Oh, I Don't Wonder

“I think the U.S. government is going to die in its own quagmire of brutality, its own quagmire of hatred and discrimination and the brutality that it has committed over the years and the honors given to people for committing those acts. For instance, for the massacre at Wounded Knee the U.S. government gave out Medals of Honor for killing women and children and that’s a disgraceful, disgraceful chapter and those are the kinds of thing that America is going to die from. Native people will still be here and the good people of America will be here too, but the federal system that has sponsored all these things, that’s endorsed them and still endorses them will die of all that stuff.” - Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement

My first encounter with AIM was at a pow-wow held in 1971 … One man, a Chippewa, stood up and made a speech. I had never heard anybody talk like that. He spoke about genocide and sovereignty, about tribal leaders selling out … He had himself wrapped up in an upside-down American flag, telling us that every star in this flag represented a state stolen from the Indians … Some people wept. An old man turned to me and said, “These are the words I always wanted to speak, but had kept shut up within me.”

“We were the prophets, the messengers, the fire starters. Wounded Knee awakened not only the conscience of all Native Americans, but also of white Americans nationwide.” 

Stephen Shore

Comca'ac

Telar

Photo by Memo Vasquez, Mexico

Child with Mask, Hillrose, Colorado, 1989