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Re: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!

Subject: Re: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!
From: Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:44:30 -0500

James Barrow wrote:

A 'central reservation' here is a place where American Indians go to play
bingo.


WIth my wife being part Cherokee and many of my friends being American Indian or Native Alaskans, I find your attempt at humor to be in poor taste. Here in Vermont, the Abenaki Indians, who roamed these lands for thousands of years before Ethan Allen set up his homestead, recently got "recognition" from the state as being "an indigenous people;" although, the Federal government still doesn't recognize them. One of the Federal government's fears is that the people who were the recipients of our country's genocide and ethnic cleansing policies would attempt to get back what was rightfully theirs and build casinos. Yet, all they wanted was a little respect. They don't want a casino...they want the same respect we give decedents of Italians, Germans, French, and other immigrants....people who came after the Indians to buy the land stolen from them.

A bit of perspective. Did you know that the Iroquois Nation had a representative democracy during the same period Cotton Mathers and his crew were dunking and burning women for being "witches." and that an Indian city located at the mouth of the Missouri River at the time Columbus "discovered" America was larger than London, England? Did you know that the Aleuts had a written language and history prior to the arrival of the American? If you didn't know that, you probably didn't know that many of the wealthiest landowners in the south were Cherokee, and you probably didn't know that Andrew Jackson forced them out of their homes at gunpoint then made them march with little provisions to Oklahoma. You probably didn't know that a lot of them died, including hundreds of babies snatched out of mothers arms and killed because they weren't white. You probably also didn't know that Custer's Massacre started when a soldier killed an unarmed 14 year old boy for picking up a tin of hard tack that had fallen from a pack horse. (What would you do if someone shot your son for being an inquisitive teenager?) Even today, in some areas of our country, the American Indian is looked at as an oddity instead of a fellow human being. Racism is racism.

My point is...your comment was in poor taste and it only promotes the ignorance many Americans have for the very people who saved some of their ancestors from starvation.


Al

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RE: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!: From: James Barrow

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