[Newspoetry] [Fwd: [Sdas] a mascot whose time is over]

[Mike Lehman]

Hey Joe,
In case this qualifies as Newspoetry in the current times of Newspoetry
austerity.
It's a fairly decent rant.
Maybe title it "Where's My (Native) Wallet?"
Subtitle: "What About That chief?" (lower case intentional)
I'm not quite sure what to do with the Miller quote; maybe make it a
footnote? I'll defer to your editorial judgement.
Mike 

Mike Lehman wrote:
> 
> The ultimate irony in all this is that, for all the talk about honor and
> respect, is that the white folks who "mascotize" the Native American
> are committing the last crime POSSIBLE against the native people.
> Everything else that they had has been stolen or devastated, and now
> these folks feel they have the right to steal the symbolic wallet off
> the deceased body of the Native Nations. Like the other evil habit that
> the white man introduced to this hemisphere, scalping, it is meant in
> fact as a war trophy, to humiliate and symbolize the defeat of the
> "enemy."
> 
> Have these people no shame?  They've already dug up the graves and
> stolen the bones.
> Now they won't let the dead rest in peace, insisting on their right to
> steal the identity of the corpse.
> 
> Mike
> 
> tsky hall wrote:
> >
> > this is of interest to people in illinois,
> >
> >   America; Columbus, genocide, holocaust, ethnic cleansing, the Trail of
> > Tears, the Long Walk, the Cheyenne Exodus, Sand Creek, Wound
> > Knee, the burning of the longhouses, Chief Leschi, Geronimo, Chief
> > Joseph, Kintpuash, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, reservations, fishing
> > struggles, Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, Cascadia, Trail of Broken Treaties,
> > Wounded Knee II, Leonard Peltier, Big Mountain, the denial of freedom
> > of religion, the greatest unemployment, the greatest poverty, rob the
> > land and desecrate Mother Earth, dig the bones of ancestors for
> > museums, and then say that the only good Indian is a mascot and call
> > that a means of honoring. America, you act so surprised when mascot
> > honoring is viewed as nothing more that the continuation of your
> > dishonorable traditions. America, you are a nation that knows no honor.
> >                                                             Arthur J. Miller
> 
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