Opinion

James Giago Davies: Fixing what is broken one Lakota at a time

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

James Giago Davies. Photo from Native Sun News

A kind people are not a weak people
Fixing what is broken one Lakota at a time
By James Giago Davies
Native Sun News Correspondent
www.nsweekly.com

We can argue how much Lakota identify as Americans, but there is no doubt, despite having valiantly served this country in war, Lakota do not feel about America the same way their Wasicu neighbors feel.

While there are definitely some that hate this country, most have a love/hate relationship of varying degrees, and these ambiguous feeling are expressed in the way they respond to the national anthem. While most Wasicu cover their heart, most Lakota do not. The wound on those hearts is too great. But they do stand and face the flag out of respect.

At every turn Lakota internalize hybrid compromises, because how could it be otherwise when you breed with your oppressor, speak his language, wear his clothes, eat his food, spend his money (to the extent you even have his money to spend), attend his schools, watch his TV, surf his internet, root for his sports teams?

This creates minds full of self-defeating contradictions. Most Lakota are Christian, and yet, most also hold traditional Lakota values and beliefs sacred. Most Lakota reject the historical and scientific knowledge of the Wasicu but have no problem drinking his liquor or shooting his basketball.

When you bottle up a once free roaming, free thinking people onto cubby hole reservations, rife with poverty and violence, expect them to develop aberrant social practices. Except them to have minds addled by myopic provincialism, to vent their anger and frustration on each other, to become their own worst enemies.

Funny thing is the future keeps becoming the present; time pulls the Lakota away from the people they were when they first surrendered at Fort Robinson, but they do not honor, embrace, love and respect who they are now.