By: Kokoro Fasching

Kokoro Fasching — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:53:11 +0000

I for one cringe every time when I get a email asking for funds to help the various genocide protection efforts around the world, when there is so much that needs to be done still here in the States.

By: Richard Lister

Richard Lister — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:27:26 +0000

Thank you for your feedback about my piece on the Plum book. I am sorry if you were offended by it, as that was certainly not my intention. Neither did I intend to belittle the appalling history suffered by so many Native Americans in the United States, which is something I have actually paid close attention to in my years as a correspondent here.

By: CatawbaNDNLady

CatawbaNDNLady — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:19:29 +0000

Here are some facts, coming from a US government educated First Nations member with degrees in both History and Cultural Anthropology-and yes, I specialize in First Nations cultures.
Fact: Adolph Hitler used the US policy of racial extermination for First Nations people as inspiration for the Final Solution the Jewish Question.
Fact: US government policy on sterilization of Native women was copied almost entirely by the Third Reich in the mid 1930′s. The difference-here in the US that policy was still in effect and being enforced as late as 1980. You read it right-1980.
Fact: Behavioral protocols for guards in Concentration and Extermination Camps mirror, and in some cases duplicate precisly many of the same protocols implemented on Native Reservations by Indian Agents in the late 19th and 20th centuries. All of the common elements-deception, duplicity, and cultural oppression were used first here in the US on Indian people more than 100 years before the Nazi German Government began using them against Jewish people.
One astounding fact than is not commonly know: The swastika is actually a First Nations symbol used by almost every tribe in North America before 1932. It represented the four directions, the movement of the sun and moon across the earth, the changing of the seasons and cycles of life. It was used quite often by the Dine (Navajo), Hopi and Zuni until it was stolen and bastardized by the Nazis. It has since that time come to have a totally different meaning, one of hatred and racism, and we no longer use it. Another piece of our culture that has been stolen from us, alas.
Don’t believe me? You have a computer-google it.
Miika has made a comparision that is not only completely accurate, but an historical fact. Coming from the perspective of a First Nations woman, they are the same thing-only the victims are different. Without a doubt, had there been Indians in Europe during the Nazi era, we would have found ourselves interred alongside all the Jews, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Russians, Gypsys, Homosexuals, Mentally Disabled, and Politically Incorrect people who did not fit the standard of “Pure Human” as defined by the Third Reichs office of racial purity (deliberately left uncapitalized as a way of stressing the inanity of such an agency). Ironically, in Germany today there is strong interest in our culture to the point of obsession. There are groups of re-inactors who imitate us in every aspect of our pre-colonial lives from dress to dance to spending weeks living “traditionally”.
In the Plum Book there are hundreds of occupations listed. I wonder what made Lister choose the one he did?
I can only deduce that Richard Lister is sorely lacking in several areas including sensitivity, and more importantly, EDUCATION. His article comes off as sarcastically stupid and I would be glad to teach him, but I doubt it would do much good. How sad to think that some of my ancestors actually allied themselves with the British.
I am constantly surrounded by people in this country who bend over backwards to be Politically Correct, even though the PC terminology currently used to refer to us is so very incorrect, that I might find Listers sarcasm refreshing if it were not so ignorant.
Any of you folks in the UK who want to are quite welcome to forward my name to Mr. Lister, just in case he happens to be inclined towards enlightenment. I won’t hold my breath waiting for him to contact me though.
Rie Miller
Catawba Indian Nation

Comments on: BBC’s Richard Lister’s Ignorance

By: Kokoro Fasching

By: Richard Lister

By: CatawbaNDNLady