I was a critical reader before I was in kindergarten and one of the first books they gave me was about Squanto, and I thought about it all critically.
The book they gave me said Squanto was an “American” hero that in some way left his tribe and introduced “Native Americans” to settlers and made everyone happy to be an “American.”
I have no idea if that is true or not, but I’m pretty sure that none of them had heard or used those terms in their lifetimes. They probably had no idea who Amerigo Vespucci was who I think the country of my birth was named after.
It is true that I was given that by an American school, and I think it is true that they gave it to me to condition me to be a productive, sort of inclusive American on their own new terms.
Squanto could have loved the settlers and wanted to share. He could have been forced to share and been mumbling under his breath the entire time about how he wanted to kill the settlers. I have no idea, but the message was that Squanto loved the settlers and wanted them to bring joy to everyone. I got that for what it was worth.
Then I joined Indian Guides with my father. I was a Hopi. I knew nothing of the Hopi, but I made a drum with my dad, learned some knots that I still remember (ask me how to tie a bowline and I’ll give you the same rabbit story they gave me as I tie it perfectly), had some fun, and got the same message. America was great now and inclusive to everybody. Again it was their message.
There were apparently still 100% Native Americans on reservations drinking themselves to death over the way they’d been treated throughout the years. One thing they got from those reservations and all the treaties “Americans” broke was the right to have casinos on their reservations. In my opinion, people found loopholes to make the most money from that leaving many legitimately on those reservations broke. The people with the money, in the end, may or may not have legitimate claims to being Native Americans.
Either way, they all made more money from casinos than Donald Trump, which clearly seems to have left him bitter.
Clint Eastwood made an entire movie about Ira Hayes, who for America raised the flag at Iwo Jima and then for America kept letting them promote him any way they wanted leaving him to drink himself to death and from what I understand broke and relatively misunderstood.
Lots of Native Americans, some American heroes, like Jim Thorpe, drank themselves to death.
I have little understanding of why. It may be genetics. It may be from the mistreatment they received from “Americans.” I just know that those perceived as Native Americans have a lot of sad casualties no matter how many awesome songs Johnny Cash wrote or sang about them.
How accurate is Cash? I have no idea. Maybe a lot, but he had an agenda as did anyone who made a video that went with that song, as did Clint when he made “Flags of our Fathers” about Ira Hayes. Everyone has one. The only thing we know pretty much for sure is that Ira Hayes died from alcoholism and too few really cared.
Fast forward to today, because today is all that matters.
Donald Trump is an insensitive, selfish, egotistical jerk. If you are unsure, ask him, and it will likely be the one thing he will not lie about when he agrees.
He wants to get reelected and he will do anything to do it.
He cares little about Native Americans or he wouldn’t have seemingly purposely honored Native American code talkers at the White House under a painting of Andrew Jackson, who prided himself on killing Native Americans. Donald Trump may be stupid, but he is not that stupid. He did that on purpose and it was obvious.
So what are we bickering about?
Elizabeth Warren hates and opposes Donald Trump. Therefore, Donald Trump hates and opposes her.
I have no idea if Pocahontas was an “American” hero, a “Native American” hero, or a hero of any kind. She probably was all three, but I haven’t done my research, and I haven’t seen the Disney movie about her. Disney has its own agenda, which is usually about money.
I can prove they lie and change their movies to fit their agenda and I did so here.
All of history and historians have an agenda. The best historians try to present the truth objectively and dispassionately, but very few want to read that. The best writers of history tell stories of historical figures accurately overcoming that through friendship and understanding even if the endings seem sad or triumphant.
I read the source book from Hamilton right when it came out. So did Lin Manuel Miranda. A lot of people loved that material with hip-hop and dance numbers, portrayed inclusively by multiracial characters, but few cared why or how. They just wanted to say that they had seen the musical Hamilton.
Why do I think that the musical Hamilton had Thomas Jefferson and other slave owners portrayed by blacks and other minorities?
Probably because Alexander Hamilton was not born in America, couldn’t run for president for that reason, and hated slavery because he had seen it from his birthland, and hated mob mentalities.
Just a guess, I read the same book Miranda did, but I can’t afford to see his musical because the mobs who see it have made it too expensive for me to do so, and when I ask them what they think they do not really want to discuss it. They just want it known that they were lucky enough to see it.
Donald Trump calling Warren “Pocahontas?”
Whether either is a great person or not, to me that is offensive. I define offensive as someone wanting to offend you, and it is pretty clear that Donald Trump wanted to offend Warren by calling her that.
Harvard?
They have an agenda. In my opinion, they only want to brand people with their Crimson H on their own terms, which usually means rich people who give them tons of money to keep their brand valuable.
If they can make it more marketable by letting in some minorities, that is fine by them. If the government forces them to do so, they will pass the test the same way I got my top grades. Find out the score that gets you an A and get that score with as little work as possible. If it takes a 90, we’ll get a 91. If it takes an 80, we’ll get an 81. Most people only care about themselves, and they want to do as little work as possible to please the standard and move on to pleasing themselves.
In my opinion, Harvard cares almost nothing about ethnic diversity, they do care about Harvard and bringing in Harvard the most money. Are there people at Harvard who work to the bone to promote ethnic diversity? Probably, will they have a job or platform tomorrow if they criticize Harvard? Probably, not.
Timothy Leary was a Harvard professor who thought people should all take LSD to get together peacefully. He wasn’t a Harvard professor for long after that. He went to jail and was freed from jail by the Weather Underground. He was still free to forever say that he was once a Harvard professor, and he did so.
Now if I cared about giving Native Americans scholarships to Harvard, on my application form it would say something like “Can you prove that you have 25% Native American ancestry.”
That is really hard to do, but there are definitely smart hard working people out there worthy of scholarships that can prove that.
I’m almost certain that none of Harvard’s admission material said that despite zipping through my forms in 1983 when I considered asking them to brand me.
I’ve met a lot of people mostly African Americans who have told me that they were part Native Americans. Were they? No idea.
But, I don’t think any of them were lying.
What I’ve found is that a lot of African Americans were part Native American, and that their ancestors who had been pulverized for years proudly told their families that because it is pretty simple to see that if there were at one time innocent victims in this country that they were the earliest black slaves and a ton of Native Americans who were killed by settlers and had treaties revoked time and time again via “Manifest Destiny,” which was a treaty none of them ever agreed to consciously ever.
Also, I’ve found that no one ever wants to admit that their family said something to them that was untrue. That seems true for everybody, including relatives of people who fought and died for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
No one is really lying, but there are casualties everywhere, which makes a better more inclusive tomorrow really hard.
That’s what I think about Isreal and the Palestinians too.
It’s very confusing.
Jimi Hendrix’s family told him that he was part Cherokee. I don’t think he was, but later it was shown that he was part Native American.
One of my favorite movie reviews ever was from a guy reviewing the movie Tombstone. He wrote something like, “This movie slurs my relatives, gets the facts wrong, but it kicks ass so I like it. ”
Most people do agree that “Tombstone” whether it be fact or fiction does “kick ass” so let’s follow his lead and unite around that and other things that bring us together.
We are all pretty much the same if we meet.
The questions become really hard because all of history led to inbreeding, which constantly decreases the values on those DNA tests.
Watch the movie the Searchers. John Wayne loves Natalie Wood, but he hates Native Americans. He loves Natalie Wood so much that he wants to kill her because she’s been kidnapped by Native Americans for some reason justified or not by someone’s scorecard and he knows that they will dilute her blood in the worst possible way according to him.
He spends years trying to find her. When he finds her, he remembers that he really loves her even though almost everything he feared has happened, and chooses not to kill her.
Good message. Consensus great movie. Let’s unite around that.
I saw D’Nesh D’Souza say that all of the Native Americans were mostly wiped out from diseases. I wondered if it had anything to do with Americans who may have or may not have given them blankets infested with smallpox.
I didn’t care because I already disliked D’Nesh D’Souza and found him to be a terrible historian and more of a polemicist who made propaganda movies.
I have the same concerns with Michael Moore who I agree with a lot, and I know that calling him fat does not change whether he is right or not.
I still think that it’s true. Proving someone you disagree with is stupid does not prove that you are right.
The Beatles both together and apart made tons of propaganda movies, but I love those because they almost all promoted love.
John Lennon in a weaker moment told Paul McCartney, “The only thing you done was yesterday” and that he wrote nothing but silly love songs.
So Paul McCartney on some later day wrote:
You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs
I look around me and I see it isn’t so, oh no
Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
What’s wrong with that?
John and Paul forgave each other and both kept writing silly love songs to spread peace and love, which was always their message.
They made a lot of money doing that but they were not that concerned in the end to see it go to good causes, and a lot of their money will likely end up in the hands of people who promote loving, sharing causes, whether they get the credit or not.
It really is that easy (as Lennon wrote), at least it is to me.
Read and watch it all. Some is impossible to figure out. The best people who know the most might still have agendas. Take all of it into account and use it to make today and tomorrow better and more peaceful, because that’s supposedly what we all want even the person that made me read that Squanto book.
