Gyasi Ross. Photo from Facebook
Despite negativity seen in society and in the media, Gyasi Ross (Blackfeet / Suquamish), the editor at large for Indian Country Today, remains hopeful for finding peace in America by turning to indigenous ways of problem-solving:
We’re progressing as a society, becoming more compassionate as a society. Some folks call that “political correctness,” but I don’t think so. Instead, it seems like it’s just a heightened humanity that holds certain behavior accountable. Bullying. The stuff that is making news today would not make news 100 years ago. Heck, it may not have even made news 50 years ago. The “tiny” little daily assaults against the dignity and bodies of so many people who were not white men—Natives, black folks, gay and lesbian folks, Mexicans, women—would not even be an issue some years ago. That’s one of the reasons why Donald Trump’s Trumponian use of hateful rhetoric is so interesting; Donald Trump’s campaign really seems to be is the last stand of those white men who wish for the days when they could commit those assaults against all of those groups with impunity. That’s not political correctness. That’s fixing inhumanity. And the stories that accompany them, whether “black man got shot by the police” or “Native man shot by the police” are no longer taken for granted. And the subsequent protests and social media outrage over those shootings are likewise no longer taken for granted. That’s good. We’re evolving. However, there is a genuine divide between different generations of people. Amongst those generations, let’s be clear, none of them are bad. Even Donald Trump. But many of us simply have fundamentally different worldviews and perspectives depending on how we grew up and the entanglements into which we were born.Get the Story:
Gyasi Ross: There is Hope: Time to Follow an Indigenous Model for Peace in America (Indian Country Today 7/14)
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