Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT (1/03)

Judging from the antagonism of some white Americans to "woke" culture and the preference to remain ignorant about the true nature of America's past, Sunday's discussion about Native American history is welcome. The article about new investigations into burial sites of Native Americans and the forced "anglicization" of Native American children in Indian schools might be news to some. It came with an appropriate warning that "it may be traumatic, especially for survivors and their families." What China is doing presently to the Muslim Uighurs - wiping out their cemeteries and "re-educating" them - the 19th-century colonial victors did to Native Americans after the Indian Wars. This was genocide with a Christian flavor. "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" was the school motto. The looks on the children's faces tell you everything about the pain of cultural assimilation. Sadly many Arizonans know only a sanitized version of Arizona's history and interactions with Native Americans. They were labelled "savages" and "primitives." Hopefully, with Deb Haarland as Secretary of the Interior, we will putting the record straight. As the saying goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."