By Ricey Wild
To understand what happened with this farce of an election that voted in the most monstrous of human beings as the leader of the free world, I have to share some of my musings of history. Yes, I am sickened, nauseous and still incredulous that ANYONE with morals or conscience voted for Trump. My mind has been going in circles like a mad muskrat since November 9, to try to understand WHY.
Way back in time there were savage, ferocious bloody tribesman in Western Europe that fought among-st each other for scarce natural resources for untold centuries. They were all of similar DNA, being pale skinned, but they massacred each other anyway. It was the lands they wanted – to expand their empires and established what they say are “Royal” bloodlines.
Eventually they built ships big enough to carry thousands of men and went on what they named discovery voyages. In fact, those trips were all about enriching themselves. They came from tiny island nations, fractured fiefdoms and had laid waste to their own lands, and became greedy for others’ lands and territories.
The pale skinned ones thought they had more right to lands as the ‘natives’ who had not “developed” the land, which to them meant extracting every mineral, precious stone, and usurp water rights for monetary profit.
You still with me? Great. I have only so much space for my column but I tell ya, if I was writing Ojibwe it would be done.
During their explorations they came across mighty civilizations that went back many more thousands of years than their own did. The pale ones went to Africa and saw only material wealth, not the wealth of culture, history and science. They saw black people who they thought of as inferior and deserving of having their lands and resources stolen. In Asia they saw evidence of civilizations having come and gone, and a thriving one that had nothing to do with the western mindset.
In both instances, the pale ones connived to divide and conquer, and that has been their modus operandi ever since. Some greedy old Pope wanted in on the land grabs and wanted riches for the Catholic Church, so he issued a Papal Bull in 1493 writing the Doctrine of Discovery, wherein all Indigenous lands and the people on it were Spain’s to conquer. Gads! The arrogance of all that makes me wanna throw up.
So Europeans began sailing to what they named the new world. Here, there were gorgeous, unspoiled lands, resources and a route to religious freedom. There were also millions of Indigenous people, from the North tip to the South, who had been living here since the Creator put us here. I will forgo the rest of this part because well, here we are in 2016, over 500 years since first contact with the colonists.
I recount my abbreviated version of history because I wanted to know how a Donald Trump could possibly be considered a viable candidate for POTUS, given his obvious disqualifications for the job, never mind having the nuclear codes that can destroy us all. No, things are not perfect now nor have they ever been since the colonists showed up on our shores, undocumented. Trump is only a third generation immigrant. Clearly, Europe did not send us their best. He is also the product of their greedy culture.
Here we were, closer to John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and then this human atrocity gets elected. Wow.
Being an Indigenous woman and living in poverty, I suffer, I cry for my son who is a large brown man, my granddaughter who is a lovely little girl, and for all of us who are not white men. No, I don’t want to be pale skinned, even with all the privileges it affords. I do want to be able to walk down the street or to the store without being attacked by racist colonist-descendants who actually believe this country, this land, these waters and resources are theirs by right of whiteness.
I read that this election, with all its ugliness, is the White Man’s Last Stand. I like that. The oppressed masses – that includes pale skinned people, have been awakened – will never go back to the miseries inflicted upon us in the past. NEVER! The Water Protectors at Standing Rock have proven that and the millions of Indigenous People and our allies around the world will not stand down.
Wherever you are you can send them your prayers, and thanks for their courage in fighting the good fight.
