'America'nization

I was so upset about a video that was shown in one of my Social and Cultural Education class that I had to walk out before it was over. I'm not upset that my teacher showed it, because I do believe it needed to be seen. It's just that I found it to be so sickening.

The video was about "Indian Boarding Schools" part of the Americanizing (Late 1800's early 1900's) of Native American children where they would get children from their tribes and send them to schools far from home in an effort to whitewash their native culture. Their hair was cut. They were not allowed to speak their tribal language or practice any of their customs. The idea was to 'civilize' these 'savages' and assimilate them into American culture. One thing that pisses me off is that Native Americans were here first and they did not ask these Europeans for admittance into their society. It was nauseating to see these children forced to dis-identify with their culture in order to be American, so that the 'paleface' could limit or eliminate the 'threat' of Native Americans. I was sitting there like what the hell? but what really got me was my further consideration of things.

The Europeans did this to the Native Americans, and (along with the Trail of Tears) it resulted in the disappearance of many tribes and drastic reduction of other Native American nations. What further pisses me off is that Blacks were not thought of highly enough to be considered as a threat and God forbid that the United States back then would have made it National policy to educate 'the Negro', to put a book in his hand, to lift the shackles of ignorance. No, we 'Negroes' were considered monkeys, less than people. On the one hand I am deeply upset at what America's past and human sin and ignorance has done to Native Americans. On the other hand I can't help but observe that they still HAVE a culture. They had culture before the 'paleface' tried to take it away, even though now their culture is also mixed with discrimination, oppression and wrongs against them. As far as African Americans are concerned, the greater part of our culture has been formed completely in reaction to all of the discrimination and oppression we've faced and that still reverberates through the generations of many families today who are still impoverished, uneducated, fatherless and can't even IMAGINE a better life let alone think its possible. I mean, African America is still trying to grasp and hold on to a culture... look at the state of Hip Hop today. Ooh I wanna write more but I have to go.
Posted on 2.22.2007 at 1:38 PM