Truly Native American

by Pat Styers

Psychology of Diversity sounded like a very interesting subject to me. I love diversity and always have. Throughout my life, I have had a very diverse group of friends and acquaintances. They have been different races, cultures, ethnicities, different religious and non-religious backgrounds, heterosexuals, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, diverse political backgrounds, etc. I find that differences in people make the world a much more interesting place.

I remember as a very young child (I am 57 now) when I was going to get a drink from a water fountain and my Mom told me I could not drink from that one. I asked why and was told it was for Negros (the acceptable term for African Americans at that point). I did not understand why. I wanted to sit in the back seat of the bus and was told I could not. I asked why and was told that was for Negros. I did not understand why. As a young child, I thought that it was not fair that they got to sit in the back and I couldn’t. Of course I understood when I was older that it was not considered a privilege to sit in the back of the bus. I never understood why they were treated differently. I have always seen people as people and not their skin color. As I got older, I heard people speak of Negros in slang terms that I knew were disrespectful terms and I hated to hear people speak of other people like that. I was in seventh grade when our Junior High School (yes, I am dating myself but you already know I’m old!) was integrated and I thought it was great. Many however, did not think it was great.

When the mini-series Roots came on, I watched every episode and watched in horror and grief seeing how slaves had been treated. I still did not understand why. To this day, I don’t understand why. The only thing I attribute it to is ignorance and the culture at the time. Some people grew up in homes with bigotry and that is how they were trained.

I am so glad for the changes that I have seen as I have grown older. I am not saying that all is great now because unfortunately, there will always be racists but it is much better than when I was a child.

That was just some background on what I have seen throughout my life. Because of that, I understand some of what African Americans have endured but as a lily white person, I have never had to endure it myself.

The diversity course covers race but I was very surprised that I have seen very little about Native Americans. There are a couple books in the additional book lists about Native Americans but it seems that other issues and groups way surpass them on the various lists. Native Americans have suffered great injustices and more people need to be aware of this and that their plight continues to this day. I am of European descent and my fore-fathers came here and occupied this land. In doing that, they fought the Native Americans over their land. I remember watching television as a child (yes, we did have television way back then although it was a black and white picture and got maybe two channels).

There would be shows about cowboys and Indians and the cowboys were always the good ones and the Indians were all vicious savages that killed and scalped the “good” people. That was always the way it seemed to be portrayed. I remember that Daniel Boone came on and he had a friend that was an Indian (I don’t really agree with the term Indian but that is what the shows all called them). His friend happened to be a “good” Indian but the impression was that it was rare for an Indian to be good.

Native Americans got a really bad deal and went through so many things. Strange white people from another land came and fought them and took their land. They made treaties with the Native Americans and then broke them. The Cherokee’s endured what is known as the Trail of Tears and many of them died during that journey. It was a terrible injustice. I believe in trying to put yourself in the other persons’ shoes (or in this case, the saying “walk a mile in their moccasins” would fit) to try to imagine what they were thinking and feeling. Of course they would not have had kind feelings towards people that were trying to take their land, move them into certain designated areas and “educate” them so they would change in order to act “civilized” like the whites. They could not change the color of their skin though so they suffered many offenses and persecution. If people that you did not know came to fight you and take your land away, would you fight back? I don’t think we would sit idly by and let them try to kill us and take what we own.

I would encourage everyone to learn about what Native Americans have endured. There are some books on Amazon that I am going to order and I will let you know more after I have read them. I am especially interested in the ones that were authored by Native Americans. Any suggestions of good books would be appreciated.

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