Opinion

James Giago Davies: Oceti Sakowin must work toward a better future

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

James Giago Davies. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today

Critical distinctions matter
Another column people won’t want to read
By James Giago Davies
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nativesunnews.today

At some point the mind makes a concession, just a small comforting dismissal of an unpleasant truth it can’t face. Nothing earth shattering, nothing show stopping, but eventually it attracts other similar concessions, like multiplying cancer cells, until the perception is critically compromised, until it distorts reality, and works against the well-being of the people who so earnestly defend and perpetuate it.

This happens all the time all over the world in every culture, inside the minds of even the smartest, best intentioned people, and then they foolishly share this misperception, here and there, until an entire infrastructure of poorly considered perceptions clot together and make life difficult for the very people who mistakenly believe they are making it better.

The future is a place where we are all headed, and while we must honor the beliefs and traditions of our ancestors we cannot sandbag our own insight and contributions to future generations by fixating on what was as sacred truth that cannot be altered or questioned.

We start by imposing arbitrary perceptions on our young people. Using terms like “Native American” or “indigenous” to describe the Oceti Sakowin. These terms are pure nonsense. All humans are native to Africa, indigenous only to that continent, and stubbornly rejecting the science of the world at large by just denying it has merit, dooms your children to a second class status in any modern society, a modern society you can never escape, period, but especially cannot escape by yanking tight the lodge flap and wrapping yourself deep in robes and blankets and myopic misperceptions of what ignorance deems spiritually relevant.