Sometimes I Want to Think
Sometimes I want to think, wouldn’t it be a grand idea to go to congress and kneel down and beg them to allow to stay good people?
Good meaning:
- they pay taxes
- they do not commit crimes
- they have a very high credit score
- they are good, law-abiding citizens
- they are potentially outstanding citizens
Sometimes I think those who come here without papers and those who become out of status, they give up a chance for a wonderful future when they intentionally commit crimes. And then sometimes I also think maybe not all people who come here have a pure heart nor pure intentions because they are really bad or, maybe they were not given a chance and so they become desperate and then commit the crime. Similar to what my husband experienced after just a month in a Southern State.
So, it occurred to me, for someone who is not white, will you insist on living with whites who cannot accept people of color? Or do you get away from the place as fast as you can, not just to save your skin but more so to save a semblance of sanity and a misplaced belief that all of America is accepting of diversity post 1950?
Sometimes I think to myself, it is okay for white people to think that way, this is their land after all. I mean, it is their land now, after they forced it away from the real owners of the land, the American Indians, native Americans, red Indians.
We grew up thinking Indians are bad. After they were portrayed in the western movies we loved so much, they were portrayed as scalpers and headhunters… savage beasts who roam the prairies atop their horses and kidnap white babies at night. What was not shown in those movies though was the reason why the red Indians were attacking the white homesteads.
If you do not live here in the good ol’ USA, you will not know that the red Indians were just fighting to get back their land, and that the real intruders were the white men who, in a series of constant battles, were able to secure the land for themselves and their forebears.
The thing is, and this fascinates me the most, was that the fighting stopped precisely because both sides knew, that the red Indians will not stop until they die fighting for their land, and the white men knew they cannot stop the real owners of the land from taking back their real estate property. The red Indian chiefs decided it would be best to make peace rather than war, so they made a deal with the white men but unfortunately, the white men reneged on their promise. And this is what makes me wonder about fair play and what it’s all about. You see, the red Indians were gathered in what are called Indian reservations.
But, unlike the Indians who live freely in Canada, the native Americans, some of them anyway, were put in fenced reservations that somehow look like corrals, with limited resources and limited hope for the future… their future. I have a feeling that the red Indians were divided into 2: those who decided to integrate themselves in the white man’s way and those who are still fighting for their right and recognition.
In the news some weeks back, I read 2 news items that made me wonder so much about the plight of the red Indians. The first had something to do with the white man’s promise of paying the red Indians money for the use of their land which to this day will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.
The second was actually an item in the time magazine reporting on 4 important issues that the congress should have apologized for but never did. One of them was an apology for the way the red Indians were treated.
I am not in any way directly involved in this red Indian issue. But when you think of how the real owners of the land were evicted from their own land and treated badly by the white man, then you think to yourself, are colored people really less than human in the eyes of the white man?
This is very important to me because remember when we were growing up and I was always hankering after American ways and culture, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they are asserting their rights?
Sometimes now I wonder, maybe I was wrong to put the white man on a pedestal? That they are not really the saviors of the world or the heroes of the free world because what is freedom? When in America, the red Indians are still kept in reservations and not recognized as the real owners of the land? It’s like, there is a convoluted intention to subjugate people, take their land, kill their people and declare themselves free. Don’t you think there is something a little weird in this issue?
But then it is the dream, of freedom, of real freedom that drives us all to stay and make something of our lives here.
Let me just make it a little clearer for you. Although it is true, the state of affairs between the red Indians and the white people or the US government needs a little clarifying, the idea of freedom of expression, freedom of being whoever you want to be, is very, very appealing to all.
