"ERASE INDIANS FROM OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY"
Racial Supremacists Put a Call for Genocide on American Indian Family's Car
BACKGROUND:
On Saturday, November 10, 2001, between 1:00-2:00 PM a racially motivated hate message was placed on the automobile owned by Randy Huffman, American Indian Movement activist. The car was parked in Sam's Club parking lot in Florence, Kentucky.
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Our car has signs and bumper stickers that read "Frybread Power," "Honor Native Treaty Rights"—and "Indians are People, Not Mascots." When my wife and I returned to our car, we found this note. |
I AGREE!
INDIANS LIVED HERE FOR 25,000 YEARS AND LOST IT ALL TO EUROPEANS IN A BRIEF TIME.
NOBODY SHOULD NAME A SPORTS TEAM AFTER THOSE F***ING LOSERS LETS ERASE INDIANS FROM OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY!
If the one who wrote those words feels inclined to do so the next time he or she sees our car, or if someone else feels so inclined, please write another note like that; it makes the work of showing the bigotry and racism directed at American Indian people so much simpler.
The task of proving how little "honor" there is in perpetuating stereotypes and ethnocentrism through "indian" mascots becomes that much easier when a person displays it so well. Could the person who wrote this note have expected that we would just "give up" after his display of bigotry and contempt?
This hateful message scrawled on a note pad and left on an Indian family's car in a public parking lot is an example of a person who is blatantly racist and fundamentally uneducated. This is the kind of person who is behind the hatred and anti-Indian bigotry that American Indian families face when ever they go out into America's parking lots, schools, public arenas-as they simply want to participate in life free from harassment and ridicule.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this note is the use of the past tense. American Indian people have always lived here and American Indian people live here still. American Indians are not extinct. Also, American Indian people get to decide how our names and how the images pretending to represent us are used, not non-Indians.
Disregard of American Indian people living today who express their unwillingness to be portrayed in the way non-Indians deem acceptable shows only that non-Indians are exercising your privilege, power, and control by dismissing what real Indian people are trying to tell them. When Indian people say that what non-Indians are doing hurts us, offends us, and does not honor us in any way, how can non-Indian people argue with that?
Why should they want to?
American Indians do not need "indian" mascots to "honor" us as a proud, unconquered people who made treaties with the United States government because they could not defeat us. We do not need "indian" mascots to teach us the truth about colonialization, oppression, genocide, and the use of biological warfare against our peoples. Neither do non-Indians need "indian" mascots to learn and know the truth. In fact, "indian" mascots teach just the opposite of truth.
Many non-Indians like to claim that without "indian" mascots, American Indian people will be erased from the "collective memory" of the dominant society. American Indian people apparently have been already erased, according to the writer of the above note. But retiring "indian" mascots will not further erase American Indian people; it will only begin to erase some of the myths and stereotypes perpetuated by such mascots and the costumes, fake "indian" music and dance, and violent phrases such "Indians on the Warpath" and "Scalp the Indians."
Likewise, retiring "indian" mascots does not erase any American Indian cultures. Of the hundreds of American Indian cultures, not one is kept alive through the use of an "indian" mascot; it perpetuates only an inaccurate, pseudo-"indian"-culture created by Hollywood and non-Indian writers. During this time of "United We Stand" in this country, the writer of the note shows his or her fear, ignorance and prejudice by saying, in effect, "Sit Down, Indian-and shut up."
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While American Indians have the highest rate of military service per capita, apparently we are not allowed to express truths that vary with the viewpoints of the dominant society; if we dare to express them, we are punished with notes of hatred, bigotry, and racism—or worse. Nonetheless, we continue to hope that the number of persons in Florence, Northern Kentucky, Greater Cincinnati, and the United States who are capable of listening to American Indians without discounting our opinions and voices far exceeds those who would write a note like the above. |
After the April riots in Cincinnati, we added another sticker to our car: "Work for peace and justice in Cincinnati." Racism is not black and white. Peace and justice must be applied to all races and ethnicities. We have worked to educate non-Indian people for years; this note has served only to remind us how much work we have to do. It has reaffirmed our priority that freedom from harassment, ridicule, and bigotry will finally come to be a reality for American Indian families.
Randy Huffman Covington, KY
