Steve Russell: Working together against a common oppressor

American Indians have a complicated relationship with African-Americans in general and their freedom struggle in particular. We have in common that we inhabit a nation founded on theft of Indian land and black labor at a time when land and labor were the primary sources of wealth. Those twin thefts have created a paradise for the descendants of the thieves and a multi-generational crapshoot for the descendants of the victims.

For some individual blacks and Indians who were born with or acquired the grit and luck it takes to play a stacked deck against the house, America has fulfilled the great land of opportunity mythos that, ironically, still works better for immigrants than for those of us born here.

Historically, laws that denied education and the right to vote and to testify in court often applied to blacks and Indians alike. Laws against interracial marriage put us in the same category as well.

White people told blacks that Indians were dangerous savages, and so sent the “buffalo soldiers” to fight the Comanche-Kiowa Alliance for white dominance on the Southern Plains.

White people told Indians that blacks were sub-humans, and too many “civilized” Indians, my people included, took up the ignominious historical role of slaveholders.