I am of mixed ancestry.To look at me,my native heritage is blended,untill I tell someone I am Blackfoot.I have the same face of my mother, but brown hair and eyes and white skin.Without the black hair and the darker skin of my mother,I dont endure the slurs my mother has endured her entire life.My daughter is blond.
Many of the lost tribes warred with each other prior to European influence. But it is also true many of the lost tribes were subject to ugly genocide by the "civilised" new people in the America's.
It is also true that the governments of the Americas continue to marginalise the "native" people.I have the blood of both and I refuse to be torn by the "pride" of either culture.It is possible to live with the truth of history, accepting the horrors and the beauty of both cultures.
My least favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.For obvious reasons,I prefer to keep a low profile on this day.
Re-writing history is an incredibly ignorant passtime modern people are enjoying.It makes people feel better and relieves them of the cultural guilt some may wish to impose on them and/or the tiny voices of racial superiorty felt in some degree by everyone, no matter their ancestry. It is a human thing.
Ignoring present reality is equally ignorant.Why should anyone carry the burden of guilt for the sins of their ancestors?We would all be better served to keep the truth of the past,refuse the guilt for actions not our own,and respect the cultures that have made us what we are.
I rarely here of Europeans describing themselves as Saxons or Normans.Life goes forward.Never smoothly, but always forward.All civilizations either adjust, or fail.
I'm part Cherokee myself. I love to hear people say "it was war (albeit one many Indians didn't want), etc.". Lets me know they have a tiny bit of humanity in them, and they feel ashamed at what all transpired. They want to believe that all Indian tribes were savage/brutal/etc. but deep down, they know a lot of tribes *tried* to live in peace with "the white man", and were screwed out of their homes, and in the case of the Cherokees and many others, forced to relocate to Oklahoma from the southeast. Nothing like chaining up women and children and forcing them to march through the winter. The white man really showed those Indians how superior they were!
But I digress. I consider myself an American foremost, and like slavery, I know nothing can be done to make up for it, so no use in beating a dead horse. Many in this country are really hoping the Indians go away so they can forget about that part of history. They are easily identifiable by their "tough s***" and "it was war" and "you lost" comments. They tend to be rednecks or have family trees that don't branch much and need to feel racially superior, or, as of lately, be liberal. Liberals don't like the Indians, they have a much larger beef with the government than the blacks/homosexuals/etc. The Indians would draw attention away from their causes, so they'd prefer they were swept under the rug as well.