Opinion

Gyasi Ross: Crazy White people have turned into the new Indians

Friday, January 8, 2016

A scene at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. Photo from The Anti-Media / Facebook

Gyasi Ross wonders how Ammon Bundy, a leader of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have become the new symbols of land rights and oppression:

I think it started with that damned Woody Guthrie.
See, before Woody Guthrie’s stupid song, most white folks knew that they were just fortunate visitors of this land of plenty. They came from Europe starving and knowing that they would never own their own house, so they came through. Cool—I get it. And yeah, most of you folks set up shop and did the whole “Manifest Destiny” thing. Not cool. Still, in spite of that you all knew this was our land first. And you respect “firsts”—the Wright Brothers, Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner, etc. That’s why every third one of you say that your great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess—because you respect firsts and…
We were here first. That’s obvious. We get the trophy! Oh sure, many white folks tried to convince themselves that Natives shared everything so that you could pass off that “Doctrine of Discovery” nonsense and take land and that was pretty dirty too. “Communal living,” painting with the colors of the wind, all that jazz.
But still they knew. Somebody was here. It wasn’t them. Somebody fed those starving ivory tummies that first Thanksgiving. Racist white people killed all those tens of millions of buffalo for some reason—because they knew that those buffalo were Native people’s power pellets and eventually those Native Nations were gonna replenish their power and populations and…
Someone was here. That was clear. This land wasn’t white people’s; it was somebody else’s. And those people didn’t look anything like you.

Get the Story:
Gyasi Ross: Crazy White People Are the New Native Americans: Woody Guthrie, Ammon Bundy & Donald Trump (Indian Country Today 1/7)