Tim Giago, Huffington Post, June 9, 2009
Say it isn’t so! Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer has invaded Lakota country again, this time through the Happy Meals sold to little children at McDonald’s.
Bobbie DuBray, Administrative Assistant for the Lakota Peoples Law Project was not only shocked by this apparent display of racial insensitivity, but also angered by it.
DuBray says, “I went through the drive thru at McDonalds on East North Street to get a Happy Meal for my five-year-old son. I got home and my brother opened the meal and found the Custer doll.” She said he then asked her to come and look at what he found. To her shock it was Custer toy. Her son wanted the toy and she told him, “No. that’s a bad toy.” She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad. She and her mother, Betty Handley, then gave the girl a history lesson “My daughter was not taught about this in school. What are they teaching our children?” she asked.
DuBray, visibly upset by this experience, said, “I think it’s insulting. It’s like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of Blacks.”
Belva Morrison, Indian Child Welfare Specialist for the Lakota Law Project, said that DuBray told her about the doll incident this morning. Morrison said, “It is insensitive for local merchants to hand out these dolls where there is a large Indian population. They should have thought twice about promoting these figurines. I don’t believe we’re overacting. I think we are not tolerating things like this anymore. They’re targeting young kids whose minds are easily impressed.”
{snip}
The question that immediately came to the mind of Jason Wolters, an Oglala Lakota, was, “I don’t think the big shots at McDonald’s realize what an insult this is to the Lakota people. Here was a man responsible for the death of many Lakota and a man responsible for discovering the gold that eventually led to the theft of the Sacred Black Hills of the Great Sioux Nation, and they have the audacity to hand out his likeness to children here in Rapid City, a town now fighting to prove it is not a racist community?”
Wolters compared the insult to putting a figurine of Adolph Hitler in a McDonald’s Happy Meal served in Tel Aviv, Israel. “Most white people would never understand our perspective on this horrible faux paux, but to every Indian in America, the insult is obvious,” he said.
{snip}
Yesterday several customers, white and Indian, visited different McDonald’s shops in Rapid City and ordered Happy Meals. They soon discovered their packets did not contain a Custer figurine and motorcycle. They went to the counter and specifically asked for a Custer memento and were told there were none to be had. Customers buying Happy Meals without the Custer figurine were offered refunds on the meal if they so requested. It became apparent that McDonald’s withdrew the offensive Custer figurines quietly and without comment.
The “General Custer” toy. South Dakota’s Sioux’s complaints have made it a rare treasure and collector’s item.
Original article
(Posted on June 15, 2009)
Comments
What kind of motorcycle is he supposed to be riding? Could it be…AN INDIAN!?!
I want one.
Where to begin. Ah, I know:
1. Custer did NOT discover gold in the Black Hills, he verified the presence of gold there. The Sioux knew gold was there and did NOTHING to keep people away. Prospectors had been there nearly two years before Custer appeared.
2. Maybe I’m wrong, but didn’t the Sioux and other batches of American Indians (no such thing as native american indians) kill Custer at the Little Big Horn? What is the problem?
Fine, I’m tired of seeing Abraham Lincoln and MLK plastered all over the place. Give the Indians in SD this much — they don’t have something like the NAACP breathing down their necks saying get rid of their flags.
Weren’t the “sacred Black Hills” stolen by the Lakota from another tribe before we “stole” it from them?
A pretty good rebuttal to this is: (It speaks for itself)
General Miles blows off American Indian mythshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gew_V-f8IHk&feature=channel_page
If the 7th Cavalry had been so well mounted back in 1876, the battle would have been called “Crazy Horse’s Last Stand”.
What were the promotions people at Mickey D’s thinking? The Custer figurine should have come with arrows to skewer him with, and a detachable scalp if it was being sold in South Dakota. We need to honor Indian heritage.
“Her son wanted the toy and she told him, “No. that’s a bad toy.” She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad.”
So the mother has to prejudiced her child’s mind with hate for a figure that was killed by an ambush of literally thousands of Indians. The battle consisted of somethng like 268 troopers against multi-thousands of Indians.
Afterwards, the Indian women attacked the corpses of the dead soldiers multilating them horrible in an orgy of both glee and hatred.
The indians started a fight they couldn’t win, yet they continued to steal, rape, horribly torture, and massacre nearly helpless civilians, making no distinction in their fervor of killing between men and little children, babies and women.
They have a sad story to tell right now because they lost the war that they refused to back off from, giving the white armies no choice but to respond to their hostilities.
I have no sympathies for them. If they had been the victors there would be no whites here at all, because they would have all been tortured and murdered. Frankly, I think their whining is disgusting, and I don’t want to hear a bit of it.
A few years back, I was at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. There’s a display showing the life of the Native Americans in the area when the ‘white man’ arrived.
There’s a sign that sheds some unflattering light on the alleged peaceful and bucolic Native American fantasy.
I took a photo of the sign. It’s Native American history you won’t read very often. Here it is verbatim:
”When Worlds Collide…”
Iroquois and European cultures collided after French Explorer Jacques Cartier established the first trading outposts along the St. Lawrence River in 1534. Control of the lucrative North American fur trade created intense competition between Native American groups as well as between the French and British governments. The Senecas gave the French a virtual trade monopoly in the Niagara Frontier when they permitted the construction of Fort Niagara around 1726.
While the French and British competed for allies and trading privileges, the Five Nations strengthened their own position around 1650 by warring with the Erie, Neutral, and Huron Nations. The Five Nations completely annihilated the Erie and the Neutrals and isolated the surviving Hurons from their allies.
I understand from the history channel that the native americans had repeating rifles while custers men did not. so they were outmatched from the start. so they probably didn,t use arrows. also i understand from the history channel that custers body is the only one that wasn,t cut up and was left alone(for whatever reason) so probably wasn,t scalped. history is something else and percieved history is also interesting. thanks for the utube site.
The best part was when the Indians compared Custer to Adolf Hitler. Very subtle.
Though if the Indians really want to improve themselves they’ll boycott the liquor stores instead of McDonald’s.
4 Anonymous: The Sioux took the sacred Black Hills from the Pawnee in the late 1700s, about a century before Custer’s death. That’s why the U.S. Army had no trouble recruiting Pawnees as scouts.
After reading this, I promptly went on to eBay and purchased one. Thank you for making this innocuous little toy such a big deal and bringing it to my attention, Mrs. DuBray.
The ignorance of some posters here is embarrassing. We kicked the Indians from one end of the continent to the other, destroyed their livelihoods and cultures, murdered and massacred them as much or more than they did us, and some Whites call THEM savage? The wars between the Indian tribes, and between Whites and Indians, were struggles to secure resources. There’s not much morality to it, if I’m facing starvation, I’d just as soon smack that funny looking fellow in the head and take his lunch. I feel no guilt for beating the Red men, and I blame no one, White or Indian, for fighting over the land. But despising men who fought us bravely is, in my opinion, beneath a White man, any real man in fact.
Those who imagine that Indians were so much more savage than Whites ought consider, for example, that most of the scalps taken in the Ohio Valley during and after the Revolution were sold to Whites: Indian scalps sold to the Americans, White scalps sold to the British. Did the Indians commit terrible tortures? Yes, for example they slit the bellies of Simon Greathouse and his wife and wrapped their intestines around a tree. The Indians remembered that Greathouse had led a massacre of unarmed Christian Indians, tying them up and burning them in their lodges. Or next time anyone thinks Indians are uniquely brutal, they should think again of Lewis Wetzel, a hero to the frontiersmen, and one of America’s worst serial killers. Until he disappeared in his 50s, Wetzel killed any Indians he saw on sight, and scalped them. War time, peace time, any time, man woman, peace envoy, Wetzel killed Indians, and when he was charged with murder, he was sprung by a posse that threatened to shoot down the platoon of soldiers guarding him. His fellow frontiersmen were willing to murder United States troops to defend him, so highly did they approve of his savagery. No question, Whites could match the Indians cut for cut when it came to cruelty.
We Whites have rivals, enemies, and sometimes people who are just in the way. We are no different than any other race in that respect. WN ought have enough respect for our own people that we don’t have to pretend that we are better in ways that we are not. When three American destroyers were sunk while attacking Japanese cruisers during the battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the Japanese captains ordered his men to line the rail and salute as his ship passed the Americans in the water. Bitter enemy though he was, he was man enough to respect a brave opponent. Self-respecting Whites should do no less.
10 Anonymous: The Indians had a great variety of weapons, from repeaters to flintlocks and bows. The repeaters didn’t make any real difference because they did not have large stocks of ammunition for the various calibers. Despite being gravely outnumbered, Custer could have survived had he not tried, when cornered, to defend a perimeter of 1.8 miles with a little over 200 men. His two main subordinates, leading between them seven of the regiment’s twelve companies, lived because they formed themselves into a couple compact defensible positions. Neither of them had as many men as Custer had with him, but they fought more sensibly.
Good information, schoolteacher. I don’t think any race is less savage than another, but I’m tired of how whites are getting the wrap and getting blamed for every ill and wrong doing in the world.
“Her son wanted the toy and she told him, ‘No. that’s a bad toy.’ She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad.”
People really need to lighten up and get a life.
ice wrote at 10:44 PM on June 15:
“I have no sympathies for them. If they had been the victors there would be no whites here at all, because they would have all been tortured and murdered. Frankly, I think their whining is disgusting, and I don’t want to hear a bit of it.”
Spot on! Due to the Orwellian memory hole that is our public & private fool systems, few Whites today remember (and fewer American Indians want to remember) that it was the Lakota Sioux, together with other Indian allies, who massacred the peaceful and friendly Mandan Indians of North Dakota in order to steal their land.
What made this massacre particularly despicable is the fact it came on the heels of a smallpox epidemic that devastated the Mandans’ numbers. They literally and figuratively “kicked them while they were down.” Similar scenarios had played out for countless millenia here before the coming of the White man. Thus, I am deaf to their attempts at instilling any sense of guilt in me.
14 — Schoolteacher wrote at 2:14 PM on June 16:
In speaking about ignorance, my friend, let me suggest that you read more thoroughly the entire history of the Indian atrocities, beginning with the articles Amren posted not long ago.
People like you … blindly attempt to rationalize Indian atrocities by pretending to be objective by declaring there were atrocities on both sides.
Forget about the brainwashing you received and read “Scalp Dance,” or Mark Twain, or any of a dozen authors who have written unbiased accounts.
I could go into detail, but the details are so grusome my comments wouldnt be posted.
Grow up. We don’t play cowboys and Indians anymore, and Tonto really wasn’t the Lone Ranger’s friend.
Amendment to post 14: I’ve got my killers mixed up. Simon Greathouse didn’t lead the massacre of the unarmed Christian Indians, that was a Colonel Williamson. Greathouse started a war by murdering the family of Chief Logan, an Indian long friendly to Whites. His greatest achievement on that day was to cut the unborn child out of Chief Logan’s sister and scalp it. (That Dark and Bloody River: Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley, by Allen W. Eckert)
14 — Schoolteacher wrote …. “The ignorance of some posters here is embarrassing. We kicked the Indians from one end of the continent to the other, destroyed their livelihoods and cultures, murdered and massacred them as much or more than they did us, and some Whites call THEM savage.”
Oh, and to answer your question, “Did the Indians commit terrible tortures?” Yes, indeed, they did! And they didn’t need whites to teach them how.
19 ice: I enjoy Mark Twain, but the last thing I’d call him is unbiased. Sarcasm and mockery were his bread and butter. BTW, have you read the works he wrote later in his life, criticizing the U.S. and the Army for their atrocities? He wrote that the U.S. flag should be redesigned, with black stripes substituted for the white, and instead of a blue field with white stars, a black field with red skulls and crossbones. If you’re a fan of the Grateful Dead, you can see that flag on the back of their record “Live Dead”.
21 Anonymous: Not only is the ignorance of some posters embarrassing to a WN like myself, the illiteracy of some is even more troubling. “…disgraceful anti-White rant…straight out of the Marxist-Leninist textbook.” R-E-A-D the post, (#14), all of it.
Some people seem to have very fragile racial or national egos. Their race or nation must be always blameless, always superior. It reminds me of those Afrocentrics who claim that the Greeks stole all their ideas from Ethiopia, or the way that Soviet schoolbooks taught that Russians invented the airplane, the telephone, the automobile, etc. Patriotism rooted in false beliefs is easily weakened when those beliefs are disproved. I love my country and people despite their faults, and I’d hate to have the case for White Nationalism depend upon the unblemished character of my ancestors.
Schoolteacher: “Some people seem to have very fragile racial or national egos. Their race or nation must be always blameless, always superior.”
Doesn’t that sound like nearly every non-white that comes on here who is critical of this country and whites, but is pounding his chest about his people and the failed country he fled from?
And isn’t it sometimes understandable that whites on here would assume an overly defensive attitude, especially in the face of egregious insults against us that keep coming non stop?
“I’d hate to have the case for White Nationalism depend upon the unblemished character of my ancestors.”
Well, I’ve read many posts from you, Schoolteacher, and I can’t see that you have a perfect record in that regard yourself. But, frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever read of one instance where a poster here ever claimed his ancestors were perfect. Usually the posts are defensive in nature in response to some kind of white denigration.
What irritates me are people who are supposed to have some unity as WN’s blatantly criticize whites for not being tolerant or broadminded enough, when we’re constantly being unjustly attacked from every faction in the world, especially if it involves the non-whites here who want to take over and dominate.
Incidentally, they’re absolutely delighted to read posts like yours that are critical of whites today and our ancestors.
24 Ranger: If we are not honest with ourselves about our own history and culture, how do we make credible criticisms of other’s history and culture? If we ignore our people’s failings and errors, yet point out the failings and errors of others, how are we different from “…every non-White…pounding his chest about his people”, as you say? If the Afro-centrists and Soviets were ridiculous for the claims they made, how are we less so if we re-write history as they did?
Every healthy White is sick of the non-stop egregious insults and unjust attacks, but that’s no excuse for denying history. Why should I lie to my Race’s accusers when I can beat them honestly, and trap them in their own lies? Why should I have to argue in favor of honesty on a White website?
If Whites have been argued out of our own country, it’s not because we were too broadminded, it’s because we were ignorant. When Red professors and intellectuals pointed out our people’s errors and failings, slavery, Indians, blah blah blah, naive young people were shocked to hear such things, and bought into the Red story line. Like I said, (23) a patriotism rooted in false beliefs is easily weakened. If you deny that Whites came to this continent and kicked aside the people who were already here, rather than acknowledging and understanding that fact, you are disarmed when you have to admit the facts. Better educated students could have said, “And so?”, and forced the Reds to justify their WhiteIsBad/non-WhiteIsGood fairy tale. The typical, ignorant, sheltered student can only say, Golly, isn’t it awful, poor little BlackIndianMexicanChineseWomanGay, why are StraightWhiteMen so mean?
And I don’t care if anti-Whites are delighted to read my posts. I don’t write for them, I write for racially aware, socially and historically curious Whites, including the many readers who never post anything. If the diverse are delighted, they ought read what I write more closely.
“22 — Schoolteacher wrote at 4:14 AM on June 17:
The conniving, deceit and manipulations by the Indians against whites, especially early on, reminds me of the account of the Boers trusting the Zulus in South Africa and suffering horrendous massacres because of it.
Scoolteacher wrote…. “He wrote that the U.S. flag should be redesigned, with black stripes substituted for the white, and instead of a blue field with white stars, a black field with red skulls and crossbones. If you’re a fan of the Grateful Dead, you can see that flag on the back of their record “Live Dead”.”
What does that prove? Mark Twain lived long before the Grateful Dead and in no way can be held responsible for anything that they did. To bring up the Grateful Dead in a desperate attempt to CYA is nonsense. What does that have to do with Indian atrocities?
25 — Schoolteacher wrote —— Ranger: If we are not honest with ourselves about our own history and culture, how do we make credible criticisms of other’s history and culture? If we ignore our people’s failings and errors, yet point out the failings and errors of others, how are we different from “…every non-White…pounding his chest about his people”, as you say? If the Afro-centrists and Soviets were ridiculous for the claims they made, how are we less so if we re-write history as they did?
But yes you WERE re-writing history, in that you were dwelling solely on one side of it — and that is not the objectivity and lack of bias that you are now trying to claim. We all know that we and our people are far from blameless or perfect, and no one has ever claimed that they were, so don’t try to imply that we have. But your one-sided rant against whites is hardly what we need with so many other attacks going on. There are more than enough people telling us about our “sins” and rubbing them gleefully in our face.
For a long time I have seen schoolteacher/whiteplight make consistently anti-Christian remarks, anti-European remarks, and finally you make straight out, blatently anti-white remarks! And now you try to make a specious claim that you were just being objective. No you weren’t! An objective person tells BOTH sides of a story. You didn’t. Whose side are you really on anyway?
Every healthy White is sick of the non-stop egregious insults and unjust attacks, but that’s no excuse for denying history. Why should I lie to my Race’s accusers when I can beat them honestly, and trap them in their own lies?
Far from “lying to your race’s accusers”, you were AGREEING with them and JOINING in the attack.
No, the Indians were NOT all gentleness and peace before the evil whites arrived and taught them violence and greed and upset their blissful paradise. I’ll say it again: that is a very Marxist, left-wingy view! I have encountered that exact same allegation from Marxists, but I hardly expected to find it expounded here in Amren. And don’t try is dismiss it or duck around it by calling me ignorant, because I know very well what I’m talking about. And so do you.
27 Anonymous: The Grateful Dead have nothing to do with Indian atrocities, obviously. I did not say they did. I mentioned the flag depicted on their record because it was patterned on Mark Twain’s suggested changes to the U.S. flag, in case anyone cared to see it. Challenge my facts, question my ideas, that’s what this place is for, but why are you bestirring yourself over my mentioning where a picture can be found?
“25 — Schoolteacher wrote at 9:29 PM on June 17:
ranger: My friend, you are the only one on here who is saying we aren’t honest with ourselves. I have acknowledged white atrocities, but also explained that they were reactions to murderous actions by Indians; there were far fewer of them, and they weren’t part of policy by the US military. Is it your contention whites should be perfect in every way? Only a fool is a believer in turning the other cheek.
The main argument against the complaints of horrendous unjust actions against whites is that whites are guilty too, and when the matter is looked into it’s usually always found that what is referred to is maybe a handful of acts, plus a few by renegades with the other side practicing butchery and mayhem as part of their overall policy, accepted by all of them. There is no comparison. If the opposition has written anything critical of their own people, like Indiophile whites do, I must have missed it.
Schoolteacher: “Every healthy White is sick of the non-stop egregious insults and unjust attacks, but that’s no excuse for denying history. Why should I lie to my Race’s accusers when I can beat them honestly, and trap them in their own lies? Why should I have to argue in favor of honesty on a White website?”
ranger: Who’s denying history, Guy? Nobody is asking you to lie. For my part, I’d just like for you to quit condemning my ancestors for fighting for bare survival, especially since there’s a wealth of evidence that just the opposite of what you are claiming is true. That’s the truth you fail to recognize.
And, who isn’t being honest on this subject? I haven’t read anything on here that was a compelling argument in favor of your position. You’re basing all your assertions on the fact that the mere utterance of declaring that whites were as guilty as the Indians were in the intensity and number of murderous attacks as whites, and that is all the proof that is necessary to prove the accusation to be true. It is not only inadequate in support of the truth, it is absolutely false. In fact, there’s an absolute wealth of evidence and facts that just the opposite was true.
Schoolteacher: “If you deny that Whites came to this continent and kicked aside the people who were already here, rather than acknowledging and understanding that fact, you are disarmed when you have to admit the facts.”
ranger: Why agree that whites “kicked aside” anybody when it’s false? Did you read the Amren articles regarding the early settlers? It explained the torture, deceit and treachery of the
And, if you want to go to the VERY beginning, the Indians DID sell Manhatten to the settlers, but it wasn’t their land. They came down from their mountain homes and closed the deal and probably laughed all the way back at the white man’s gullibility.
“And I don’t care if anti-Whites are delighted to read my posts. I don’t write for them…….”
ranger: I don’t believe you write For them either, and I think you’ve made some credible contributions to this site, but you have nonetheless advanced their cause by agreeing with the generalities they charge us with about white unscrupulousness and murderous actions, and the assertions you made were untrue.
The Indians rejected peaceful co-existence with the settlers even when they occupied unclaimed land and opted for treachery, murder and war. Since they lost the war, the only thing they could do afterwards was to pursue a psychological war and claim victim status, because they no longer had the numbers and weaponry to pursue their goals any other way.
The white South never did that, nor the white Germans in either world war. It seems to be a tactic of only non-whites, and their misguided supporters.
I wish I had a nickle for everyone I’ve met or read who has some kind of perverted desire to hold American Indians in some kind of noble light that they certainly never deserved. These attitudes are probably due to all of us being literally deluged with propaganda over the years by writers telling us fabricated stories about how noble the redman was.
I believe it started back in the nineteenth century by writers in the East taking their readers on a vicarious ride out to the Western Frontier, along with other fabrications concerning gunfighters of the old West. Heroes are necessary to a good novel, so they were created and eventually took the place of fact.
How many whites have we heard who proudly claim “Indian Blood?” How many times have we heard an individual described as a “Full Blooded Indian,” as if that were an attribute that gave him equal status to the best mankind has to offer?
An acquaintenance of mine in the military named “O’Brien” was just such a dupe. He told anyone who would listen his dad was a “full-blooded Indian,” but never did explain why he had bright blue eyes, a very white complexion, light brown hair, and an Irish last name. I recall that he always took his shoes off, wanting that “native” look, when he did wind sprints with us.
I could relate similar stories also about the very white complexioned women with blue eyes, who were “half-Indian” as well, always talking about what the white men did to their “People,” but I won’t belabor the point.
And, look at the disgraced Colorado professor, Ward Churchill, Univ. of Colorado, wearing his hair shoulder length, old Indian style, who was exposed as a liar and charleton for claiming Indian ancestry and always complaining about what the “white man” did to the Indian. He has since been dismissed for fraud.
As I said above, this fabricated romanticism is responsible for creating whites who hold some kind of distorted view of themselves and Indians. Some of them are so fanatical they refuse to acknowledge the facts surrounding the true situation regarding Indians in our early history, and their opinions, like those held by brainwashed PC whites about non-whites, are very similar in that they are based not only strictly on emotion, but blatant falsehoods as well. Both hold on to their views against all facts and reason very similar to cult members, however, I don’t think they are quite over the edge into that frame of mind. They are close, however.
This thread has become frazzled. I will try to braid it together.
A. Before we can have historical honesty, we need to have personal honesty. All my posts are right here, and at no time did I write that the Indians were gentle and peaceful (21), loving and tolerant (26), that Mark Twain was responsible for the doings of the Grateful Dead (27), or, again, that Indians were gentle and peaceful (28). Nor have I ever made, to my recollection, anti-Christian or anti-European remarks (28), unless it was to insist that Slavs are White. 31 sam d may not be alluding to me, but just in case, I have never said that the Red Man was especially noble. I agree with him about those pathetic White wannabe Indians, and some time ago I made a post ridiculing Whites who paid fat sums for “Native American Dogs” because they believed them to be somehow more spiritual than pound mutts. I did say that the Sioux drove the Pawnee out of the “sacred Black Hills” (12). I did say that Indians took scalps and committed terrible tortures (14). Challenge what is actually said, not what is said only in your imagination.
B. I did say that I believe that the Indians were no more savage than the Whites. I believe that because:
C. Not one poster here has seen the official government document explicitly proposing the complete dispossession of Whites in this country, yet how many doubt that such is our Rulers goal? We know because we put together the many policies that point toward that goal, affirmative action, easy visas for Asian engineers, a refusal to enforce border controls, “family reunification” that always means more of them coming here, never the stray sheep going back to wherever. We see the refusal to openly discuss the most important issues and the law being turned against those try to bring those issues forward. We see a coin that always comes out tails, and make our conclusions. Why then cannot posters see that every settlement between Whites and Indians was a loss for the Indians? Treaties made and broken, again and again. Or see that the Indians knew they were being cheated at every turn and hated the Whites for it? Why does one poster blame the Indians for rejecting peaceful coexistence with settlers who occupied “unclaimed” land? How many “unclaimed” aerospace engineering jobs are you willing to give away to Asia?
D. None of this is any cause for shame among Whites. I have no shame over it, and any non-Indian who thinks I ought to can go back to wherever his ancestors came from rather than profit by the White man’s war on the Red men. As I wrote earlier (14), there’s not much morality to it. The Europeans could starve in squalor in the Old World or grab land to feed their families in the New World. It was a war for survival and we won. That George Washington orchestrated this war and put it on an organized footing for the long run is reason to celebrate him, not fault him. He was a great leader of his people and did his best for us, rightly honored as the Father of his Country.
But that is no reason to criticize the Indians. They consistently showed courage, the highest human virtue. They fought us down to nubs, kicking and screaming all the way. Many of them still try to preserve their cultures on reservations, while Whites are voting for Obama and watching TV. I think it is low to be disrespectful of them. If they are touchy about Custer, let them be, and hope that in a hundred years our descendants have that much spirit.
sam d wrote:
How true that is! Personally, I suspect that notion began with Rousseau and his myth of the Noble Savage. That set it in motion, and it has been rampant ever since. Especially with those idealists who don’t know any better, but who form their opinions by theory rather than experience.
Several weeks ago I had a long, very interesting, (but very frustrating) conversation with a young German with whom I got chatting in a hotel bar in Frankfurt. This was an intelligent person who is world-traveled and has visited the USA at least a couple of times (but limited to Las Vegas and Orlando). Not someone you would expect to a naive innocent.
I don’t know how it began, but he asked me something about the condition of “Native Americans” on the reservations, which he immediately answered himself by assuming that surely they were confined within wretched “rural ghettos” and forced to live there in utmost poverty and misery. I assured him that they are perfectly free to leave and go wherever they wish, a reservation is not prison camp, and that they receive many governmental benefits that others do not. Not only that, but that some tribes are actually quite wealthy, due to profits from gambling, cigarettes, oil, etc. And furthermore, that some tribes own very valuable real estate (eg. the city of Palm Springs, CA, is built on land owned by a tiny tribe which is very rich as a result). Same with tribal lands adjoining Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix, etc.
He look at me in stunned amazement. I’m sure he didn’t believe me, but was too polite to say so. I went on to tell him that there are some tribes which even had black slaves [he was even more incredulous!] and that they are now rejecting the descendents of those blacks so as not to have to share the wealth of the tribe. I told him that there are now legal actions in the courts about this matter. More incredulity! He was flabbergasted.
He could not believe that Indians held slaves. Impossible! This conflicted with his world view. He then went on to remark that they (the Indians) had been living in a state of peace and perfect harmony with nature until the whites arrived and introduced greed and violence. I countered that the Indians were extremely warlike long before Europeans arrived, always had been, were constantly at war among themselves, and had practiced vicious tortures, even exterminating other entire tribes. At this point he was absolutely in disbelief.
It was clear to me that he had seen too many Pocahontas movies. Yes, I really mean that. His notions seemed straight out of Walt Disney! Is this what they teach in the schools in Europe today? This is indeed seeing the white man as the cancer of history, and he believed it. I had rattled his world by telling him otherwise. He was horrified! He was shocked.
And let me add this: that he cautioned me in hushed tones, “You must be careful what you say here! You’re lucky I’m a tolerant person!” Yes, I was lucky (and I was already being more cautious than usual). This was Germany, after all, where “racism” and “hate speech” are highly illegal, and you can go to prison for saying a wrong word about the wrong group. How can you even discuss such things when you’re not allowed merely to state indisputed historical facts? Well, we have already seen the answer to that here on Amren, in other cases, where it has been ruled that “truth is no defense”!
Yes, Europe has become a looney bin in its obsession with “fighting racism” — and we’re on our way to that situation too.
33 gwh: Educated foreigners are often thoroughly ignorant of this country. I knew a German professor who was teaching here on some kind of exchange program. He told me that unlike Europe, it was very difficult to vote in the U.S., that obstacles were put in the way of the poor. The next day I brought him a mail-in voting registration form that I’d picked up at the post office, and asked him if he wanted to vote in an American election. He was truly astonished. “But I vas tolt by PROFESSORS!?
Schoolteacher wrote:
Ah, yes. So they are. He told me that there is obviously something wrong with the system of any country that has 1/8 of its black men in prison. I replied that in America people don’t go to prison unless they commit actual crimes, unlike Europe where you can be jailed for what you say or think. He said, well yes, but with “your blacks” that is only because you keep them down so cruelly that they are FORCED in desperation to commit crimes in order to survive. It is because they are allowed no opportunities to exist other than by crime.
Such unrealistic views! I told him that, to the contrary, blacks are given MORE opportunities and benefits than other people. Of course, he didn’t believe me. To him, it’s all about economics. He replied that racial hostility is due solely to the fact that that we (whites) have everything and they (the blacks) have nothing. So, naturally they’re jealous of us. I cited in return the example of Michelle Obama who held a $300,000. do-nothing part-time job. At that, he was flummoxed for ananswer. I suppose he didn’t believe that either.
But interestingly, after lecturing me on the pathetic situation of the blacks and Indians in America, he lowered his voice, and looking around nervously, confided in a whisper that he is just a bit worried about the Moslem invasion that is going on all around. He felt the Moslems present a far greater problem in Europe than our “minorities” in America (mainly because the blacks and Mexicans are Christians and share our same culture, he said), but here he was treading on dangerous ground and feared to say anything more. Someone might have overheard us. This was the Brave New Europe, after all. Have to hold your tongue!
“It’s hypocritical to call a man a savage for tomahawking a child, when you forced his out into the snow to freeze to death. The bloody child is no deader that the frozen child. And this was very specifically Army, and National policy.”
“Forcing him out in the snow?” Children? “Army and national policy?” You’re getting really far out now, schoolteacher. Where were their kinsmen? Their parents and tribesmen never took care of them? It’s pure fabrication that small children were turned out into the dead of Winter. My how outraged that sounds in favor of the Indians. And the argument that an atrocity like “tomahwking” a small white child is no worse than running a tribe off their territory makes me feel about as disgusted as humanely possible, and I would imagine it does the same to the majority of whites.
The argument isn’t factual. Besides that, even if it were, the same case can be made for what you’re alleging, concerning mutually destructive policies, about almost every conflict on earth.
“I think it is low to be disrespectful of them. If they are touchy about Custer, let them be, and hope that in a hundred years our descendants have that much spirit.”
But we shouldn’t be “touchy” about Custer or a thousand other heroes who saved our people for giving their lives for our people and way of life?
Isn’t it “low” to be disrespectful of whites fighting for survival and/or security and safety against attack?
And the “spirit” you write of is plain and simply anti-white hate, a feeling they gleefully endorse, along with the majority of every non-white in this country. And, I believe the “spirit” that needs to be shown by whites is fighting back when a non-white spits on the graves of our ancestors, as this Indian woman did. I’m pretty sure her ancestors weren’t even involved in the battle with Custer.
The Indians started a war, pursued it with blood thirsty vigor against almost defenseless civilians, and could have been COMPLETELY annhilated by the US military, but were not. Anybody that thinks they would have shown whites the same graciousness, if the situation had been reversed, is delusional.
That they were allowed specific territories by their conquerers is saying a lot about the graciousness of the victors.
There’s no justification in self-condemnation when a people are fighting for bare survival and finally win out, nor is there justification for promoting anything laudatory about the opposition, who literally tried to exterminate us, afterwards.
The Japanese showed more courage than the Indians during WWII. Are we to laud them as vigorously as the Indians and point out that we have no right to condemn their atrocities against us unless we’re prepared to share the blame? And do we do the same for all our other enemies as well? Or do we celebrate our victories and our heroes?
Where does all this stop? Carried to the extreme, we would have no heroes and no winning battles to be thankful for that moved us closer to victory, if we used the same kind of logic, and we would be required to hate ourselves for defeating our enemies.
I don’t know if this late post will make it, I’ve been out camping for a while.
36 ice: If you burn an Indian village, everyone in the village who survives is turned out. You may not be choosing children in particular, but if the village is gone, you may as well have chosen them. That is not a fabrication. Did their kinsmen take care of them? Sure, but they’ve been de-housed too. If you burn villages, everyone is turned out into the elements, young men and the aged. If you burn crops, everyone starves, warriors and kids both. And burning crops and villages is exactly how we defeated the Indians. At the battle of Fallen Timbers, for example, General Anthony Wayne’s army killed and wounded about 40 Indians, and White casualties were about the same. It was a victory for us because we demonstrated that we could march deep into Indian country in the Ohio Valley and burn them out and they couldn’t prevent it. That is a fact.
The Indians did not start a war, we did. They did not land in England or Spain and claim our land, we landed in the New World and claimed their land. The fact that they fought each other for it doesn’t make it ours, any more than the War Between the States gave Sweden a claim to South Carolina. We were stronger and we needed it and we took it, no excuses necessary.
These are simply historical facts. WN need to come to terms with them, not pretend that they didn’t happen. I have no trouble honoring Americans who fought bravely against Indians or any other enemy, and I respect our enemies who fought bravely as well, Indian, Japanese, German, or Vietnamese. I have even higher respect for brave men who are magnanimous in victory. It may be necessary to shoot your enemies, but that’s no reason not to respect them.
The “General Custer” toy. South Dakota’s Sioux’s complaints have made it a rare treasure and collector’s item.