Opinion

Opinion: America still in denial about Wounded Knee massacre

Monday, April 15, 2013

Paul Udstrand on the sale of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre site:

The March 30 New York Times carried a front page article about Indian country that rolls up the nicest example of institutional racism I’ve seen a long time. John Eligon penned a bizarre story about an effort to sell the Wounded Knee massacre site, and in so doing actually managed to convert genocide into a real estate story.
On December 29, 1890 the 7th Calvary tried to disarm a group of Indians in South Dakota. A shot rang out and up to 300 Indians were massacred in what the US Army calls the last “battle” of the American Indian Wars: Wounded Knee.
Since 1968 the site of that massacre has been owned by a white man who purchased it in order to exploit its tourism potential. Do I even need to comment on the irony of that factoid? Now the owner is trying to sell the 40 acre site and this is where the Times’s Eligon picks up the story.
This is a sad story of a poor white man, James A. Czywczynski, whose scheme to exploit an Indian massacre for profit fell apart in 1973. What happened in 1973? After decades of corruption, intimidation, violence, and murder some Indians made a stand at the town of Wounded Knee and called for the removal of a corrupt tribal president.

Get the Story:
Paul Udstrand: Massacres and Denial: Why Can’t America be Honest? (Indian Country Today 4/14)