As I rode by the crowd of Indians, they yelled out, “Get outta here, white trash! Get off of our land, Honky! I raped your mother, last night, Honky! I’m gonna come kick your ass, Honky! You piece of shit.”
The names continued.
They yelled out their profanity and their racial slurs. They attacked me and criticized me.
This was just another day in my life, living on an Indian Reservation where they constantly beat us, abused us, attacked us, and called us names.
The abuse was physical, emotional, and verbal. The list of what took place goes on and on.
It Took Time To Heal From My Past Of Racial Abuse…
As a result, well into my twenties, I hated any and all Indians. All I had to do was see an Indian, and I wanted to beat and abuse them. I wanted to attack them because of the hatred, anger, pain, and sadness that I felt deep inside of myself.
I bring all of this up in relation to the racism that I see in society today.
What I see is beyond racism. It extends to sexism and other issues, too…but, today I want to speak specifically about the racism issue, especially in light of what’s going on in Missouri, which has turned into a battles of the races.
It’s us against them, and them against us.
The attacks and never-ending war of anger, hatred, and abuse is not working! It is not working. It’s no longer of service, and maybe it was never of service to any of us.
No One Is Innocent
The white man has abused everybody. In fact, everyone has abused everybody. The white man is just as guilty as anybody – if not more – of abusing other races.
I have no justification for my ancestors or for anybody who has ever been racist, including myself! I was racist against the Indians in response to their racism to me as a child.
My call to you and to everybody out there who is at war is to remind you that we are all all things!
As long as we tell ourselves that we are the primary race or the best race, or that we are victims of racism and we continue to believe ourselves to be victims, and as long as we believe that, somehow, attacking back is going to solve our problems, the abuse carries on.
The cycle repeats, and it never ends if we don’t end it.
Here Is The Bottom Line To Racism
So…the bottom line is that you’re either going to take responsibility and end it, or you’re going to continue on attacking, blaming, and criticizing, and waiting for someone else to change.
It’s not going to change unless you change it.
I did the work, and I learned to love Indians. I was later adopted into a Native American tribe and participated in their ceremony and came to love them so incredibly deeply.
Racism was taught to me beyond what happened to me in my childhood with the Native Americans. Later on, I was specifically taught by a religious group that I was a part of as a child to hate and judge African Americans and other races.
I was taught to judge people who were “other” than me. Through my adult life, I’ve chosen to address that issue and learn to be a space of love…
…so I don’t care if you’re Christian or Buddhist.
I don’t care what your background is.
If you stand for right…
It you stand for truth…
If you stand for light, goodness, love, and anything else that is good…
STOP THE HATRED!
Take Responsibility For Where You Stand In This War Between Races
Address your own anger, and your sadness, and your pain.
Take responsibility for it.
Do what it takes to heal and move through that so that you can quit perpetrating on your brothers and your sisters.
If you do this – if we all do this – we can end the war with ourselves, end the war of the sexes, end the war of the races, religions, and the nationalities and come to a place of peace within ourselves.
We can learn to utilize that freed up energy to create goodness in the world instead of continuing to perpetrate the same old drama and chaos and destruction that our egos have been playing out for generations upon generations.
End it!
End it.
End it.
Please.
I’ll do my part.
Will you do yours?