an indigenous moment


AN INDIGENOUS MOMENT





Each day the POTUSA tries, with energetic desperation, to make our nation's flawed social/racial contract worse and to suggest that he is empowered to ignore portions of the United States Constitution which don't dovetail with his whims.  2018 is a year for sorrow.  On the other hand, we can still smoke the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Lakota. Dakota & Nakota Great Sioux Nation. "After the fulfillment of the Mending of the Sacred Hoop Prophecy," according to Chief Arvol Looking Horse, "we understood that a recognized day of Global Healing must occur in order to teach the Global Community the inescapable need to heal and unite in the name of Peace."  Reaching out to the spirit of my Choctaw great-grandmother, I beg permission to speak. Sage and cherry branch.



Reaching inward to the spirits of my multi-ethnic West African ancestors, I apologize to the descendants of  indigenous peoples for the genocide wherein some of my African and European ancestors were willing and unwilling agents.  Lord, today!  What a riddle one's heritage can be, when you ask what is Africa, Europe, and the America s to me.  Few people have time enough and patience to dwell upon the riddle, glibly saying "Moses was a black man" and "Jesus was a Jew" as they agonize over what cheese is to be paired with what wine.  Nevertheless, If you refuse to deal with the riddle, the riddle will deal with you.  And the dealing shall be amoral and  relentless.  It troubles me greatly that we have archives, whole libraries, and museums devoted to the benign genocide that flourishes among African Americans; it is vexing that so few of us can voice the name of benign genocide in the United States of America.  Our imperial POTUSA, our HNIC, ignorant of what the Sacred White Buffalo has in mind, denies the name its epistemological status as our social media and mass media gawk.



Indigenous peoples are not historical fictions, amusing stereotypes, car models and mascots.  Their lives matter.  Some of them are candidates for political offices.  American journalism is damned near silent about these facts.  But principled and nuanced revisionist history as narrative and history as a lived process are not. Do not let your mind be paralyzed by the POTUSA and the devout members of his tribe.  Get woke!  Have an indigenous moment. Make a moral investment. Study genocide.

Goyathlay (c. 1829-1909)

Tatanka-Iyotanka (c. 1831-1890)

Heinmot Tooyalakekt (1841-1904)

Get woke and productively angry  in an indigenous moment and invest wisely in what a future might be.



The United Negro College Fund tells us "The mind is a terrible thing to waste."  It is. Do not waste your mind.

The American Indian College Fund tells us, in the words of Cheryl Crazy Bull,

"Wounspe gluha blihihunkic'iyapi" (We strengthen ourselves with knowledge). Yes, that we do. Arm yourself with knowledge.



Please listen!  Please act.  Please forgive yourself.  Please do global healing work for the short time you breathe in the Great Cycle, the Möbius band of no beginning and no end. Study benign genocide and eschew it.  It's cool if you think I'm crazy.  What matters is that you heard me.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                                            August 15, 2018

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