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BLATANT RACISM? LAND LOSS? AND YOU’RE NOT NATIVE AMERICAN?




People across the U.S. witnessed what it’s like to be Native American in recent weeks as a result of top stories that flooded the mainstream news media.

First there were the “black face photos”.

Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel, a Republican, in blackface at a party 15 years ago and dressed as? A Hurricane Katrina victim. So…not only is the man a racist, he’s also incredibly cold and insensitive. Or maybe he’s just a jerk. Still, Republicans aren’t known for their positive relationship with minorities – Lincoln’s Emancipation notwithstanding.

Moving north, but still in the once-Confederate states, we saw Virginia Governor Ralph Northam in a college yearbook photo of a man in blackface beside a man in Ku Klux Klan attire. Nothing like a double dose of crude.

Northam is a Democrat, but let’s remember that was the party supporting slavery during the Civil War and whose Southern members were staunch supporters of segregation well into the 1960s. Or in the immortal words of George Wallace, that bastion of Jim Crow laws who sought the presidency 3 times as a Democrat: “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”.

 

Wallace’s final presidential bid was as an Independent in 1968 – far too recent – when he was pushing to end all federal desegregation efforts.

And you’re surprised at these photos why?

Following the Northam revelation came word that Virginia’s attorney general Mark Herring – another Democrat – admitted to wearing um…er…uh…“dark makeup” while dressing as rapper Kurtis Blow. So, Herring’s attempt to mitigate his behavior with that lame explanation should legitimize his actions because… he was only dressing as “a darkie”?

This is the mindset of the politicians we elect across this country and is seen on both sides of the aisle – from Bill Clinton’s “it depends on what the definition of is…is” to G.W. Bush’s myriad flubs of the English language.

And speaking of Republicans let’s not forget Tommy Norment, majority leader of Virginia’s state Senate. He was managing editor of the Virginia Military Institute’s yearbook that featured photos of people in blackface alongside other racist snapshots and slurs.

Which yearbook? 1968 – the same year George Wallace was conducting his last racist campaign.

As much as white liberals may have been shocked by these news stories, conservatives who know their own weren’t. Nor anyone who is black because…well, they’ve grown up either directly experiencing blatant racism or knowing someone who has.

But how does this relate to Native Americans, Jim?

One Lakota woman I know put it best: “I don’t understand this. Yes, it’s insulting to African-Americans. But having Native American costumes every year for Halloween isn’t?”

Exactly. Nor is it just those costumes, or items like “Crazy Horse Malt Liquor” and the myriad other products that continue to surface out of the depths of the bad taste, bias and bigotry cesspool. It’s the hundreds of mascot names and images that are blatantly offensive to Native Americans yet remain in use “to honor them”.

Decades old, relatively private blackface photos newly discovered are one thing. A professional football team named “The Carolina N…rs” is quite another – nor would you see it in today’s world.

No one…no one…would stand for that. So, why is the continued objectification of Native Americans acceptable? It’s not.

The problem, of course, is that Native Americans, even in the 21st century, continue to be “The Invisible Minority”. After all, what’s more ironic than the African American Mayors Association demanding that the “Are you a citizen?” question be stricken from the 2020 U.S. Census form because “coupled with underfunding (it) will result in the undercounting and potential disenfranchisement of communities of color”, when the Pine Ridge Reservation population continues to be undercounted by tens of thousands, and so continues to be underfunded, as does all of Indian Country?

That second “feel like a Native American” story was less conspicuous than the blackface photos coverage, but not to this nation’s First People. It came when U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Congress to cut funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, accusing the agency of criminalizing Latinos: “Because we are standing on native land, and Latino people are descendants of native people.”

Too true AOC, but a battle Native Americans have been fighting for 500 years.

Perhaps a positive to this recent objectification of African-Americans and Latinos will be a greater awareness of such attitudes toward all marginalized populations, especially those who were here when the racist hordes first landed.

Once called “true Christians”, now they’re called “True Trumps”.

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