GOING NATIVE

Today on Facebook, this image was shared by a Facebook

friend on timeline:

This elicited the comment from another Facebook user: “American should be enough...the only real. The 'Indian' was because the 'Navigator' thought he was in India! So now the Native is attached. Strange.”

After I regrouped from my shock over such a shallow and condescending retort, I replied:

Not attached, but cognizant of the deceptive homogeneity of [the commenter’s] implied "American," with all of the divisions between people—not based on separatism of national identity, but of prejudice. If we don't learn from history, then labels don't mean anything. 

The cultural and ethnic diversity that is America should be our strength, but only if we understand who we are in a literal, visceral way. The past does not go away, simply by denying it. 

The arrogance to invade a land already populated, and deny that population the right to their land, their religion, and their way of life; to kidnap their children and force them into the "Americanization" of patronizing care, until force-assimilated into an adopted self-identity, while simultaneously denying them equal rights is not exactly a tribute to an enlightened consciousness. 

Yet, and still, we have contributed time and again to the defense of this grand experiment in democracy that we call America. Taking a cold, hard look at the past and its ghosts that limit our way in the present is a healthy thing. We native people do not need lecturing on patriotism and love of country, we embody it.

Speaking of the commenter’s “strange,” I find it odd how Americans of Euro descent: Irish/Scottish Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Portuguese Americans, Spanish Americans, French Americans, Greek Americans, Russian Americans, etc., have no compunction at honoring their Old World roots via festivals and organizations, societies and fraternal orders—banners waving, coat of arms proudly displayed for all to see—yet wish other immigrants (some brought over in chains) and the original inhabitants of this land to be just AMERICANS.

Well, we will just be who we are. How about that?

Carl Hitchens

Proud Nanticoke American