"What is this urge white Americans always have for black Americans, not to mention American Indians, to prove their “patriotism?” America, your involuntary citizens from Africa or Native America prove their patriotism every day they don’t set out to kill you.

And if that’s shocking, and you just can’t wrap your mind around the history of white people vis-a-vis black people and Indians, then can you wrap your mind around the history of disturbed individuals and mass murder?

Make yourself two lists.

Including political motivations or not is arguable, since people who commit mass murder for political reasons are in my view no less disturbed, but I understand reasonable people can differ.

Put aside those who kill without racial selection of victims.

But then you are left with how many times a black or an Indian since, say, Nat Turner, has set out on a mission of wholesale slaughter of white people."

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: The Gymnastics of Patriotism (Indian Country Today 8/19)

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