An abomination

Standing Rock is evidence that the odd little Trump hand has touched the nation. Its groping fingers have stirred the pot, angered the hornets, and uploaded history. He has conjured up forty-three-year old tableaux of Wounded Knee. His jabs at minority voter suppression reek of deja vu. I see how Trump has walked his diminishing portion of America toward a violent propensity. A little is enough. It is, in fact, too much. But then, embroiled in the final throes of a race to decide democracy, neither side of the aisle seems to care much about the fringes. Once again the U.S. government has left the Native American alone as big business encroaches on their land. The irony.

A twelve-mile oil pipeline threatens the Sioux reservation. Non-violent protest lost again. Sitting Bull is rolling his eyes in a grave somewhere. It is a controlled massacre today in Cannon ball, North Dakota. It's merciless wounding with mace and rubber bullets. Brave generations, dust of civilizations, centuries from Columbus' genocide, toe the line of audacity. Why is it always the Native American at the end of the line? How come they must desperately try to conserve some semblance of what belonged to them in the beginning? Why are they always last to see a slice of the pie that the Dutch paid them in glass beads that valued $24? And now, some 300 years later, they build them a casino to recoup their loss—hush money so oil can run through what remains of their slice of pie.

Aretha Franklin spelled it out. It has always been a bottom-heavy trickle. For the Native American to get either compensation or—at the very least—respect, tanks of bureaucracy must be fathomed. The trickle must be followed to the top where history guides often say nothing is left. Our government evidently sees—let's say quite inadvertently—the Native American as the last on a short list of minorities to whom they owe something.

Take the African-American, they were last on the list for over 200 years. If Native-Americans had not—against their will—surrendered their parts of North America, there would not have been cotton to pick, and without cotton to pick there would have been no slaves to oversee. One notch on the totem pole. And women, as a group that has earned a respect that I wonder why was ever questioned, seem to come before the Native American. How could John Adams have ignored his wife's request? In March of 1776, as Adams prepared to leave for the Continental Congress, the future First Lady advised “ And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire that you remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” Because of the Native Americans' “generosity,”Adams had ground in which to make that—let's say oversight—that set the course for women, their suffrage and struggle for equality. The refutation of Abigail's words by future president Adams was the trickle that fed a movement to the top—to, God willing, the first female POTUS. Okay, a higher notch on the pole.

Now, let's go back 169 years from Mr. Adams’ arrogance. Captain John Smith, it is said, felt the head of a young Native American rest upon his as it lay on the chopping block. Regardless of the truth of this story, it postulates the idea of an Indian saving the life of a noble white man. Pocahontas was taken captive during the Anglo-Indian hostilities in 1613. In captivity she converted—I surmise not willfully—to Christianity. She was then touted around England as a “civilized savage.” Women up on the pole, Native Americans still down.

Why does the Native American always wind up at the bottom of the heap in a democracy in which they are, ironically, often forced to participate, although more often, abrogate? From Columbus to Andrew Jackson to the U.S. Cavalry and now to U.S marshals—again—the Native American is like a tolerant uncle, not blood related yet obstinately ingratiated. The government has a long, long record of breaking treaties with them and bullying them into parcels of land that do indeed belong to them. In this case, the pipeline could easily be relocated. I am saddened and outraged. I am left with a deep disillusionment of America. I fear it has stuck out a thumb for a hitch on the road to regression.

Well, it looks as though the totem pole may just be a measure of how—or where—it stands.