Reparations to the Indigenous Peoples of the United States
The same ‘other-ness’ and disregard for their humanity that was accorded to the black slaves who worked the plantations and who became the property of their slaveholders, was also accorded to those of ‘red-skin’ whose proud heritages and cultures were demeaned and denied.
We cannot think of ‘reparations,’ nor can we consider the history of this nation in its departure from its highest ideals, without also repairing the damage done to the indigenous peoples of this land, those who were the ‘First Nations,’ the stewards of the land, before they became demoted and dispossessed by white settlers who thought of them as both ‘other’ and as ‘less than’ themselves.
The same ‘other-ness’ and disregard for their humanity that was accorded to the black slaves who worked the plantations and who became the property of their slaveholders, was also accorded to those of ‘red-skin’ whose proud heritages and cultures were demeaned and denied, even while their populations were herded onto reservations or massacred.
We cannot speak of ‘reparations’ without repairing the sacred sites of the Lakota, the Navajo, the Hopi, the Anastasi, the Cherokee, and the hundreds of other tribes whose land was taken from them and whose members were violated, abused, and murdered as people of little consequence. These sacred sites formed an intrinsic part of the identities of many First Nations’ peoples. They were the connection with ancestors, with Spirit, and with the life of the people. Their violation gave testimony to the fact that the white European colonists and the governments they elected saw themselves as superior in all ways to the ‘natives,’ and while they did not enslave these tribal nations, they removed them to reservations where they became diminished in spirit, in property, in the ability to sustain themselves, and in the sense of their own identity which was deeply connected to the land they had left.
Where racism, white supremacy, the will-to-dominate, and the denigration of other non-white groups have become part of our history, it is time, now, to collectively address these wrongs, to heal the great pain, loss, trauma, and heartache that millions of enslaved and dispossessed have suffered.
This indigenous peoples’ history of the United States of America is greatly in need of repair, as is the history of the African-Americans who officially became emancipated in the second half of the nineteenth century, but who never became truly ‘equal,’ even if they became so under the law.
Where racism, white supremacy, the will-to-dominate, and the denigration of other non-white groups have become part of our collective past, it is time, now, to collectively address these wrongs, to heal the great pain, loss, trauma, and heartache that millions of enslaved and dispossessed have suffered, and to begin a new way of life in this nation where there are no ‘people of color,’ there are just ‘people.’
When this is the case, when skin color no longer defines us, we will finally be free to follow the path of virtue and light, of freedom, equality, and justice for all that exists as the founding vision of this country. It is to this end that we must dedicate ourselves, now, to repair the harm done in the name of the superiority of white-ness. This harm that emanated from our collective sense of white superiority and power, must be witnessed, healed, and transformed in the name of love, for the purposes of love, so that this nation may truly become one nation, with peace and harmony among all its members and a unity that embraces all.
Click here to learn more about Light Omega and ‘Reparations for Amherst.’