeological journals,” she lamented.

The arrival of the pilgrims, which is celebrated today as part of this nation’s birth story, represented the beginning of the end of an indigenous way of life. Foremost in the project of extermination was the land grab, which is rooted in notions of “manifest destiny,” a sense of entitlement of land by Anglo settlers that was free for the taking. But that land was not free—it was inhabited for generations by indigenous people who had a very different approach to land ownership from the settlers. Dunbar-Ortiz expanded on that difference, saying, ” The United States when it was founded created this whole new idea of ‘parcels of land’ ... making parcels that were commodities for sale, real estate.” It promoted the notion of land as “private property,” which had never before existed on the continent.

Renaming Columbus Day angers Italian Americans

On the Columbus Day front this year, Minneapolis and Seattle passed resolutions to change the name:

Inaccurate, controversial history of Columbus leads to alternative celebrations in North Dakota

By Garrett Richie“We don’t necessarily talk about Columbus Day,” Braun said. “We talk about Columbus and the complexity and the history that Columbus in fact did not discover North America. Mostly, we talk about the larger issues of what happened as Europeans settled in North America and the consequences of that.”

As far as the holiday is concerned, it originally came about as a way for Italian Americans to celebrate their heritage during a time when they were still being discriminated against in the U.S. in the late 19th century. However, as Italian Americans began to blend into the general white population in the U.S., the holiday became a more national event, and the focus shifted.

“The irony is that this holiday that started out as a celebration of a significant ethnic heritage against some kind of discrimination has become something that another ethnic group finds oppressive to them,” Braun said.

With this in mind, some towns and groups have tried to find ways to reconsider Columbus by either renaming the holiday or creating a celebration that recognizes Native Americans. This year, the Brainerd, Minn., city council proposed (but eventually tabled) a motion to replace Columbus Day with Chief Red Wing Day, and Minneapolis designated Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day.Later articles addressed this change. In particular, Italian Americans weren't happy about the slight to their hero:

Seattle council faces backlash from Italian-American group

Italian-American activists say they’re forming a political-action committee to oppose local politicians who supported designating Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

By Daniel BeekmanSome Italian-American activists in Seattle say they’re forming a political-action committee to strike back at members of the City Council who voted unanimously Monday to recognize an Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the same date as Columbus Day.

They say the council members disrespected Seattle’s 25,000 Italian-American residents when they picked Columbus Day rather than another date.

Some Native-American activists, backed by the Seattle Human Rights Commission and more than 30 other organizations, had asked for an Indigenous Peoples’ Day on that date to recall the harm inflicted on their ancestors by Europeans such as Christopher Columbus.

“We empathize with the death and destruction of the Native Americans,” activist Ralph Fascitelli said Thursday during a news conference at Il Terrazzo Carmine, an Italian restaurant in Pioneer Square. “But we think right now this is almost going too far in terms of political correctness.”

They claim the holiday has nothing to with Columbus, but instead celebrates immigration:

Columbus Day changes run aground due to lack of interest, resources; Shared Vision tables issue of honoring American Indians around holiday

By Zach KayserThe idea is spreading beyond Minnesota, too: on Oct. 6, city leaders in Seattle also voted to change the holiday. However, the move drew criticism from Seattle's Italian-American community, news agency Reuters reported.

"Italians are intensely offended," Seattle resident Lisa Marchese told the City Council. "For decades, Italian-Americans celebrated not the man, but the symbol of Columbus Day. That symbol means we honor the legacy of our ancestors who immigrated to Seattle, overcame poverty, a language barrier, and above all, discrimination."

However, the argument for changing the name centers around the link between the holiday and Columbus' legacy. Honoring him as the man who "discovered" America is perceived as paying short shrift to the millions of American Indians who lived here for generations before his arrival. Symbolism aside, there's also a more literal aspect: the acts of aggression on the part of Columbus' expeditions.

Anton Treuer, director of BSU's American Indian Resource Center, said the full extent of atrocities committed by Columbus remains widely unacknowledged.Alas, the facts don't support their claims:

Redface in America

By Robin Annette LaDueThere have been people of Italian descent who claim that their ethnicity is being disrespected by changing the name from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Their statements are that Columbus Day is really Italian Heritage Day. However, their arguments do not adhere to the facts of the matter. Columbus Day, was, in fact, first put forth under President Harrison. A more likely use of Columbus Day was that:

“During the four hundredth anniversary in 1892, teachers, preachers, poets and politicians used Columbus Day rituals to teach ideals of patriotism. These patriotic rituals were framed around themes such as support for war, citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress.”

Nowhere was it suggested in the process of making Columbus Day a federal holiday that it was in honor of Italian heritage. This does not mean that this holiday is not of great significance to people of Italian descent. It is simply not a reality that changing the name is meant to dishonor people of Italian descent. To frame the long overdue decision to recognize Native people as being disrespectful of Italian people is part of ignoring the reality of the grief so many Native people still deal with on a daily basis due to the loss of land, language, children, culture, and life that began with the landing of Columbus. These are not realities that should be celebrated.

A fact that appears to be lost in this discussion is what the immigration of people of Italian descent and other Europeans meant for Native people of the Americas. For every person who immigrated, another Indigenous person was displaced. The pain of this displacement is almost impossible to express. In effect, when politicians and others tell Native people to go home, it would be to the backyards of such people.

You don't have to dig far to see what Italian Americans are really celebrating. It's the same thing other Americans celebrate: their own "greatness."

Columbus gets his comeuppance: Why his holiday is in deep jeopardy

Mascot for violent European colonialism has been celebrated for years. These major U.S. cities are saying "no more"

By J.P. LawrenceSome Italian-Americans and others object to the name change, deeming it political correctness. If Columbus Day needs a name change, they say, so does the District of Columbia; Columbus, Ohio; and Columbia University.

Dr. Joseph V. Scelsa, founder and president of the Italian American Museum in New York City’s Little Italy, said Columbus represents the courage shown by immigrants, such as his ancestors, when they came to America.

“If it weren’t for this courageous European who came to these shores, 99% of us would not be here today. He must be seen in the context of his time, not ours,” he said. “What he did was bring Christian civilization to the Western World, and the benefits of that outweigh any disadvantages.”

Scelsa, who holds a doctorate in Sociology and Education from Columbia University, disputed claims Columbus directly killed anyone, while the “Incas practiced blood sacrifice and committed genocide.”

“I believe it is a travesty of justice to dishonor this courageous man who gave so much for this country, and I totally disagree with it,” Scelsa said. “There are many other ways to celebrate Native Americans, and we should, but not at the expense of Columbus.”Comment:  So apparently it is all about the man and his individual accomplishments after all.

The benefits of "Christian civilization" outweigh any disadvantages? Many American Indians and African Americans would disagree.

And now we're at the crux of the conflict. Italian Americans and other white Americans think they're the center of the universe. They think it's more important to celebrate and honor them than it is to acknowledge the death and destruction of Native cultures. The message is that white peoples' feelings are more important than Native peoples' lives.

It's more than understandable why Natives and their liberal allies don't accept this message. Because it's immoral and un-Christian to celebrate conquest. Killing and enslaving people isn't "civilization," it's barbarism.

The final word is my tweet on the subject:

Mussolini's death toll was 300,000. Columbus's toll was similar. Let's replace Columbus Day with Mussolini Day to honor Italians' heritage.

For more on Columbus, see King Touts "Values Columbus Brought" and Columbus Day Celebrates White Superiority.

Below:  A present-day reminder of what Columbus means to most Americans.

Colonists wanted Indians dead

From the same era as the Expulsion of the Acadians and Lord Amherst's smallpox plans, more genocidal policies and acts:

Official issued proclamation against Penobscot Indians in 1755

By Roxanne Moore Saucier[P]erusing a display out in the hall, I found my “warm fuzzy” wilting. The cause was a copy of a 1755 proclamation by one Spencer Phips, then lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The document declared the Penobscots “Enemies, Rebels, and Traitors to his Majesty King George the Second.” It “required” his Majesty’s Subjects “to embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing and Destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians.” It further stated that a bounty had been voted by the General Court of the Province, promising 25 pounds for a female Penobscot of any age or a male Penobscot under age 12, and 50 pounds for a Penobscot male over age 12. Scalps of Penobscots under 12 would earn a little less, 20 pounds.

The document may be found on the Abbe Museum website at http://www.abbemuseum.org/phips_bounty.html. The page refers to “Documentary History of Maine,” Baxter Manuscripts, Vol. 24 Page 63, and also the Androscoggin Historical Society at http://www.rootsweb.com/~meandrhs.

So in addition to taking land and spreading disease and paying Native Americans such as Loring to share stereotypes rather than their real culture, we—the white people, the European descendants—sought scalps.Sullivan/ClintonThe Sullivan-Clinton Campaign was the largest expedition ever before mounted against native North Americans. It targeted the Iroquois Six Nations Confederacy: specifically, the Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga nations. Indeed, the Fall of Iroquoia is forever entwined with the Birth of the American Republic.

The year was 1779. In the middle of the American Revolution, George Washington ordered two Generals, John Sullivan and James Clinton, and more than 6,200 men--roughly 25% of the entire rebel army--to clear-cut and burn these resisting or then neutral Iroquois nations from one of Earth’s most fertile regions. They should “not merely be overrun," Washington insisted, “but destroyed.” And England, for its part, couldn't and/or wouldn't send forces enough to defend its Indian allies' homelands against the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign.

After five days in April and four weeks in September, almost all of Iroquoia was reduced to shattered hearths and fields of fire. According to Sullivan’s Official Report, the army burned 40 towns and their surrounding fields; consuming at least 160,000 bushels of corn, “with a vast quantity of vegetables of every kind.” A study (1969) by Anthony Wallace concluded that the Campaign destroyed 500 dwellings and nearly 1 million bushels of corn. Drawing on extensive records, a history (1978) by Allan Eckert estimated at least 50 towns and nearly 1,200 houses were burned. All this before the worst winter in recorded memory.

While these figures vary, all show an earth-shaking defeat for America’s native peoples that cannot truly be expressed in numbers; one that still lingers today--often hidden in plain sight or deep in people's souls. Against this background, a hard-won foothold in NY and Rebirth of Iroquoia have been well underway...