> All the rage that had been building up for 40 years came out
> against her white husband. She said everything started as the
> white people's fault, and you know what? That's the truth.
...
> Once we have all accepted this awful truth, we can get on with the
> rest of our lives. However, I think it's reasonable to expect some
> residual effects of previous feelings.
...
> So, I hope we can be understanding when we experience some residual
> anger on the part of others, or the mourning for things that have
> been lost.
Is the anger expressed by Peshewegunzh and others in response mainly
to residual anger and mourning for things lost in the past, or is it
in response to things that continue to take place?
> Well, we can't change the past. But we can work for the present
> and future. White people may want to make some kind of
> retribution, but there's a limit to what we can do and there are
> some areas where trying to help would only worsen the situation.
> The bulk of the work, I'm afraid, is up to Native Americans
> themselves. Poverty, alcoholism and political fragmentation on the
> reservations are their problems. No one else can solve them.
I agree somewhat. White people, trying to help, often have a tendency
to try to take over, saying that we know how to solve other people's
problems better than they do, insisting that the other stay in their
position of powerlessness, not to mention insisting on solutions that do
more harm than good. Not an especially healthy situation.
On the other hand, reading this, I keep thinking about a story I made up
when I was younger, it was set in Vietnam, which I knew little about but
it was in the early 70's when Vietnam was a big issue, anyway, it was
about this rice farmer, doing his thing growing rice, and he had a bad
year, weather was bad, so his family was hungry, and they were just
barely getting by, barely enough left to eat much less to plant, but he
managed to plant some, and the Army sprayed defoiliants and killed off
the plants, there wasn't much left to eat, and none to plant, he got a
few handfuls of rice from somewhere, and gave it to his family to eat,
and got yelled at for not planting it (these people just live for the
moment, you know), some other things happened to interfere with his
providing for his own food, I don't remember what they were (it was a
long time ago), and when there was nothing left, he just got weaker and
weaker, and every time he found something to eat someone would take it
away from him, until he was so weak he didn't have energy to eat, to
even digest the food much less get it to his mouth, and he was in a
hospital somewhere, and someone brought in a tray and set it on the
other side of the room (he was in bed, I think they put him in
restraints so he wouldn't get out of bed and hurt himself), and this
social worker came in and looked at him, wondering why he didn't get out
of bed and feed himself, and the hospital had done so much, giving him
the bed and bringing food into the room, and so the social worker told
him that if he didn't help himself there wasn't anything that anyone
else could do for him. Eventually, he starved to death. I don't know
what became of his family.
Well, I guess I was pretty depressed when I made up that story. (By the
way, I can't say that I got out of it myself, it took other people
caring for/about me, and helping me find some spiritual roots, to enable
me to get my own act together.)
But this probably doesn't really relate to that. I mean, Native
Americans aren't so far gone, like I was, that they can't take care of
it for themselves.
However, do white people continue to find ways to interfere with Indians
taking care of the problems that European and European/American
"civilization" has brought to them? I mean, are the problems in the
past or are some of them in the present? Is it a lack of initiative or
ability on the part of Native Americans that keeps the problems of the
reservations, poverty, alcoholism, whatever, from getting solved? Or is
it something else?
Krista suggests some actions white people can/should take:
> So what can white people do? Mainly I think our role should be
> supportive of whatever ideas Native people are trying. We can
> vote wisely (like, don't vote for David Duke). We can support
> Native American economics by buying Indian-made arts, crafts and
> products without becoming traders who compete against Indians. We
> can make sure that our local schools educate students about Native
> American history and present cultures. If we do become interested
> in anthropology or linguistics, we can pursue our interests in ways
> that share the benefits with Native peoples. This is what Mary's
> daughter is hoping to do.
I hope this is what Mary's daughter is hoping to do, although she
may not know herself what her interest is. She may need to question it,
as maybe should I.
Some good ideas here, though. I wonder, what do other people think the
role of white people should be?
I suppose some of these are rhetorical questions, but actually I really
would like some answers.
Susan Witt
<switt@knox.bitnet>