Can you spare a few minutes?
What is it going to take for other cultures to recognize the people’s who loved and lived on this land and made it the garden that others would envy and finally overtake? When do we recognize and give truth and light to the history of a great peoples who were unjustly forced out into the outback, the deserts, the barren lands that almost extinguished The Peoples ? What worse could be done to a culture? Yet, we are forgetting, on purpose, because our history with The People ios so dark and we are numb to the trickle-down repercussions and evidences of a people nearly extinguished. What does it take for others to give favor to those generations who still experience those very repercussions? What does it take for us to treat The People with dignity, respect, and make sure they have a safe space where their women and girls do not turn up missing and/or murdered without justice prevailing?
If only you could all know and experience living with, getting to know The People around your area, intimately; spending quality lengths of time with, eating with, sitting around a fire with, giving service to, being true learners about, The People, having an honest heart and truthfully wanting to know The People; then, there is hope that you can even begin to understand what a beautiful culture they have, what simplicity their souls are, how truly accepting, forgiving, teaching they can be. Their culture is rich, full of knowledge and beautiful traditions and ways of being spiritual beings down here on Mother Earth. Competition Pow wows are not even a smidge of what their culture is about. You need to take time to be with them, their families, and sit at their knees, partake of their ceremonies, to begin to know even a little of how beautiful their culture is. To do so is to begin to understand, in a small way, how devastating, how wounded families are, how much damage has been wrought by Colonialism. I hear many thinking, “Well, it wasn’t me!” What you might not understand is that we perpetrate it all, generation after generation, by our misunderstandings. “Ge over it!” is another one I hear. It has taken how many hundreds of years, with the trickle-down effects, of our elitest mentality, and our own conditioning as Colonial heirs, and it will take many lifetimes and much love and compassion, and understanding for us to change our views so that some healing can take place.
There have been centuries of oppression, yet, here they are; strong, brave, proud and resilient. They continue to be stewards of Mother Earth as was asked by Creator. (Take care of Mother Earth and take care of each other, were the two requests of Creator when he created man.)
They have brought contributions to the arts, the humanities, to public services, that we may have been overlooking. They have so very much to offer and will offer, have offered, and yet, her we are; still misunderstanding, still knowing so little of their culture, still not seeking the WHY of things, still believing the stories we have been told, still refusing to take the time to know our neighbors, still not loving one another.
“Standing Bear rose, extending his hand toward the judge’s bench:
"That hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. God made us both."”
Systemic racism, economic inequity, poverty, poor health, dispossession, over-incarceration, violence, loss of language, loss of culture, family disintegration, are but a few of the serious setbacks for The People. We see the projections of all this, but we have not gone to really know our neighbors in their homes, in their communities, in the sacred ceremonies. Until we do, we can never know The People and the greats gifts they have for us.
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