Better take my temperature.
Do a spinal tap.
Check my blood sugar.
My brain is clearly not functioning.
And I know, this is a rant which is an indication I simply need to do more reading, to educate myself, but I saw the photo of "Native Americans" which accompanied an article in the NYT Book Review of "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee" and I thought, "I'm getting so tired of Indians."
Which is another way of saying, I'm getting tired of people who insist on living in the past.
And I know, I know, you can say the same about the Holocaust remembrances going on: Get over it. It's past. Move on. And the reply is, we must remember the past or we'll repeat it. We can see the neo Nazis today and we ought to remember where their kind of thinking leads.
But really.
"Native Americans" are no more native than European Americans: They just got here first. They migrated from Asia. Europeans migrated from Europe, but later.
And then the Europeans annihilated their predecessors, ruthlessly, relentlessly, as so many invading conquerors had throughout human history before them.
They introduced small pox to kill native Americans. They slaughtered women and children. They made a virtue of killing Indians: as Phil Sheridan said: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Some Indians had lived in log cabin villages and they were slaughtered.
Some Indians were nomadic people who roamed the Great Plains and they were slaughtered.
Indians who were forced into signing "treaties" and moved onto reservations did so with the gun to their heads.
Slavery was an odious system, and it caused a destructive Civil War. It was one of those instances where the history of barbarity was close enough and vile enough and the institution it created was such a festering wound, it could not be allowed to go un remedied. And Lincoln, reflecting on how history had caught up with America speculated that this might be a just God's punishment for 240 years of cruelty, such that every drop of blood drawn by the lash had to be repaid by a drop of blood drawn by the sword.
Extermination and genocide of the American Indians was ineffably cruel, in a different way.
But, looking at it from the 21st century, we have to say, we can never atone, and we can never compensate blood for blood. Human history is so drenched in blood and cruelty we can only say: This the savagery we came from, but this is not who we want to be now.
I cannot help that my great greats beat and raped slaves. I cannot change that my great greats committed genocide against American Indians. But I can be different myself, and that is all I can do.
At what point do you have to say: Okay, we have a blood drenched past, a past that like so much of human history is the story of struggle, remorseless killing and deception, lies, sanctimonious hypocrisy.
But this is where we are now.
A German, a 20 year old woman who was born in 1975, once asked me, "Why am I seen as a loathsome demon seed? What have I done wrong? I was born 30 years after Hitler died. He was hideous. But because I'm German, speak his language, I'm guilty? Of what?"
She might have added: "You lived in the United States when your countrymen were killing babies, napalming villages, spreading Agent Orange over Vietnam. And you look at me and call me guilty?"
We can look at Indians living on reservations and say, "Let us distribute some money in a way to give you a chance to live in our society, be educated to our ways, benefit from our system (health care, university education, learning a trade) and we can all be one big family.
Or you can continue to "honor the past" speak of great spirits and live in a fantasy world which rejects science and new knowledge, i.e. you can cleave to a primitive past.
We, all of us, ultimately come from a primitive past, whether our ancestors were Scots, Vikings, Visigoths, Nazis, Romans, Israelites, Zulus, Masai or Incas.
We can be enriched by the past, but we should not try to cleave too much to it, because, truth be told, the past was bitter, nasty and lives were short, brutal and ended quickly.
The important thing is to embrace each other. That the great great great great grandaughter of a Viking should, today, be happily give birth to the great great great grandson of a Masai warrior and that kid should grow up learning to code, be guided through his journey by a GPS from a satellite and possibly do heart surgery to save the great great great great granddaughter of an Apache chieftain, should be something to celebrate.
But spare me the feather in the cap, the rain dances and the beating drums.
And definitely, spare me the MAGA hats.
We are so much greater today than we ever were.
Do a spinal tap.
Check my blood sugar.
My brain is clearly not functioning.
And I know, this is a rant which is an indication I simply need to do more reading, to educate myself, but I saw the photo of "Native Americans" which accompanied an article in the NYT Book Review of "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee" and I thought, "I'm getting so tired of Indians."
 |
| Frederick Banting, MD, artist |
Which is another way of saying, I'm getting tired of people who insist on living in the past.
And I know, I know, you can say the same about the Holocaust remembrances going on: Get over it. It's past. Move on. And the reply is, we must remember the past or we'll repeat it. We can see the neo Nazis today and we ought to remember where their kind of thinking leads.
 |
| Discoverers of Insulin, Banting and Best |
But really.
"Native Americans" are no more native than European Americans: They just got here first. They migrated from Asia. Europeans migrated from Europe, but later.
And then the Europeans annihilated their predecessors, ruthlessly, relentlessly, as so many invading conquerors had throughout human history before them.
They introduced small pox to kill native Americans. They slaughtered women and children. They made a virtue of killing Indians: as Phil Sheridan said: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Some Indians had lived in log cabin villages and they were slaughtered.
Some Indians were nomadic people who roamed the Great Plains and they were slaughtered.
 |
| White slave |
Indians who were forced into signing "treaties" and moved onto reservations did so with the gun to their heads.
Slavery was an odious system, and it caused a destructive Civil War. It was one of those instances where the history of barbarity was close enough and vile enough and the institution it created was such a festering wound, it could not be allowed to go un remedied. And Lincoln, reflecting on how history had caught up with America speculated that this might be a just God's punishment for 240 years of cruelty, such that every drop of blood drawn by the lash had to be repaid by a drop of blood drawn by the sword.
Extermination and genocide of the American Indians was ineffably cruel, in a different way.
But, looking at it from the 21st century, we have to say, we can never atone, and we can never compensate blood for blood. Human history is so drenched in blood and cruelty we can only say: This the savagery we came from, but this is not who we want to be now.
I cannot help that my great greats beat and raped slaves. I cannot change that my great greats committed genocide against American Indians. But I can be different myself, and that is all I can do.
At what point do you have to say: Okay, we have a blood drenched past, a past that like so much of human history is the story of struggle, remorseless killing and deception, lies, sanctimonious hypocrisy.
But this is where we are now.
A German, a 20 year old woman who was born in 1975, once asked me, "Why am I seen as a loathsome demon seed? What have I done wrong? I was born 30 years after Hitler died. He was hideous. But because I'm German, speak his language, I'm guilty? Of what?"
She might have added: "You lived in the United States when your countrymen were killing babies, napalming villages, spreading Agent Orange over Vietnam. And you look at me and call me guilty?"
We can look at Indians living on reservations and say, "Let us distribute some money in a way to give you a chance to live in our society, be educated to our ways, benefit from our system (health care, university education, learning a trade) and we can all be one big family.
 |
| American children getting educated |
Or you can continue to "honor the past" speak of great spirits and live in a fantasy world which rejects science and new knowledge, i.e. you can cleave to a primitive past.
We, all of us, ultimately come from a primitive past, whether our ancestors were Scots, Vikings, Visigoths, Nazis, Romans, Israelites, Zulus, Masai or Incas.
We can be enriched by the past, but we should not try to cleave too much to it, because, truth be told, the past was bitter, nasty and lives were short, brutal and ended quickly.
 |
| Trump's "infestation" |
The important thing is to embrace each other. That the great great great great grandaughter of a Viking should, today, be happily give birth to the great great great grandson of a Masai warrior and that kid should grow up learning to code, be guided through his journey by a GPS from a satellite and possibly do heart surgery to save the great great great great granddaughter of an Apache chieftain, should be something to celebrate.
But spare me the feather in the cap, the rain dances and the beating drums.
And definitely, spare me the MAGA hats.
We are so much greater today than we ever were.
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