Our Unflattering History
There is a lot of unflattering American History that American children are never taught. Like the part where the newcomers from Europe weren’t kind to the hosts who saved them from starvation 400 years ago. Or the part where the very first explorers didn’t invite the Indians to dinner, they actually kidnapped a few as slaves instead. Or the first Thanksgiving in New Jersey declared by the Dutch Governor Kieft after he had ordered the slaughter of Lenape men, women, and children at Pavonia, (Newark) – the children actually ripped from their parents arms and literally cut to pieces and dumped in the river, while still shrieking.
Then there is the part about how Native Americans had no rights as citizens whatsoever up until Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. (They only earned their citizenship AFTER women had secured the right to vote. It was another 24 years - 1948 - before all the states would finally allow them to vote. Freed slaves actually had more legal rights than Native Americans for decades after the civil war.) Or the part where Native Americans were denied the right to practice their religion until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. The insults go on.
The most egregious crime after outright murdering Native Americans for sport during the eighteen hundreds, after driving them from their homes, was something most Americans know absolutely nothing about. Native American Boarding schools. When you learn about them you will be positively outraged at what just happened to a little 4 year old girl named Baby Veronica. You will understand why the United Nations Indigenous Rappateur pleaded on behalf of the little girl for Veronica to be returned to her father. When you realize that the Cherokee were forcefully driven out of South Carolina, you will understand why a state like South Carolina, has such a bad history and so little respect for Federal laws dealing with Native Americans.
Despite the fact that American sports teams plaster logos with Native American faces on their football helmets while our white Aunt Betsy and Uncle Arthur believe they worship Native culture by playing the one – armed bandit at Mohegan Sun, we are still crushing the spirit, silencing the language, poisoning the water, contaminating the land, and yes – even stealing their children right from the arms of our First Nations peoples and wondering why they are still angry about it.
Once you know the parts of American history that American history books gloss over to keep our immense egos and self esteem intact as white Americans, you will perhaps glean a tiny understanding of the suffering our First Nations brothers and sisters still endure. The taking of their children – by violence – by poverty, and yes to this very day – by illegal adoption.
Preserving Culture
Would Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito or Antonin Scalia readily give up all traditions associated with their identities as Italian Americans? Doubtful. But they are OK with a little girl being taken from her Cherokee father, Dusten Brown, and given to a South Carolina couple, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who are not even related to her – simply because a white woman wants a baby of her very own and a court has decided that being raised in a Cherokee home is somehow going to harm this child. The way the South Carolina couple has been acting throughout this entire ordeal does not speak well of them and is also against the law. The reason the Indian Child Welfare Act was written was to prevent further destruction of the Native American community and culture that occurs by taking children away from their parents and community.
Whose Happiness is at Stake Here?
As someone wise once said – adoption is for babies who don’t have families, not for families who think they need a baby and believe they can just buy one. A little girl who has a biological father that loves and wants her and a community she belongs to should not have to give up their happiness to satisfy an unrelated woman pining for a baby in South Carolina. It was heartbreaking enough when slave traders tore babies from their mothers on the auction block. The folks separating children from loving parents these days may look mild mannered and have better lawyers and can call on Dr. Phil or whatever PR firm they can afford to sell their reasons why, but in the end, a child was just ripped from the arms of her loving father. I cannot think of a more outrageous and tragic ending to a story than that. The fact that the adoptive parents who gained custody are now suing the father, Iraq Veteran Dusten Brown, for fees they racked up is the ultimate insult in a long string of them. Their quest for media attention and now money is not helping their moral argument.
Sadness Settles over Indian Country
The fact that most Americans are ignorant of recent history of Native Americans and their struggles just to keep their children, and the reasons the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in the first place, adds salt to the wounds, frustration and anguish being felt all over Indian Country this week.
For those wishing to show support - there is now a Facebook Page set up to support Baby Veronica’s father, Dusten Brown.
