Same Story, Different Century

Abstract

TO THIS DAY, I cannot stand Sally. In your first-grade reader she may have been called Jane or Susie. No matter name, those little girls were all same. Perfect. Sally never punched, teased, or otherwise tormented her brother. Ted never used his superior intellect to weave great conspiracies that usually ended with Sally in big trouble for crimes not committed. Theirs was a Stepford family. Not only were they perfect, they were always excited about something. Look, look! See, Mother said. Oh, Sally, come and see! Come and Yikes! I spent my elementary school years far more concerned about being like Sally than about learning to read. I thought being like Sally was what my teachers expected of me. The programs chosen to teach young children are never just programs. They are a kind of indoctrination into how life is supposed to be. Each is riddled with unspoken messages about expectations and values. Unless a child lives Sally's life, books do not relate to his or her home or community. The work they require, standards they set, pictures, language construction -- all of it -- teach lessons we may or may not want taught. Back in Sixties and Seventies, people rose up against textbooks. They insisted that women be portrayed as more than Sally's mother and that characters be other than lily-white. Once populated solely by white middle-class people celebrating only Christian holidays and facing problems of magnitude of Spot hiding from Sally, books gradually became more integrated. Even though black kids still had white features, books were designed to teach children a new morality. And in their bland, oversimplified way, perhaps they did. These responses to politics of day may have been improvements, but they were still values to be taught in our schools. SINCE THE first Indian saved first white man from starvation, white people and federal government have tried to either assimilate or exterminate Indians. However government may have rationalized its actions, its purpose was always land -- getting more Indian land for white people. You really can't blame government, I guess. It had manifest destiny. Our ancestors, first whites and later various cultural and racial groups, would not stop until that destiny was realized. Early on, government's approach to the Indian problem was to make Indians act white. But Native peoples would not assimilate. The next strategy was extermination -- and not in a figurative sense. The aim was literally to exterminate Indian peoples. The government unleashed every deadly tactic at its disposal -- germ warfare in form of smallpox-infected blankets, government-orchestrated starvation, and government-sanctioned mass murder. The government's support of murder is illustrated by Medals of Honor awarded to infantrymen involved in murder of over 250 unarmed people at Wounded Knee. When Indians still refused to die, government conceived of an even more diabolical plan. The final war to eliminate Indians would be waged against children. A law was passed to make it legal. Now, government was coming for children. Indian children who could not be hidden in hills or elsewhere were forcibly removed from their families, usually with much screaming and crying. They were taken to boarding schools, often hundreds of miles from home. Away from influence of their families, they were subjected to an education focused first on killing Indian to save child, next on conversion to Christianity, and finally on teaching basic skills. When children arrived at schools, their outward appearance was altered as much as possible. Braids were cut and Indian clothing removed. Forced to dress and act white, they were taught to hate Indian inside them, to feel ashamed of their customs and beliefs, and to reject their parents' traditional lives. …