http://www.walkermn.com/placed/index.php?story_id=201039

The whitest Indian speaks
Jeremie Pemberton, Walker
The Pilot-Independent
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 11:39:34 AM


"Why don't you go scalp somebody?" A slight pause and then, "Just kidding." The "just kidding" makes it worse. Two words that tell a lie. They meant it all. They meant every word that threw scorn upon your face. Every word weighs on your mind, crushing your happiness, corrupting your joy. It's better when they just smile when they say it. Then at least they're not lying.
Everyday I can hear their taunts. Everyday, what they say about my race echoes in my ears. I bear it in silence and smile with them. Wishing they would wear my tattered Johnson O'Maley shoes. There is only so much one can take before one explodes ... The question I have is, "Why do you dislike the Indian people? Are you not the ones who put them where they are now? Why heap scorn upon the broken pride of a fallen race."

Maybe it's to feel superior. Is it? When I do it, I don't feel superior. I feel saddened and a little piece of me dies. How much more do we have to bear before all is set right? I don't know, but I think I'll ask the Jewish people. They might know. How does racism solve anything? I can walk through the halls and hear how somebody, "hates those (expletive) Indians."
Yet the need to make fun of us still exists. From the time your ancestors put us on the reservation until now, Indians have been portrayed as ignorant savages, while the white man with his Christian morals, is the good guy. How do we become the savages when the government paid for the heads of the Indians? We all came from the same roots of farming the land and killing animals, yet we became the savages when you decided to stop. That leads me to another point. We didn't come up with scalping, while European males did.

"Did you get your food stamps yet?" That's another one I have heard. I wonder why we have food stamps. Oh, yeah, that's right, a good portion of us are on welfare. Surprising isn't it? It is and so is the fact that good portions of us on the preservation are broke. Limited job opportunities due to racism usually has that affect. Oh, another surprise! Who would have thought of that? Sure, there are jobs being made to correct the wrongs, but why not at the beginning? Racism over the period of a century usually gets to a people. Blacks have had it just as bad as we have, Jews as well (if not worse). I don't think they kill or drink like us, though.
Now I don't think I'm completely ignorant of the issues facing the tribe. What the Indians could do is to initiate a government that actually does its job, instead of behaving like a fat man on a diet in a bakery. To do this we need to weed out those who are corrupt and replace them. Give those who are corrupt a different job, such as cleaning the reservation. We all know it needs to be cleansed. Another idea is for the parents to take an active role in the child's life. No more sitting passively while the child goes and gets drunk with unsavory characters. Tell them to stay home and do some work. A helpful idea would be to destroy the gangs and persecute those who head them. One grand idea is to purge the reservation of drugs and drink.

The final idea is to revert to old traditions before they fall with the Elders. The church that stands out there must come down. It is the sign of white ethos's hold on us. The destruction of tradition is what has happened because of that hold. You may believe in God, but so did our ancestors. God was always with us before. Why worship theirs?

This essay may seem like the ranting of an angry Indian. It is. I'm not going to lie to you. Racism happens everyday at the school (Walker-Hackensack-Akeley), by both sides. I'm a mixed breed, so I get double the amount of racism, anybody of "pure" blood gets. Pure blood is a laughable idea. We are all mutts, it is just a matter of degree. That is to say, we are all one race. Yet, that won't help unless people realize it.

Today, I can say my ancestors stole land from my ancestors, or my ancestors scalped my ancestors. This is because of the heinous events that have happened over the centuries. One should never be able to say that. One should be able to say my ancestors; sure they had a couple of tiffs, but that's the past, and we're all co-existing happily. Yet I fear that would be anathema to history of man and Christianity.

Is there a cure to the racism? Because people are usually set in their paths, be they righteous or rotten, by their teens, we must strike the infestation of ignorance at its core. Youth. We must get to the young if we ever want to halt the destructive force of racism. Sure it may take years before anything that could be classified as a result appears. Sure, we may only get to a few children, but at least it's a few instead of none.

All Indians are not drunks or drug abusers. Nor are all Indians negligent of their children. Not all of the whites are racists or hypocrites. Nor are they all hypocritical Christians. To win we must begin with an open mind. We must limit the opportunities for a child to become racist. I personally, am sick of all the ignorance people spread. Ignorance is a sin. Those are the words of the gods.
In the end I would like to say that we as humans must not allow animal fears to pervade our thinking. Humanity is the one prize we have, the ability to think before we speak or act. Here is a grand idea. Use that ability! History is rife full of idiots doing stupid things that cause a war against another race.
Why must we perpetuate this? Continue doing it? Because you believe you are better than someone else, because you believe your skin color is better? Cultural relativism: don't judge others by your standards. Judge them by their own cultural mores. If only more people understood that ignorance was a sin. Don't let your children become like you for heaven's sake. Teach them that race is only because of pigments and your position on the world. Tell them that all humans are fundamentally the same, and share the same creator. Don't be an idiot. Do the world a favor.


Jeremie Pemberton, Walker