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Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people or culture in order to benefit the destructor.
I, being Indian of Alsea, Klickitat, and Lower Umpqua ancestry, would like to tell you about the things that affect me in present-day life.
Sports Teams
Native Americans are used in advertising and as sports team names. We are mocked and made fun of so a few non-Indians can amass great amounts of wealth. These stereotypes and caricatures have a dehumanizing effect. By "dehumanizing" I mean: to make other than human of that which is human. What dehumanizing does is make it easier for humans to do inhuman things to their fellow human beings. If you don’t consider Indians to be a people, it makes it easier to attempt to separate us from our remaining lands – which is genocide. When Indians protest these names and advertising, people don’t care because we have been dehumanized in the eyes of most people through the use of advertising and sports team names. Advertising and sports team names are a tool of genocide.
Archaeology
Another tool of genocide is archaeology. Archaeology attempts to justify genocide of Native Americans. They use the Bering Land Bridge theory for this. They say we Indians migrated over to this continent from Siberia. They say there were no people here until then, and that this immigration happened around 12,000 years ago. Since we were supposedly immigrants, that makes the Wiyot massacre at Humboldt Bay justified. That justifies Wounded Knee. That justifies spreading diseases to wipe us out. After all, we were supposedly immigrants too. Well, the science that claims the Bering Land Bridge as fact can show absolutely on proof of this. Yet it is a widely accepted theory.
Archaeology has also dug up the remains of many of our ancestors in the name of their great Science God. I believe they do this, intentionally or unintentionally, to separate us from our land. If they remove all traces of us ever having existed there, then they can say we never existed there. Indians are the only race of people they do this to.
They also dig up Native American graves to erect buildings. I once made the statement that "Indian graves are in the way of progress." This offended a reader, so I gave a couple of examples:
Wal-Mart is building a store on a Native American graveyard in Tennessee.
They don’t do that to any other race. You can’t just dig up the Sunset cemetery to erect yet another useless store. But you can dig up Indian graves without even getting permission. People found it offensive when Portland’s west-side light rail went 80 feet under a cemetery. But it’s not offensive to remove graves in Seattle to erect another building. That’s OK, after all, they’re just Indians. It’s not like they’re really human beings.
Education
Another tool of genocide was, and in some cases still is, education. Boarding schools taught Indian children how sinful and horrible it was to be born to the wrong race. They would beat, torture, and imprison children for the most heinous of crimes, such as speaking your native language or complaining about the food. They also frequently raped the children and even beat them to death. But that’s OK. After all, they were only Indians. It’s not like they’re civilized or anything.
Also, the mainstream education among non-Indians taught children that the genocide was successful, and that there were no "real" Indians left. They even told me that, and they knew I was Indian. Pretty cool huh? Did they ever tell white people they didn’t exist? Did they ever tell black people there were no real Africans left? No, they only did that with Indians, because, after all, we aren’t really human beings like everyone else.
Now we come to the question: Why commit genocide against the Native Americans, and why continue it with a kinder, gentler hand today? Well, my theory goes like this.
Land
Native Americans have land claims. Land is the root of all money. You need natural resources in whatever you do to make money. Since land is money, and Indians have land claims, then the Indians must b removed from that land so that good, non-Indian, greedy human beings can make money. How does one remove Indians from their land? Forced relocation, cultural genocide to separate them spiritually from their land, or even physical genocide (which is self-explanatory).
Many tools were used to dehumanize us to make it easier for people to wipe out men, women and children. "Nits make lice." After all, it’s easier to kill somebody if you don’t think of them as human beings. Word of mouth was a tool. Literature (dime store novels, etc.) was a tool. Religion was a tool. Boarding schools were tools. Civilization itself is a tool of genocide. Civilization has to wipe out everything in its path to make it conform to its standards of what should be.
"Civilization"?
Speaking of civilization, I heard a good one on the news a while back. Several Indians were on trial for killing elk up in the Yakima, Washington area. They are testing treaty rights. I heard it said that with the encroachment of civilization, it was just expected that Indian hunting would disappear. That is genocide.
They also made the comment that some people believe that Indians are responsible for the decline of elk in Washington State. Well, they failed to mention that some Indians believe non-Indians are the cause of the decline. Hmmmmm. They also failed to mention that non-Indians took 6,429 elk to the 286 by members of Washington’s 20 tribes. Well, why should we confuse the issue with such stupid things as facts? You know, like archaeology.
Civilization seems to be its own best argument against itself. Let’s talk about the Native Americans that were "civilized." The Aztecs and Incas practiced human sacrifice. I have heard people use the excuse that since the Aztecs and Incas practiced human sacrifice, then it’s OK to annihilate all Native American populations. Charles Manson practiced human sacrifice – therefore it must be OK to wipe out nations of people, right? No, it just doesn’t make sense. "Civilized" seems to me like something that people should avoid becoming. But there just ain’t no money in being uncivilized.
What genocide has done for me
Most people can learn their own language. If you’re Italian, you can learn the language if you don’t already know it. But I cannot learn my language. It has been successfully beaten, tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered out of my ancestors.
That doesn’t mean we were weak people. After all, I’m still here to remind you what happened. This is my homeland. You are in the land of my people. I am here to remind you of that. I am here to ask you to respect that. You don’t have to respect that – I can’t tell you what to do – I just respectfully ask that you acknowledge the genocide, and do things to prevent its continuance.
Yes, it continues through to this moment, and for now, into the future. But we Indians, we don’t die too easily. We already have 506 years of genocide behind us.
Sometimes the struggle is overwhelming, and I want to stop. But I look in the face of my daughter, and I don’t want her to have to carry on this legacy. I remember my ancestors who faced 506 years of genocide to put me and my big mouth here. I remember the children unborn, al the way to the seventh generation and beyond, and I don’t want them to live with this legacy. I want it to stop. I have to do my part. Sometimes I want to give up, but so much has brought me to right here, past, present and future. My ancestors had to go through many horrors to insure that I can be here, right now. I have to do what I can to insure the future of my people.
Global economics
Now let’s talk about the global genocide that America’s corporations have created. In order to create a cheap labor force, that have had to destroy indigenous cultures around the world. Military governments get installed in order to prevent any uprisings – and ta da, you have just destroyed a self-sustaining culture in order to bring cheap (well, not so cheap) shoes to America, or whatever product. That is genocide.
What America is doing in Iraq is genocide. They can’t destroy the will of Saddam, so they must destroy the people. There are babies dead and dying in Iraq so we can have cheap gas. There are mothers mourning over their dead babies so we can have cheap gas. I feel guilt driving back and forth to work. I feel guilt every time I drive to make deliveries for my work. Because of me, there are dead babies in Iraq. Because of me, there are mothers mourning dead babies. My government has caused this so I can have cheap gas. The American government wants to willfully destroy a people so oil corporations can have a ton of money and I can have cheap gas. My god! I’m willing to pay 10, 20, 30 dollars a gallon if I have to – just lift the sanctions and quit killing babies.
It’s atrocities like these that make me glad I was born to an uncivilized race. Heck, I hope the whole world becomes uncivilized. The world seems to work better that way.
Our mother, Earth
Let’s look at the genocide of the earth, our mother. People are willing to rape everything out of our mother to make a few bucks. Sometimes I think (and I really don’t know how true it is) that these people figure the world is coming to an end soon, so why not get all you can? But they don’t seem to realize that maybe the world is coming to an end because of them.
I had an uncle who had a dream of his death. When he went to the spirit world, he was shown various events of his life. The things he felt most proud of that he did, hurt a lot of people. The little things he didn’t even really notice doing helped the people vastly. What will the perpetuators of this civilization see when they die?
What will I see when I die?
Now they are polluting all the waterways. There seems to be no naturally clean water anywhere. If there is, I hope they don’t find it. Water is life. You kill the water, you kill all life. Some people seem willing to sacrifice the whole world – all life – in order to make a few bucks. They don’t seem to have any common sense.
Armageddon may be around the corner; it may not. But listen, folks – listen to the Indians who remember. We have seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We’ve been there. We’ve survived it, and we will continue to survive because we don’t just lay down and die. We’ve proven that. So if you want help in surviving whatever Armageddon may take place, listen to those Indians who remember. Don’t worship them. Don’t idolize them. Just listen, then listen to your inner voice. That’s all I have to suggest. Everything I say could be wrong.
One more thing about that Armageddon thing: a man that I know who pours water always has this to say about it: "We are alive during the time that everyone wanted to be alive."
Now that is something to think about.
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