soitgoes

cannot sit correctly +10

emotionally unstable +10

dyed hair +5

boots +5

deeply invested in politics due to your very rights being constantly questioned +10

iffy relationship with father +15

has a Tumblr +5

Lucky enough to have great relationship with my dad

Me:

The effort to eradicate bison specifically to starve the Sioux

The trail of tears

Residential schools

Bounties for scalped Native Americans in Pennsylvania

The multiple broken treaties to respect Native Land

He also said people would try to hit his brothers and him with a car while they were walking to school.

His dad was allowed to die over appendicitis in a hospital. He suffered for days while the staff did NOTHING.

His uncles disappeared and the police did NOTHING. Their car was later found in a canyon, full of bullet holes. The bullets were military issue.

His eldest brother also died under mysterious circumstances.

My great grandmother, the last of our tribe to be born traditionally, outside, owned 5000 acres in northern California. Active imminent domain left her with 1 ACRE. Which they later took to build a post office.

That same grandma, who I’m named after, was kidnapped as a child and held as a slave in a white mans house. She had a wire put through her ear that tethered her so she could only go from her bedroom to the kitchen. Her dad found her and rescued her, ripping the thing out of her ear. My dad said her earlobe was forever split in two pieces.

In church when I was a kid people alienated my family and my dad got jokey death threats all the time. My mom, who was white, was told she was too good for my dad. I was told I was dark but I would hopefully lighten up if I stayed out of the sun. At school we read a story about a “drunken injun” and I cried in class while my classmates mockingly did a raindance and chanted. My first boyfriend said he wished he wasn’t a white guy because Indians get free college.

This shit was recent and current. Go look up suicide, sexual assault, and drug addiction statistics within Native American communities.

White people came to this country and slaughtered us. Your white ancestors did this. Maybe even your grandparents.

America wasn’t won, it was stolen. Native Americans aren’t better off because we have electricity. I’d rather have my people back.

"We can never make up for what we did to the Indians. We have done so wrong by them and I don't think we can ever repay what we stole."

And that stuck with me because as a (mostly) white American, I think that is something a lot of white Americans do not seem to get.

The genocide of the Native American population is not something that we can ever "make up for."

European colonization was not mutually beneficial. We (us of european descent) systematically and purposefully destroyed a large group of people whose ancestors are still suffering.

If I hear one more goddamn white person saying "oh why should i apologize? I didn't do anything" I'm gonna scream. You should apologize because you (and me and non-native americans) are benefiting from a system that was built through the genocide of millions of people. If you accept the American identity, you accept everything that comes with it. You are an American and this is part of your history. You have to accept responsibility for whatever your country did or does regardless of whether or not you personally "did" anything

Sorry, for this intrusion.

As a white American, it is not my place to discuss the unimaginable suffering of the native american people. Please excuse my intrusion into a topic I have no business adding my opinion on.