I Remember

“No man, there’s no such thing as defeat. When they start kicking you around, you just gotta learn to bandage up the bruises and stand up again.”
~ John Trudell

Words to live by.

Trudell was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes during their occupation of Alcatraz, the prison abandoned by the feds in 1963. During the 19 month protest (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971), Trudell hosted the radio station Radio Free Alcatraz.

What was the occupation all about? Basically, the 1868 broken Treaty of Fort Laramie, which stated that all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indians who once occupied it. It acted, though, as a giant spotlight on the past and continuing lies, crimes and horrors perpetuated by the the invading U.S. government on the original people of this land.

I remember this.

After the occupation, Trudell became involved with the American Indian Movement, serving as its chairman from 1973 to 1979. In 1979, Trudell's wife and three children died in a suspicious house fire while Trudell was protesting in Washington, D.C. (source)

Who murdered Trudell’s wife and children? What are their names? Who are their descendants?

'Christians' ripped Indian children from their parents arms and sent them to boarding schools, worse than prisons. The ‘teachers’ and ‘preachers’ were known to drive needles through the children’s tongues if they dared to speak their own language.

… in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson told Congress in a confidential meeting that he wanted to create policies to separate Indian tribes from their land. The main strategy was forcing their children to be Christian Americans, and the government tapped and paid churches to help run the system. Children were "coerced, induced, or compelled" to enter the schools, many without their parents' consent. (source)

It was not until 1978 with the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act that Native American parents gained the legal right to deny their children's placement in off-reservation schools. (source)

I was a college sophomore. I remember. This shit isn't ancient history.

How many unmarked mass graves have yet to be found?

Who else gets the death penalty for the apparent crime of not being a Caucasian ‘Christian’ Penis American?

11 year old Denise McNair and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins—each 14 years old. These four girls were killed in 1963 when the Ku Klux Klan bombed a Birmingham Alabama church.

Civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner murdered by the Klan in 1964.

The ten dead Tops grocery shoppers in Buffalo, NY.

Every person dead for the crimes of sleeping at home in their own bed, holding a cell phone, walking home from a convenience store or eating ice cream while sitting on the couch in their own home, while Black. Know their names.

In February a survey by the American Enterprise Institute found that 39% of Republicans thought that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions”. (source)

“Protect America?” Let me translate that for ya. “Protect” means, keep all brown, black or otherwise insufficiently pale, English speaking people of both genders, subservient, poor and bootlicking. Also, all women (YES, even us extra special white women) are obligated to raw dog, otherwise blindly adore and make sandwiches for any white man on demand.

It seems the strongest tradition in America is the dehumanization and subjugation of the original people of this beautiful land AND those brought here as slaves. Yeah, seems the micro dicked Fascist (previously known as Republi/Fascist) Party’s grand goal is to overturn the 13th Amendment.

You go back and you read your Constitution. You read your Declaration of Independence. And you will see that the only people who could decide these freedoms were white males who owned property, and all the rest of us were excluded.
~ John Trudell

As a Bird app friend has said “it's a luxury to have hope.”