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RE: Indigenous Erasure on the 4th of July: Prayer for a Common Memory
America should always be aspirational. Good post. Those who celebrate an idealized founding and past without considering our actual history will not move America forward.
💕 agreed, thanks
yes. agree.
I agree! But not only America! The worst thing that ever happened was to place people on reservations. It was their land first!
👏 yes
I agree with your first statement but question the rest. I grew up when we were allowed and encouraged to celebrate our history without being repeatedly told how guilty we all are for things that happened before we were born. Yet I did not grow up with any illusions that our founding was idealized, I was taught that it was bloody and messy and complicated and that made me even more grateful for the world that grew out of that past.
I am not saying don't look there. I am just really sick of the trend of denying and begrudging the things about American culture that really are worth celebrating.
What, in 1776, should the founders have done to heal the generational trauma already in place? Massacres were definitely happening on both sides by then (for at least a generation), and their own government had started to use force against them. If you'd like to see how neutrality and reasoning worked out back then, look up "Acadians".
I'd argue that the actions taken by the founders in 1776 led to the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people, an outcome that was far from perfect and continues to be imperfect but which has continued to foster improvement through generations. That is very much worth celebrating.
hey @wholeself-in, i read your comment before i went to bed last night and have let it sit on the "back burner" since then. i wrote a post this morning reflecting upon your statement about being tired of hearing about "white guilt" continually -here. as far as balancing "looking" and celebrating 'what is'- I don't intend to say don't celebrate these things -- however, this post was specifically geared toward "the looking." we each have differing experiences of our lives in America and are a part of differing cultures. if you want to write a post -- or write more in general celebrating the things you're grateful for, I'd be interested in hearing it.
personally i don't see "the trend of denying and begrudging going away" - why? because for too long there have been too many voices that have been silenced. the narrative that we have learned in schools (at least i can speak for myself) was one that glorified the colonizers and again is a case where the oppressor writes history. this has a stark effect for whoever grew up on the other side of that history. as these marginalized voices keep coming to the fore, i think there is a lot of reckoning to do (to achieve balance and make reparations) and i will speak for myself in saying that i cannot with eyes wide open and a whole heart celebrate this country until this takes place.
i'm not exactly sure what you mean here? people left england looking for freedom and they found people existing on what is now called America (some of whom extended a warm welcome). the colonizers brought war, disease and have consistently and continually sought to erase the native presence (as i detailed above in this article.) if people are coming to a land to colonize it or "discover it" or save and control "the merciless savage" that right there is their first error. hundreds of years into this bloodshed, i'm not sure what you're referring to about generational trauma. the worldviews of the "founding fathers" were too steeping in colonizer mindset to even see natives or blacks as "men like them"
we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. personally i don't think much has changed, and in fact, it's even become worse.
I realize I've invaded your post (until yesterday, I was naive enough to think the "tribe" in "tribesteemup" referred to a modern internet community, not an ancient tribal identity), not my intent so I will desist after answering this.
This condenses at least 100 years of history and lays it at the feet of the men who signed the declaration of independence, most of whom were born here (as I was - heck, as my great- grandparents were). When I ask what could they have done in 1776, I am attempting to recognize that the long arc of history is made of many tiny human lives, including the lives of these men who somehow managed to stand up to a powerful tyrant AND frame a constitution that has survived two and a half centuries of rapid change.
"Generational trauma" was your phrase, I think. I might have an intuitive sense what it means, but still I want clarification, because words like this and like "reparations" have serious implications that ought not to be left vague.
I'll go read your new post, and thank you for giving my comment some thought. I doubt I'll be writing about what I am grateful for in our history - mostly, I am grateful that I'm here and not there! When I think about history, I have two impressions: 1, how amazing it is that I'm here at all, and 2, these historical figures were just regular people, how crazy is it that the decisions they made still affect us today? (Also, what does that imply about the decisions we make in our lives?)
Hey I’m confused what you mean by this?
Only that I stumbled upon something that was not meant for me, which became obvious when I saw this post by tribesteemup.
Not wanting to act on my initial knee-jerk reaction to seeing swastikas on the U.S. flag, I read several of the articles. I also saw the tribesteemup logo, which seems to indicate a Native American heritage - I didn't connect those dots simply from the word 'tribe', which on the internet often means a more intentional community.
(Note, I don't see the Native imagery as having any connection to the swastika flag, and I'm not sure why they'd want to.)
Native Americans surely have a different perpective from me on the meaning of "tribe," hence my wanting to back away from things I know nothing about.
I think tribalism gets more dangerous the farther technology develops, and at this point it is something we should all back away from. I think that's a good lesson to take from the last 200 years, especially from the last 100.
ah i can see the confusion.
i can't speak for that image that was used in the post, but the swastika does have history beyond its use by the nazis -- https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007453
tribesteemup is not a tribe of native people and i specifically have voiced (to the group) my discomfort with those logos as i also believe they misrepresent our tribe as we are not native identifying (though there may be native people in it) and i think it's appropriation of native symbology and stereotyping....