Letter: Playing cowboys and Indians isn't offensive to Indians

Wednesday, January 4, 2012  

"I am responding to Rhonda Anderson’s letter [Voices, Dec. 21] about how kids dressing up in a toy headdress is offensive.

Ms. Anderson, you are what is wrong with society today: Finding fault in something harmless and turning it into something horrible.

You take something that is meant for children — a toy headdress — and use that as your pulpit from which to preach your hateful nonsense.

Let me point out that I am part Sioux Indian. I happen to know that Indian tribes did not live out a peaceful idyll with one another. In fact, they sought to eradicate one another, through invasions, scalping (of men, women, and children), eliminating one another’s food sources by driving Buffalo over cliffs, and spearing one another.

The Sioux warred extensively with the Blackfeet Indians and committed unspeakable acts against one another. Had it not been for (as Ms. Anderson puts it) “the white colonization,” this violence would never have stopped. It would have continued until only one tribe exerted its dominance over the others."

Get the Story:
Sandy Golden: Political correctness run amok (The Commons Online 1/4)