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How Strange We Cannot See

a Reflection on Indian Boarding Schools
and the Continuing Subjugation of Native Peoples

God gave the land: the water, earth, and sky.
And though we take it all away and try
To “Kill the Indian and save the man”—
While through our scheming lies do all we can
To turn the People and their past to dust—
We find those we oppress are more than just
A painted pot on a museum shelf;
For Native ways of life are life itself.

How strange we cannot see it other than:
To “Kill the Indian” will also kill the man?

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Historical Note: Beginning in 1879 with the opening of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, Native American children from as young as 3-years old began to be forcibly removed from their families and sent thousands of miles away to boarding schools operated by the Federal Government, often with the cooperation of Christian churches and denominations both Catholic and Protestant. Parents who resisted the seizure of their children faced severe penalties. 19 Hopi men were sentenced to one year in Alcatraz for resisting the seizure of their children. Children would not infrequently spend 12 years or more separated from their families. Hair was cut short, traditional clothing and talismans confiscated and replaced by non-Native wear, and the speaking in Native tongues strictly forbidden in an attempt to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Punishments, at times, included severe whippings and beatings. Sexual abuse of all kinds was rampant. In 1925 alone, in the United States there were over 60,000 Native children in over 400 institutions in 26 states, representing 83% of all Indigenous progeny. In Canada, between 1870 and 1990, an estimated 150,000 Native children were forcibly taken from their families and held in these schools. Of this number, it is estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 children, including toddlers, perished. In the U.S., there are estimates that as many as 40,000 Native children died in these so-called schools. There is no precedent in history for this abduction and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of children with the genocidal intent of irradicating an entire race of people under the sovereign authority of a government which was legally and treaty-bound to protect them.

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James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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88 Responses

  1. Paddy Raghunathan

    Very moving, James.

    A strange world we live in. Tribals are everywhere persecuted…in spite of being the true natives. Montagnards in Vietnam have suffered similar persecution.

    Nice to see a voice that’s speaking out for the original natives of this land.

    Best regards,

    Paddy

    Reply
  2. Paul Freeman

    I don’t know what’s scarier, that this cultural genocide occurred, or that it’s taken so long for the cultural genocide to be exposed.

    Thanks for an educative read, well expressed in verse.

    Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    What is the “continuing” subjugation, Mr. Tweedie?

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      What a good question. I wish I could answer it in one pithy sentence, but the following will have to suffice as a first response .

      To begin with, the legal relationship of the Federal Government over Native Peoples, often referred to as “tribes” but more properly legally referred to as sovereign “nations” (otherwise they could not enter into treaties) is based on the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery,” a declaration, originally by the Pope in the early 16th century, granting that European nations which “discovered” new lands inhabited by non-Christian people were empowered to claim sovereignty over both the land and the people who were living there–including the right to slaughter or enslave them. This doctrine is not codified, but implied and forms the legal basis for the relationship between the recognized indigenous nations and the U.S. Federal Government up to and including today. According to this legal principal, the Federal Government holds sovereignty over the Native Nations. This means that the government can give or take away reservation land, revise, revoke, or ignore treaties at will, relocate Native people from one place to another, exercise control over all natural resources on Native lands, etc. In the 1970s, in response to the Native American Sovereignly Movement, some sovereign rights were delegated to the Native Nations–rights which can, of course, be rescinded, revoked or excepted at any time. Federal regulations even continue to set the parameters for who qualifies as a Native American (so-called “blood quantum” for example) and which Native groups are recognized and which are not (Native Hawaiians, for example, are not recognized as indigenous people and neither are the Chinook people, once one of the largest of North American tribal Nations–the very people who greeted and befriended Lewis and Clark when they arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River and saw the Pacific Ocean–a Native group who signed a treaty that guaranteed them certain rights but a treaty that was never ratified by congress–nonetheless, even as an unrecognized tribe their children were taken away to Indian schools by force even after they had been recognized a U.S. Citizens.

      With that as background, here are two specific, contemporary examples (and I could list dozens more like them).

      Although the tragic attempted cultural genocide of the Indian Boarding Schools is in the past, the oppressive dispossession of Native Americans from their land and the ongoing betrayal of rights legally guaranteed by a multitude of broken treaties continues in the present, most recently with President Biden approving contested and controversial federal efforts (since 2002 with the approval of previous Obama and Trump administrations) to transfer Oak Flats, Arizona (a mountain sacred to the Apache but not on reservation land–yet referenced in treaties) to an Australian mining consortium which will remove the entire mountain and reduce it to what could well become the largest open pit mine in North American for the extraction of copper and molybdenum. The area is due east of Phoenix, the southern point of the Superstition Mountains, a major scenic and recreational area that includes a popular state park. The predicted environmental impacts alone are staggering.

      Wikipedia describes Oak Flat Mountain as follows: A “blessed place” where Ga’an — guardians or messengers between the people and Usen, the creator — dwell, Apaches have lived on, worshipped on and cared for this site since before recorded history. They continue to hold important ceremonies there and gather medicinal plants.[2] The area contains petroglyphs and historic and prehistoric sites.[3] President Dwight D. Eisenhower protected the area from mining during an expansion of the Tonto National Forest in 1955. In an 1852 treaty, the U.S. government promised to protect Oak Flat in perpetuity. Oak Flat is a popular destination, for both campers and rock climbers.[4]

      As another example, there is also ongoing litigation at the Supreme Court level by the Navajo Nation suing the Federal Government for access to a historic Native water supply that the Federal government has made available to non-Native farmers, ranchers, etc. Although rights to the water were guaranteed in a pair of treaty agreements made with the Navajo, the part that specified Navajo water access was not approved by congress. As a result, the government has denied it to the Navajo while granting rights to the water to everyone else who was listed in the unrecognized part of the treaty.

      If you wish, I will be happy to cite other examples.

      Reply
  4. Joshua C. Frank

    Good poem, but the historical note is more powerful… and, I notice, longer. While history needs to be known, this leaves the reader with the impression that the poem was written as a vehicle to get the historical note to a wider audience, which takes away from the poem itself. I’m assuming this was not your intent.

    I’ve always felt that poems should stand on their own, with as few footnotes as possible. Sometimes they’re necessary (as in some of my translations from French or my poems that make references to computer programming or Bible verses), but when a poem makes no sense without extensive footnotes (old or foreign poems excepted), I ask myself, why bother?

    Also, like Joseph Salemi, I’m not sure why you say “continuing subjugation.” American Indians are poor, but that’s partly because of past subjugation and partly because their cultural values (rightly) don’t favor an increased standard of living as the modern West does. I don’t see people in power actively working to keep the Indians under their thumbs, at least not any more than they’re doing to the rest of us.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Joshua, I appreciate your point, but see my overly long note in reply to Joseph’s good question.

      As for why my poem may not “make sense” by itself (and requires such a lengthy explanation), I would say that if the history it references was well known, the poem would easily stand or fall on its own merits alone. Unfortunately, the history it references is not well known and so, without the note, the poem might not make a whole lot of sense to most people. On the other hand, as a stand-alone poem it makes perfect sense to my acquaintances in Native American communities. In addition, because the issue of Indian Boarding Schools has been highlighted in Canada and included in public education, national reconciliation commissions and Federal legislation, I suspect that the poem would make sense to many more Canadians than to those of us who live in the United States.

      Reply
      • Paddy Raghunathan

        The poem made sense to me on its own. Which is why I saw this poem as a much larger issue…persecution of natives and tribals everywhere in the world.

  5. Benjamin Perez

    Although bad, forced assimilation isn’t genocide. Indeed, compare and especially contrast Richard H. Pratt’s “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” with Hitler’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Also, with concern to Federal Indian law, most of the Supreme Court decisions have gone in the direction of strengthening tribal sovereignty, not “continuing subjugation.” Although the author of “How Strange We Cannot See” means well, meaning well isn’t the same thing as thinking deeply. Although I understand (and even empathize with) the author’s sentiment, hyperbole undermines credibility. Also, the use of first-person plural pronouns is more than a bit jarring, especially considering that the vast majority of non-Indians today romanticize, not demonize, Indians; relatedly, the use of present tense is likewise jarring, for how many persons reading this poem in 2023 stole Indian land (or worse)?

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Good point, Benjamin, and well made.

      To which I reply that I have used the word “genocide” in two ways.

      1. Cultural genocide. The explicit intent of the schools was to sever entire generations of children from their families, their communities, their cultural stories, spiritual practices, Native crafts and industries, way of life and the cultural foundations that gave meaning to that way of life.

      2. Racial genocide: The implicit intent of the schools was that, by doing the above, the practice would eliminate or diminish Native peoples as racially distinct nations and people groups as near to the point of non-existence as possible. I could quote 19th century U.S. legislators in support of this point of view. You are correct, of course, in saying that this form of genocide was not comparable to the outright slaughter of 6 million European Jews, or the Turk’s decimation of the Armenians, etc. But, it could also be argued that following the reduction of Native populations by disease (50-90%+), the policy of several colonial governments to offer up to a year’s income as bounty for one Indian scalp (somewhat less for that of a woman or child) and continuing bounties being offered up to the 20th century (in the case of what few post-Civil War era California Indians remained the bounty was 50 cents a scalp or $5 for an entire head) are indications that the goal of racial genocide coupled with the relocation of Native people onto isolated and remote reservation ghettos, was, at the very least, if not explicit, then certainly implied.

      History was what it was. And law is what it is. I am not lobbying for or promoting anything in response to any of this. In response to questions and comments, I am just sharing some of what I know and what I think.

      While I may have one more poem to share on this subject, it is not my intent to promote this as a cause or to pretend that I am leading some sort of a crusade for Native rights, etc. Such things should best be left for Native people to handle in their own way and on their own behalf.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        You say, “While I may have one more poem to share on this subject, it is not my intent to promote this as a cause or to pretend that I am leading some sort of a crusade for Native rights, etc. Such things should best be left for Native people to handle in their own way and on their own behalf.” Yet the fact that you’ve devoted so many words in these comments to the topic of Indian rights (I don’t say “Native” because they came from somewhere else like the rest of us) gives all of us a different message. The poem doesn’t appear to have anywhere near as much thought or effort put into it as your historical note and replies to comments.

        I’m getting the distinct feeling that the whole point of the poem was to have a soapbox on which to preach the plight of Indians while the rest of us are bringing more urgent issues to readers’ attention. (For example, far more unborn children in the Americas have been murdered than Indians.) Yet you act as if your cause were somehow more important than all the others combined. The Indians have plenty of liberals to speak for them; some of us actually speak for the voiceless rather than taking up trendy causes.

  6. James A. Tweedie

    I might add that the words, “and continuing subjugation” were not part of the original title but were added in response to a question from Evan as to why the poem is written in the present tense when, on the surface, at least, it might appear to be referencing only the past.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      My question referred to the alleged “continuing” subjugation of kidnapped Indian children by the government, not to current legal disputes between the United States and various tribes. nor the history of grants of sovereignty.

      What your poem describes is not genocide but “deculturalization” — the practice of taking young children and extinguishing their inherited cultural traditions, practices, beliefs, language, and habits for the purpose of replacing their historical identity and self-image, and making them more amenable to alien control. It is an evil thing to do, and rightly condemned.

      I wonder, Mr. Tweedie — do you admit that this same evil practice is going on right now in American schools against white children, where teachers force Critical Race Theory down their throats, shame them for being “racist” by heritage, and hold Western civilization up to contempt and ridicule?

      What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Perhaps you could write a poem about the deculturalization of those captive white children — it certainly would have more immediate and pressing relevance.

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        Joseph,

        We are, indeed, in the midst of a “civil” war that could arguably be described as an attempt at “cultural genocide.” There are many in the SCP who are addressing this in their poetry and generating enough comment to show that the issues that are raising are important and that the concerns they are expressing are widely shared and supported.

        If a similar number of SCP poets were addressing issues relating to Native Americans, then I expect that I would not have written this poem or felt the need to respond as I have.

        Tell you what. I’ll make a bargain with you.

        If you will submit a poem on the injustices brought upon Native people in both the past and the present, I will, even though I have submitted poems addressing related subjects in the past– I will add another poem to the growing pile of those which have been addressing the current riotous assaults on both Whites in general (or, as you suggest, White children in particular) and on the Christian world view that has formed the foundation of our nation’s Constitutional foundation from its founding.

        Both subjects are worth commenting on, don’t you agree?

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        No, I’ll have to decline your bargain. The really good poems come from one’s personal identity, self-image, and cultural history. That’s why the deculturization of American Indian children was unjust and evil, correct? The government was taking away their heritage and language. American Indian poets should be the ones to write on the subject, not me. Ask my good friend Jennifer Reeser, an award-winning poet of Cherokee descent who can read and write that native tongue, to compose such a poem. Her work as a poet is stellar.

        As for me, I’ll continue to write about my own genetic and cultural heritage. Isn’t the point of “diversity” that we should all be loyal to our individual ethnic identities?

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Sadly, it seems that the point of “diversity” is that white people should be loyal to every ethnic identity except their own.

        People think it’s beautiful how various non-Western cultures have kept their traditions going for thousands of years, but they hate the fact that the Catholic faith won’t get with the times, even though the faith is right and the times are wrong. They’re so anti-Christian that they will dismiss that last sentence as whining, while trannies can piss and moan till the cows come home and everybody feels sorry for them.

        No, “diversity” really means everyone is okay except white people, straight people, men, and Christians, let alone anyone who is more than one of those.

  7. David Hollywood

    An important description of what to my sense of observation is more regularly supported by an indifference; to the native Indian condition having replaced by the more overt and prior ‘subjugation.’ Thank you for this poem of conscience.

    Reply
  8. James A. Tweedie

    Joshua, Re your comment above. While I appreciate your taking the time to reply to my poem, I fail to see how, by posting one solitary poem of interest to perhaps no one but myself, I am in any way suggesting that the subject of my poem is “more important than all the others combined” or that my poem or commentary are inherently “liberal” as opposed to being a subject that ought especially to be of interest to conservatives who (I believe rightly) assert that “all lives matter.”

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      It’s the extensive commentary on this one issue when you haven’t devoted anywhere near this much time and energy to other causes. As you know, I’m not the only one who notices that.

      Obviously we believe that all lives matter, but as I see it, it’s a question of triage. Saving unborn lives, for example, is far more pressing than alleviating poverty and resolving territorial conflicts for the benefit of a small population that’s already getting quite a bit of attention devoted to the improvement of its standard of living, whereas a lot of people are more horrified by my use of the phrase “Abortion Holocaust” than by the actual Abortion Holocaust!

      If you’re called to help the Indians, do that, write about it, but be open about what you’re doing. I had the distinct impression that the poem is just a vehicle for the rest; if you want to write a book on the subject, write the book. I wrote really long replies to comments in my poems against birth control (12/30/2022) because I researched population topics like crazy, but I was open about what I was doing with that.

      The poem by itself would have been just fine and wouldn’t have bothered any of us.

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        Frank,

        PI wrote a short poem on a subject that interested me. I shared historical information to provide context for the poem. Questions were asked and comments were made to which I responded as respectfully and thoughtfully as I could.

        The poem and accompanying notes generated conversation on a subject new to the SCP community.

        Folks like yourself were open and honest about what they had to say.

        To my knowledge there are no other online poetry sites where this sort of thing can take place. If anyone learned something in the process that would be a good thing, I should think.

        Thanks again for being part of the conversation.

      • Priscilla King

        Part of the continuing problem is that abortion is selectively marketed to indigenous women. The late Marilou Awiakta had quite a lot to say about that. I prefer to leave the topic of abortion to women who have had the experience, but I can confirm that the selective marketing exists.

        I’ve never worked out which part of me it offends more–the Anglo-American part or the Cherokee part. It offends both.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joshua,

        I respectfully disagree on some of your points. A poet’s job is to write a poem, as it occurs to him / her, and in this day and age, with or without form, I guess. I personally prefer writing in form.

        If you write about topics after researching them extensively, good for you. But the poems don’t become any less controversial, only because people haven’t explicitly expressed disagreement on the website or otherwise.

        A poem may express well researched opinions, but no poet can control how a reader is going to feel about it.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Thank you, Priscilla. I was not aware of abortion selectively marketed to Indian women. The same is happening in the black community (more babies conceived by black Americans are aborted than are born), and few have a problem with it, which shows that people who say, “Black lives matter” don’t mean it.

        The problem with leaving writing about abortion to women who have had one is that many are too traumatized by the experience to write about it. The way I write such a difficult subject is to keep in mind the quote I used in the epigraph of “Signs of a Broken Home:” “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road.”

        Instead of writing about the horrors of abortion, I wrote “Elegy for Miran Sutherland” to show the reader that a baby that age really is a baby. Instead of writing about abortion regret, I wrote poems based on letters to the editor of a Catholic magazine from a couple who regretted using birth control (“Two Empty Chairs”) and one who was grateful for not having used it (“The No-Life Algorithm”). Instead of writing about our culture’s push toward abortion, I wrote about its suppression of motherhood (“The Banned Barbie”). And so on.

  9. Priscilla King

    James A. Tweedie, since I’ve tossed in some other data points, may I take this opportunity to express appreciation for this poem, for your other poems that I’ve read, and for this web site generally. It’s refreshing to visit a site where even unfavorable comments receive polite replies.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Priscilla, Thank you for affirming my poem, this comment thread, and the SCP site, the latter two point with which I completely agree!

      And the really funny thing is that no one seems to have noticed or bothered to point out that my poem’s final line has six beats instead of five (and intentionally so)!

      Reply
  10. Tom Woodliff

    I find it interesting how many “Christians” lament the plight of indigenous peoples, yet their ancestors were, in fact, the oppressors (see Jesus’ words at Matthew 23:29-32)! Today, Western civilization with it’s so-called Judeo-Christian values continues to impose upon native populations its worldview. The real Jesus never tried to force anyone to accept his truth, nor did he treat people, even foreigners, with contempt.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Tom, Let me respond as a fellow disciple of Jesus. The Christian Church has much to atone for. To their credit, the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations have acknowledged, confessed and repented of their sins as regards the historical role they have played in failing to live up to (and into) the model of love represented by their/our/my Lord. More specifically, I have just returned from having spent the past 10 days with Native Christian leaders and local reservation and urban Native Christian Congregations in the Southwest. These are men and women who freely and willingly embrace the good news of the Gospel because they see beyond the earthly failings of the church and find lasting hope, meaning and purpose in following Christ— while remaining faithful to and proud of their Native past and culture. Healing is taking place, but it should also be mentioned that there have always been those in the faith who recognized the sin and hypocrisy taking place around them and both confronted that sin, condemned it, brought judgment upon it and did what they could to serve the Lord and live their lives in true and humble service to others—albeit imperfectly as do we all—while following in the footsteps of Jesus.

      As the great G. K. Chesterton once said: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” The past is over and done and cannot be undone. It does no good to wallow in it. We redeem the past (after following the path through confession, repentance forgiveness and reconciliation) by living into a wiser and more faithful future, both as individuals and together as members of the collective community of the Body of Christ.

      Reply
      • Paddy Raghunathan

        James,

        All I can say, as a practicing Hindu, is the words you’ve just expressed are simply beautiful.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      To Tom Woodliff —

      Here are Christ’s words to his disciples (Matthew 10, 14-15):

      “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.”

      Perhaps you should read the actual words of Jesus before making absurd comments about his presumed mild-mannered liberalism.

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        Joseph, the Old and New Testaments are clear. The default approach to life and faith is to repent, forgive, reconcile and live in peace with our neighbors. And, when this is not possible, to cultivate an attitude of love towards your neighbor so that, perhaps, the seemingly impossible may one day be possible. This is precisely what St. Paul commands in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people.” The image of the kingdom of God into which Jesus called his followers to enter was just such a place. It is true that the world is not always a friendly place and, as the Bible tells us, it is wise to flee from evil—lest it consume us or lead us into temptation (as Christ reminds us in the Lord’s Prayer).

        If it be “liberal” for me to want to “Love the Lord God with all my heart, strength, mind and soul” and to “Love my neighbor as myself,” then I’ll be what you call a “liberal.” What that makes you, on the other hand, who mocks me for seeking to be obedient to the commands of God and Christ in this regard, I have no idea.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joseph,

        I’ll not attempt to critique your response, since I’m simply not qualified.

        However, the back and forth between you and Tom & James reminds me of how the Bhagavad Gita gets interpreted.

        Gandhi saw nonviolence in the Gita, and yet, Tilak, a firebrand of a freedom fighter, saw exactly the opposite. Still further to the right in their interpretation are the modern day Hindu right-wingers.

        In the end, how the scriptures are interpreted depends on the person interpreting it, I guess.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

    • Joshua C. Frank

      What do you mean, Tom? Jesus treated the Pharisees with contempt all the time. And Western culture is no longer dominated by Judeo-Christian values, but by leftist ideology. It is leftism that is being imposed on native populations all around the world in the name of capitalism, which is also not a Christian value.

      Reply
  11. Joseph S. Salemi

    No one was mocking you, James. My comment was to Tom Woodliff, who seems to think of Jesus as a mild-mannered latitudinarian.

    Yes, it is the better path to live at peace with one’s neighbors. But you yourself admit that it is not always possible. You also have said above that we are in a “civil war” that is verging on cultural genocide against whites. Well, unless you are a Quaker, in warfare one must fight.

    You may not credit this, but I dislike arguments and disputes, just as I loathe the waste of warfare. But when a war is on, one has to fight, or else give the enemy the spoils of a battle in which you have declined to take part. And you of course know that Christ said He came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword.

    I had no intention of bringing the following up, but since you have gone into sermon-mode I’ll say it. No one would have raised any objection at all to your poem if you hadn’t included a lengthy postscript that reads like another Mainstream Media abject apology for the crimes of the Western World. And you continued that kind of sermonizing in the lengthy reply to me, in which you presented a detailed historical indictment of the West for its past sins, and its alleged present malfeasance — an indictment that reads precisely like one the typical Outraged Victimhood Manifestos of a Certified Aggrieved Minority Group.

    In any struggle, one must be aware of context, or what Lenin called “the objective situation.” Loud speeches for officially certified victim groups are now part and parcel of left-liberal propaganda and hysteria. So while everyone here accepts the fact that what happened to those American Indian children was a cultural crime, it is ALSO A FACT that none of us here is personally responsible for it, and its victims and perpetrators are all long dead.

    For this reason, your poem is perfectly fine as a fictive artifact produced on a historical subject. But your postscript and your comments in this thread (understood CONTEXTUALLY) are just a continuation of the anti-white, anti-Western chorus that is already at high-decibel levels. Joshua Frank picked this up right away, when he pointed out that “the fact that you’ve devoted so many words in these comments to the subject of Indian rights … gives all of us a different message.”

    Getting Westerners to apologize for what happened before we were born is pure left-liberal combat strategy. It’s a way to disarm people, and get them to be ashamed of their heritage. It is no different from what the government was trying to do with those Indian kids. Please don’t try to disguise it with oleaginous piety and Scriptural quotations.

    Reply
    • Paddy Raghunathan

      Joseph,

      I am a nonwhite living in the US, and don’t believe there is a “civil war” verging on cultural genocide against whites. By and large, we are at peace with each other. And I am thankful.

      That said, conservatives, from time immemorial, have insisted on defending the status quo; liberals have always railed against it. In most countries, extreme views (on both sides) are in a minority; in this country, extreme views on both sides dominate the air.

      I find your quote “Christ said He came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” interesting. Whatever little I know of Jesus and Christianity, I know from Gandhi, who was extremely impressed by the sermon on the mount, and interpreted Christ’s message of “turning the other cheek” as a nod to nonviolence. Like I said in a post above, people interpret scriptures as they see it.

      But having only read the words of extreme right wing pastors who make the news (the news media (liberal or otherwise) must be blamed, no question), it’s refreshing to read a pastor like James Tweedie quietly spreading the message of Christianity as he sees it. After all, if I am not mistaken, the bible does say “God is Love.” And that’s how I interpret his poem.

      Best regards,

      Paddy

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Paddy,

        I emigrated to America from England. I’m a recent citizen and I’m proud to live alongside people whose views I value. I believe the American government misrepresents its citizens. I know you are directing your comment at Dr. Salemi, and I am sorry I’m chipping in. I didn’t want to join in this discussion, but feel compelled to, having read your comment.

        I speak as a former church secretary who witnessed racist behavior in the name of Jesus at the United Methodist Church I worked for here in Texas. I left my job because the pastor pushed activism, looking to the United Nations and BLM for guidance. This is the book the United Methodist Women were studying – the book that prompted my resignation: “Bearing Witness in the Kin-dom: Living into the Church’s Moral Witness” by Darryl W. Stephens. It pushes the BLM doctrine and demands that white people pay reparations for their wrongdoing.

        I stood up against racism and other political ideologies and left a well-paid job because the church I worked for cared more for the word of man than for the teachings of the Bible. The cultural war in the Western world is real. What was pushed in my church as anti-racism and “love” was pure racism against whites. No one can choose the color of their skin…the church I worked for was making the white ladies there not only conscious of their color but accountable for it. Unforgivable and wrong!

        The truth mattered to me more than my wages. The congregation mattered to me more than my reputation (and it was trashed by the pastor). We are in a cultural war in the US, which is why many churches are closing down. The church I worked for is on the road to ruin. The majority of the congregation have walked out and formed their own church… one that speaks the truth… and I am over the moon I was part of that change. It’s one battle won in this wicked war.

        Please read this article from Sept 2021… it’s even worse now.

        https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/09/12/its_time_to_acknowledge_anti-white_racism_146391.html#!

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Dear Paddy —

        I suppose it depends on exactly where in the United States you are living. In big cities, like Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Los Angeles, you’d be well aware of the cultural genocide against whites — and it’s spreading inexorably via the lower school system and academia.

        Yes, it is usually conservatives who defend the status quo. But the status quo today in America is governed by an iron tyranny of left-liberal ideology. I myself am not a conservative (who in his right mind wants to CONSERVE this disgusting leftist, freak-loving regime?) I am a reactionary and rightist.

        No one doubts Mr. Tweedie’s good will, his Christian faith, and his hope for human amity. But to be frank, benevolence and piety and optimistic feel-goodery are not the best weapons in a combat situation! The failure of too many religionists to understand this basic truth is tragic in its likely consequences.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joseph,

        Sounds like even the conservatives are too “woke” for you.

        All I can say is I enjoy your writing and poetry, even if I don’t tend to agree with it some times. But I enjoy it nonetheless. To each his own.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Susan,

        I’m sorry about your experience at the church where you worked, and I can understand why you feel strongly.

        As I’ve said to Joseph, I say the same to you: I enjoy your poetry, even if I don’t agree with it sometimes.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Paddy, just so you know, conservatives are too woke for me, too. Today’s conservatives are the liberals of 20 years ago. People think conservatives boldly “stand athwart history, yelling stop,” but in reality, they run alongside liberals asking them to slow down just a bit so the people don’t revolt. Many conservatives are in favor of abortion, divorce, feminism, and all kinds of anti-family things, but they wish to soften the damage just a little. They don’t look at the roots of the problems they claim to want to solve. These are the kind of people who would have been okay with Nazi death camps but would have asked that the deaths be a little less painful and that specific kinds of people be allowed to live. I wish I were exaggerating, but that’s exactly how a lot of conservatives are with the Abortion Holocaust. They want to ban abortions only after some arbitrary point in the pregnancy and forbid specific methods, but that’s all.

        For my politics, the formula is expressed in the closing couplet of my poem “The Renegade Poet:”

        “Large families, small communities, the Church—
        The simple country life for which I search.”

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joshua,

        Point noted with regards to your political beliefs.

        By the by, I tracked down two ‘apolitical’ poems of yours: Alone Together, and The Vacant Playground, and I enjoyed them thoroughly.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Thank you, Paddy. I’m glad you enjoyed them.

        I’ve got plenty more apolitical poems where that came from. Just type my name in the search box on the right, above the most recent comments. My poems reflect my worldview, like anyone else’s, but quite a few are non-political.

      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Paddy,
        Thank you for your kind words and for your appreciation of my poetry. I believe it’s a wonderful thing to disagree with someone’s views, yet in spite of this, still enjoy their poetry. That’s the beauty of this site. We are all very different as people and as poets and this site allows for that… as long as we’re appreciative of rhyme, rhythm, and rapture. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

  12. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    James, I was going to sail past your poem because I felt slighted by it. I am addressing it now because I felt compelled to answer Paddy. I am appalled by your use of the word “we.” I am an American citizen and this doesn’t include me, or many, many others… those born here that have nothing to do with this atrocity are swept up in the “WE” of your poem. WE are not responsible for that government in that era, and WE are not responsible for our government now – a global takeover is occurring and the majority of the people in the Western world are in despair.
    I agree with every word you speak of the horrors of removing a culture from an individual. This is precisely what is happening to our children now. For me, your poem says what goes round comes round – the Western world deserves this treatment because WE are bastards.

    Just saying it as I see it, as I always do. And I’m only saying it because many of us aren’t one of your “WE” – I’m speaking up for all those who are an “I” and had nothing to do with these atrocities and have learned from history. I will not tolerate racism in any form. I will not tolerate the murder of a culture, which is why I am speaking up for the Western world before it’s too late. To my mind your poem undermines the intelligence and integrity of those who have learned from history and have a conscience. Many of America’s citizens know their country is portrayed as the evil villain in today’s world… why hammer the point home and help the government out in its murder of American culture?

    Reply
    • Brian A Yapko

      I didn’t really want to comment here either, James. You wrote a fine poem but Susan’s comments deserve great weight and I would like to add to them. The idea of a people’s collective responsibility for historical actions or the actions of a few is anathema to me. Most likely, this derives from my Jewish background. How many centuries’ worth of Jews were killed because the Jews were considered collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Christ? How many American Jews today are punished and vilified and attacked because of things over which they have no control in Israel? The Nazis killed how many because of the idea of the Jewish people’s collective responsibility…? And this nefarious concept of “collective responsibility” applies to whites in the U.S. as well. Certain groups blame all white people for the enslavement of black people without stopping to think that we had an entire WAR over this issue, that over half of the U.S. despised and fought slavery, and that 350,000 Union soldiers GAVE THEIR LIVES in the battle against slavery. So what is this “we” business that leftists like to spout? It is a probably well-meaning (or is it?) but deeply unjust attempt to assign collective responsibility based purely on skin color. But to fairly hold today’s white people responsible for what happened to the Indians in days past, they would have to endorse the Indian cultural destruction that occurred in the past by… whom? The great, great grandparents of a few of us? I certainly can’t say “my ancestors” because my mother came here from a war-ravaged Germany in 1947 and my father’s parents came here from some pogrom-ravaged village in Poland via Ellis Island in 1908. On what possible theory of justice do I bear responsibility for the heinous acts you describe? So I too reject the “we.”

      Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      James, I didn’t want to comment either. However, my great grandfather, Jeremiah Augustine Bryant, left Ireland because of the potato famine. We all know that some British landowners were responsible for that catastrophe. Jeremiah scraped up enough to afford steerage to the USA. Gotta say, he wasn’t treated much better here… BUT, he signed up with the Union forces and helped to get rid of slavery in the USA. He moved to Texas, started a bakery in San Antonio and made a life.
      When will we STOP setting race against race, men against women, people against people? I think it is when the churches figure out that the governments are setting us all against each other and decide to put a stop to it. Too bad the churches all backed the divisiveness of the Nazis… Fascism has raised its ugly head again and the churches are all in again with the present-day Fascists… Government / Corporate alliances against us all.
      Wake Up!

      Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      I wasn’t going to touch this issue myself, but chose to focus on one aspect. Now, however, I’d like to back Susan, Brian, and Mike’s comments. I’m mostly a descendant of 20th-century immigrants from all around Europe, and I don’t accept the left’s finding me guilty over the color of my skin, especially when the left has far more to answer for after starting the Abortion Holocaust, and somehow has the temerity to adopt the slogan, “Black Lives Matter” when they clearly exclude unborn black lives.

      Brian makes a good point about how similar all this is to saying all Jews everywhere are responsible for the Crucifixion and the problems in Israel, which makes about as much sense as saying all ethnic Greeks are responsible for the death of Socrates and various problems in Greece today. No one makes the latter claim because it’s so obvious how ridiculous that is, yet people do make the former claim and say that all whites everywhere are responsible for every evil done by any white person against a person of a different race.

      Mike makes a good point that leftist powers are setting different kinds of people against each other. I read about an experiment that involved shaking an ant farm in a jar, which had red and black ants in it. Before, they lived in harmony, but after, the red ants turned against the black ants, and vice versa. The point was that when groups in our culture fight against each other, ask who shook the jar.

      Plus, the way things are going, so much focus on racism against Indians seems like focusing on the cockroach problem in one passenger’s quarters on a sinking ship.

      Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Here you go:

      God gave the land: the water, earth, and sky.
      And though they took it all away and tried
      To “Kill the Indian and save the man”—
      While through their scheming lies did all they could
      To turn the People and their past to dust—
      They found those they oppressed were more than just
      A painted pot on a museum shelf;
      For Native ways of life were life itself.

      How strange they could not see it other than:
      To “Kill the Indian” would also kill the man?

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        The change of tense is good, but you’ll want to fix the rhyme scheme to be consistent throughout the poem. Sky/tried makes it start out with a slant rhyme (the first rhymes should establish what we see in the rest of the poem), and man/could is the only couplet in the poem that doesn’t rhyme at all.

        This is a good start, but it will need more revision.

  13. Joseph S. Salemi

    The charge of “collective guilt” is very frequent in the history of leftism and leftist revolutions. The French revolutionists believed in the “collective guilt” of anyone with aristocratic blood. The Communists believed in the “collective guilt” of anyone in the bourgeoisie. That Maoists believed in the “collective guilt” of all those who did not support the Cultural Revolution. The ANTIFA thugs believe in the “collective guilt” of anyone who voted for Trump. It is in the DNA of left-liberalism to demonize entire groups and classes, and to actively work towards (or connive in) their subjugation, suppression, and murder.

    Reply
  14. Paul Freeman

    Thank you James for reminding us of Orwell’s warning that: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

    This is exactly what happened to Native American communities through forced relocation and re-education of their children.

    Of course, if this topic of the ‘Indian’ schools is not touched on when today’s American children are educated (along with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, domestic slavery, Japanese-Americans being rounded up and placed in internment camps, etc.), one would be denying and obliterating the younger generation’s understanding of their history.

    It seems the easy way out these days is to cherry pick one’s history, label any aspect of history you don’t want remembered as subversive and claim you’re the victims.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Just so everyone knows, I learned about all those things in school, and that was the ’90s. What gets suppressed and labeled subversive these days is anything contradicting the woke narrative. The way the Civil War was spoken of was to portray the heroic North saving imprisoned blacks from the evil South like a knight saving a princess from a dragon, when even a cursory reading of history shows that the real story was a lot more complicated than that.

      Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Paul, I wonder which of your ancestors are responsible for the Irish Potato Famine. What do You owe Me?
      I’m already collecting reparations from Susan!

      Reply
      • Paul Freeman

        Who’s talking about reparations? Only you. Do stay on topic.

      • Mike Bryant

        You owe me for the potato famine thing… don’t try to get out of the “collective guilt” thing. Pay up!

        I see what you mean, though… the Nazis never made the Jews pay for their “so-called” collective guilt… oh wait… the Jews certainly paid a huge price for the ridiculous idea of collective guilt.

      • Paul Freeman

        I just made a comment in agreement with James, waiting for the tag team labelling, cut and paste links to dubious sites and Voltaire quote to kick in.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Paul, you know you’re not going to change our minds or those of the readers, so why do you debate us except to show us how liberal you are? I think Joseph Salemi is spot on.

        Guess what: we’re not impressed, and neither are many of our readers. In our eyes, it makes you yet another of the unthinking masses, parroting back what you hear from the government, the media, and each other, like children who unthinkingly repeat what their parents say. I was once one of those myself, so that’s not intended as an insult. Many of the staunchest traditionalists you’ll meet were once liberals.

        The lines we write that you’ve said you liked so much came from ideas that would never be heard in the liberal world, unless they were changed beyond recognition. It might benefit you to investigate some of our other ideas on the chance that maybe we know a few things your liberal sources aren’t telling you.

      • Paul Freeman

        I can accept the accusation of parroting, since it comes from a parrot. I actually use my own brain and what my eyes see and what I’ve experienced in life, rather than falling back on second hand disinformation or a skewed biblical interpretation.

        The ‘liberal’ label you give me is designed to be dismissive and is rather childish, as are labels like ‘bigot’ and ‘fascist’, which conservatives complain about, so let’s not bandy them around. I’m just expressing what I personally feel, not some nut job agenda from an extremist podcast pundit.

      • Mike Bryant

        Hmmmm… “extremist podcast pundit” I wonder which podcast you’re talking about, Paul. Perhaps you could enlighten us.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        And “nut job agenda” and “extremist podcast pundit” and “disinformation” and “tag team labelling” aren’t childish?

        There are none so blind as those who will not see.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Many liberals proudly call themselves liberal, so that was not intended to be dismissive. “Liberal” describes a specific set of ideas, just like “Catholic.” I’m not sure what you call the set of ideas you hold in common with many on the political left, so from here on, I’ll continue to use the word “liberal” as simply a descriptive word. As a Catholic, I do believe it is a “nutjob agenda,” but not from an extreme podcast pundit—this agenda is held by all the major powers, has almost fully conquered the Western world, and is seeking to do the same to the other continents.

        Like all liberals, you think your ideas are your own, based on nothing more than objective observation of the world. I thought this when I was a liberal. Then I grew up, went to college, and started thinking for myself more as I had more world to observe independently of my parents.

        “Falling back on second-hand disinformation” and “a skewed Biblical interpretation,” and being a parrot, was exactly what I had done my whole life. I accepted that all people to the right of the Clintons were the bad guys, and even got into fights with people who said otherwise, just because that was what my parents had taught me. I had to suppress love of family, tradition, country, etc., to believe those ideas. But as I grew older, I gradually realized that I could not consider those things good and still be a liberal if I was to be intellectually consistent. The law of noncontradiction demanded that I make a choice.

        I realized that since liberalism is a new cultural and political movement, the burden of proof fell on the one who would upend the order that had existed throughout all of human history among Christians and pagans alike. Indeed, since liberalism naturally demands smaller families, your own Charles Darwin would be the first to point out that such conditions select for religious belief. Similarly, the multiculturalism that is one of the pillars of liberalism naturally leads to unrestricted immigration from countries that don’t believe in liberalism. The system, as your Karl Marx said about capitalism, “begets its own negation,” at least in the long run.

        Over the years, I have distanced myself more and more from that movement, based partly on my own reasoning, partly on the ideas taught by the Bible as understood and interpreted by the Catholic Church, and partly on what all peoples, Christian or pagan, have understood to be true throughout history (as I said before, the burden of proof is on the one who would deny these ideas). You might call these secondhand information, but much of what we know is. I’ve never been to Australia, but I accept from other people that there is such a place.

        Unlike you, I was able to argue my position without resorting to personal insults and attacks.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Joshua, liberals tend to avoid using the term “liberal” under certain political conditions. I have seen this happen time and again at many websites or on-line forums. Several years back, at the Expansive Poetry Online website, the poet Robert Darling twisted himself into pretzel desperately trying to avoid the word, even though everything he said in debate with me proved without a doubt that he was a liberal. He too insisted that it was just an unfair “label.”

        The truth is this: liberals try to avoid the term “liberal” when they come to push an agenda at a place where there are many conservatives or non-liberals. Starting in the late 1960s they began to use the term “progressive” (or the even more fatuous “problem-solver”), but very soon it became obvious that these were merely camouflage to avoid identifying their core beliefs openly. So they now call themselves “free thinkers” or “independents” or “those with a mind of their own” — all of which have a stomp-down Yankee-Doodle plainness about them that can be associated with a trusty old rural farm-hand. It’s purely a rhetorical trick.

        Ironically, all the old-fashioned genuine liberals of the past are now a nearly extinct species. Those middle-of-the-road types who voted for Bob LaFollette and Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey are now gone with the wind.

        At websites they control, our enemies have no difficulty in referring to themselves as socialists or leftists or “lefties” (this last is a kind of cutesy-poo term of self-endearment). All of this fits in with the Fabian-Gramscian idea of infiltrating any institution silently and gradually, purging it of conservative or rightist opposition, and making it a politically orthodox place.

  15. Joshua C. Frank

    One more thing I forgot to mention: there’s no such word as “irradicate.” It’s “eradicate.”

    Reply
  16. James A. Tweedie

    Okay, I wasn’t going to respond to this feeding frenzy but it is very annoying when people I consider friends and colleagues in the SCP formal poetry community enter a feeding frenzy by attacking me and criticizing me for things I never said, suggested or implied. I never used the term “collective guilt” because in this case i don’t believe it applies so stop harping on that. Nor did I use the word “reparations” or imply anything related to that word. The word “we” is used as a collective pronoun for the United States including “We the people” who are represented by the Federal government. It is, after all, “our” country and it is not inappropriate to refer to it as “we” in the same way that we refer to our personal familiy as “we.” Our nation (as like a family) has good and bad mixed in with its heritage. That does not make us all guilty of Uncle Sam’s bad behavior although we may feel some obligation to do something when another member of our family is involved. Native Americans are, of course, part our national family—part of our collective national “we.” They are part of “us.” Not “they.” So knock off this nonsense about “I wasn’t born yet” or similar sentiments. If you claim to be an American then you’re part of the “we,” and by referring to the United States as “they” is to suggest that you aren’t a part of it. I’m proud of my family’s heritage even as I recognize the bad eggs and the shame some in the past have brought to my family’s name. That doesn’t imply that I am a bad egg but it ought to add a touch of wisdom to my character and lead me to resolve not to do what they did and to help clear the family name if possible. How much more so when the family history involves one member abusing another. Would we not go to the abused member’s aid and defense while supporting them through their recovery? And if we are not willing or able to do that would we not at least have some feeling of empathy for the injustice they had gone through? That is all I intended with the use of the word “we.”

    And the present tense was intended to convey that the root source of that abuse (in this case the “Doctrine of Discovery”) is still the foundational legal principal that governs Federal oversight and (still often abused) sovereign control over this one particular group of American citizens (part of our “we”).

    That’s it.

    And yes, of course there was an intentional educational component to this poem and post as I shared something which I recently learned and experienced in a personal way. How many of you were previously familiar with the phrase and implications of the “Doctrine of Discovery” before? It was new to me and I make no apology for having written this poem, for having written the historical note that I attached to it, for the extended replies I made to questions and comments, or for the personal replies I made to those who made comments in regard to my personal character, opinions or perceived political and religious beliefs.

    And I don’t give a hoot whether you came from England or your heritage is Italian or Jewish or anything else. If you are American and you write poetry about America, then I should not be criticized for writing a poem about America and Americans.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      James,

      To upset you was not my intention. As I said in my previous comment, “I agree with every word you speak of the horrors of removing a culture from an individual”. I hear your explanation for the use of the word “we”, and I am still unable to see it as anything other than “collective guilt”. If I spoke of Chinese people as being responsible for murderous organ harvesting in China, it would be wholly inaccurate and offensive to all those who are fighting a draconian government to stop it. By the same token, Brian pointed out that “350,000 Union soldiers GAVE THEIR LIVES in the battle against slavery”… how might they feel about your use of this term “we” if they were alive today? Every country’s citizens are worth far more than the deeds of their rogue governments. No matter how much we might like to think our vote is our voice and that the Federal government represents “We the people” – it’s been proven over and over again that this is not the case, and it certainly isn’t now, which is why tensions are running high and deep. Our children are indoctrinated, sexualized, and abused by those pretending to care for their wellbeing. Our people have just been lied to by the biggest health scam ever with many dying as a result. Banks are failing. Businesses are collapsing. White people are being demonized. School libraries are littered with porn. Crime is at an all-time high. Our local town (right near the open border) is voting on whether to be a sanctuary city. The vast majority of American citizens hate their predicament… they didn’t vote for this… they are not responsible for this… they are trying their darndest to STOP this.

      This is why I responded as I did in the comments section. I disagreed with you… vehemently, admittedly, but validly, I believe. Others felt the same way and said so. You might not “give a hoot” whether your commenters come from England, or their heritage is Italian or Jewish or anything else… but, I do. America is made up of many different people with many different histories and many different views… views I learn from. I have been criticized horribly for writing many of the poems I write. Criticism is the by-product of free speech… a privilege that is being shut down daily in the Western world. For precisely that reason, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to express my feelings and speak to you about them. I was hoping to learn something… and I did. I’m not alone in my opinion and that heartens me.

      Like you, I don’t feel the need to apologize for my words. I hope we can move on from this and continue to look in the direction of peace and joy… I don’t believe we’ll find much of either here on earth at this present moment in time, but as ever, I’m hopeful.

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        Susan, I completely agree with your concluding words and wish the same.

        Even so, I must reply to your reference to Union soldiers and the Civil War.

        In Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, he used the word “we” in same inclusive way that I did in my poem:

        “Now we are engaged in a great civil war . . .”

        This “we” is inclusive of both both North and South, not only because they were both engaged in the war but because he still viewed the country as being one country, to which the “we” refers.

        And I would argue that many, if not most Union soldiers fought because they saw slavery as a blight on their country and, by implication, on themselves. And it was for that reason that they fought and died; to remove that malignancy from their country.

        This is exactly how Lincoln explains the War in his Address.

        Union soldiers would not have been angry because some poet included them in the national “we” of slavery. They were angry and fighting because they knew they and the nation as a whole already WERE part of that “we” and wanted to bring an end to that collective national shame once and for all.

        My poem was an attempt to speak from this same point of view.

        Respectfully submitted “With malice toward none with charity for all,”

        Jim

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Mr. Tweedie, if you actually read some of the letters and diary notations and postwar memoirs of Union soldiers, you will find out that while ending slavery is mentioned here and there as a reason for fighting, the overwhelming reason mentioned was TO PRESERVE THE UNION. The casus belli for that war was secession, not slavery.

        Most of those soldiers were unwilling draftees, and had no interest whatsoever in the ideological debate over slavery. They weren’t all New England abolitionists. It is pure liberal mythology to see the Civil War through Gettysburg Address rhetoric.

        You make a big deal over the necessity of thinking of ourselves as WE. Once again, you disregard context, or what Lenin called “the objective situation.” There is no WE anymore in the United States. Get used to it.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        A few things:

        1) A lot of us understood your poem and extensive historical note to imply collective guilt, so I don’t think we’re at fault here. If that was not your intention, then your poem was unclear.

        2) Indian tribes are their own sovereign nations, so I’m not sure why they’re included under Americans. Also, if you include them in “we,” why are you including them as the oppressor?

        3) The Civil War was not solely fought to free slaves. It was fought largely to preserve the Union, which was ironic after the colonies broke away from England in the American Revolution (I’ve never been able to get a straight answer about why the one was okay and the other was not). The South did not break away to preserve slavery as is commonly believed (not many Southerners were even rich enough to own one slave), but because they had different ideas about the nature of American government and what it was supposed to be. While the South was wrong about slavery (there were many good masters, but buying and selling human beings like animals was clearly wrong), I don’t think the South was wrong about American government. The government the founders started was limited and decentralized, and the South wanted to preserve that, but the Northern government had its own ideas that developed into the modern form. In case this needs to be said, none of this constitutes an endorsement of slavery. It is, however, an attack on the woke narrative.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joseph,

        I’m a civil war buff myself. Indeed there are many contradictions that could imply the civil war was about preserving the union.

        General Lee believed slavery was wrong, but fought for the south because he believed the state came first over nation. Grant’s wife owned slaves even as he was liberating the slaves of the southern states. Stanton, Lincoln’s famous secretary of war, was a union democrat.

        Lincoln, himself, in his first inaugural stated that his mission was to preserve the union. It was only later that he signed the emancipation proclamation, which only freed slaves in slave-owning states and not in the ones fighting for the union. Only much later would come the thirteenth amendment, ending slavery once and for all.

        You are correct: many who fought came from Europe, and fought only because their families were promised property when they migrated. They didn’t fight for any principle…they were just mercenaries. Some survived, others didn’t.

        Delaware was a slave owning state, and she fought for the north, because she was very proud to be the first state to have joined the union. Virginia split in two, one fought for the north and the other for the south. Missouri didn’t split, but sent her citizens to fight for both the north and south.

        But there is one constant that makes it clear the war was about slavery and slavery alone. No “non-slave” state (Ohio, New York, etc.) fought for the south on the premise that the state came first over union.

        Lincoln, in his second inaugural, states it better than anyone else can:

        “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.”

        The civil war was about slavery alright.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Dear Paddy —

        There are usually two reasons for any war — the first is its ideologically propagandized reason, and the second is its real reason. Very rarely are they the same.

        Anti-slavery agitation in the antebellum period was largely the product of a small coterie of abolitionist radicals, usually descendants of New England Puritans, and either members of the Protestant clergy or adherents to Transcendentalism or other new thought systems. Although they were loud and propagandistic, they certainly did not represent the view of the overwhelming majority of citizens in the non-slave states.

        You mention New York and Ohio. Have you forgotten about the ferocious anti-draft riots in 1864 that shattered New York City? Were those rioters against slavery, or were they justly infuriated at having to die in a war that was of no interest to them? In fact the rioters seized every black they could find, and lynched them from lampposts.

        New York and Ohio sent soldiers to fight because they had no other choice. These non-slave states had not seceded from the Union, and were therefore subject to laws which obliged them to provide men for combat. Popular opinion in those non-slave states was of no concern to the Federal government, which simply demanded cannon fodder.

        As Joshua Frank has pointed out, the reasons for the Civil War were complex and intricate, but the “anti-slavery” war cry was just an ideological fig leaf to hide those real reasons, while conveniently allowing those in power to pretend that some big Categorical Imperative was being honored.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joseph,

        I mostly agree with your statements, but yet, can’t agree with your conclusion. And no, I haven’t forgotten the anti-draft riots in New York City. Nor am I unaware of the fact that Mrs. Bixby, the recipient of Lincoln’s famous letter, was a southern sympathizer, hated Lincoln with all her heart, and then some.

        But in Ohio, New York, etc., if the majority was against the war, I doubt they’d have been forced to enter it without a choice. They’d have voted to secede like the other states. These states consciously had voted against slavery prior, per the majority opinion prevailing in the said states.

        Would there have been folks in these states who didn’t accept the majority opinion? Absolutely.

        And did everyone who favored abolishing slavery do so for altruistic reasons? No. Several even had business reasons.

        But in the end, the states who abolished slavery prior to the civil war, for right or wrong reasons or reasons in between, ended up staying with the union, fighting for the union, and against the states that seceded. If even one of the states that had seceded had abolished slavery prior to seceding I would agree with your conclusion.

        So as far as I’m concerned the civil war was about slavery in the end. That Lincoln and the north got there in the most circuitous route possible (and not as morally or even as ideologically made out to be) doesn’t make it any less so.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Now wait a minute, Paddy — you can believe what you want about the Civil War “as far as you’re concerned,” to use your words, but you can’t suggest things that are absolutely untenable.

        To say that Ohio and New York could have just seceded from the Union if the majority opinion in those states did not want war is completely bizarre. Wars are declared and organized and run by politicians, not the populace! America would NEVER have gone to war in 1917 and 1941 if it hadn’t been for the Zimmermann note in the first case, and Pearl Harbor in the second case. Those two incidents galvanized popular opinion, which up to then was solidly isolationist and anti-war. But once they happened, the politicians had full power to compel the people to fight. Nobody really gave a damn about the slavery issue except New England fanatics — certainly not enough to ignite a war that left over 600,000 dead.

        Secession was a southern thing, argued for and promoted by southern politicians and writers as a defensive measure against the growing arrogance and interference of Northern meddlers. No one up north thought of secesssion as a possibility for themselves, simply because for the north the Union was fine, and they had no complaints about Southerners coming up to their states to dictate Categorical Imperatives. People in New York and Ohio may have been indifferent to the slavery debate, and most of them were likely appalled when war came, but once it did they had no choice but to follow orders, and “preserve the Union.”

        Remember what I said about ideologized propagandistic reasons for war. Quoting Lincoln in your arguments is silly, because he was a practiced political liar whose entire purpose as President was to push an ideological justification for the war based on gaseous sonorities.

        Do you still think the reason for our fighting Iraq was “weapons of mass destruction”?

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joseph,

        You are also entitled to your own conclusions.

        I doubt “slavery” was an issue of New England fanatics alone. If it had been, an obscure has-been of a politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln would hardly have been gotten famous nationally by debating Senator Douglas on the slavery question. And almost all of those debates occurred in Illinois and the midwest, where slavery was as much a potent issue as it was in New England.

        I will agree with you that Lincoln used the “preserving the union” card to wage war on the south, but then the south never gave talks with Lincoln a chance when he became President. So, as much as it’s possible the north was highhanded, it’s the south that seceded on a whim, thereby allowing Lincoln and the north to claim the “moral high ground.”

        Now I’ve never believed in “weapons of mass destruction” as a reason for the war in Iraq. But 75% percent of the Americans did then, and agreed with George W. Bush’s decision, only to balk later. I was one of the 25% who didn’t agree with the war.

        But I’ll concede your point that war is waged by politicians, but rarely do politicians spring it out of nowhere. As you rightly pointed out, incidents in 1917 and 1941 spurred the populace into war, and in the case of the civil war, it was the south’s act to secede. Would slavery have ignited a war that left 600,000 dead? It could, if no one at that time believed that it would turn out to be such a long, devastating war. Which indeed was the case.

        Was Lincoln a practiced liar, as you claim? Again you are entitled to your opinion. Every book I’ve read on Lincoln (and I’ve read quite a few) only praises the man’s honesty. He was, of course, a political maestro, which made him extremely wily. But then, so too was Gandhi.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I guess it all boils down to one question: do you believe the North’s side of the story, or the South’s?

        A lot of people say, “I believe the North because the South had slaves and therefore can’t be trusted.” But that’s not honest history. Honest history is, “Both sides have a bias, so let’s hear both sides to arrive at the truth.” History, as they say, is often written by the winners, and we all know the North’s view. Given that my calling as a poet is to speak for the voiceless, I believe that the South’s view should be heard and not suppressed—not because I believe in slavery or anything (as I said, I agree that it was wrong to buy and sell human beings), or because I live in the South (Texas is part of the South), but because our culture has worked very hard to silence the South’s view of the Civil War, to the point where I have to reaffirm that I’m against slavery every time I speak in defense of any part of the South’s perspective. Like soldiers in the Revolutionary War, Southern soldiers believed in the cause of independence so strongly that they gave their lives for it, or at least were prepared to do so. Clearly, that wasn’t out of racism or what have you.

        Whether you agree with their position or not, at least listen to the South’s side.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joshua,

        No doubt history is written by the victors, But one of the reasons the south’s view has to be taken with a pinch of salt (much more than a pinch actually) is because “slavery” had gone out of fashion after the war.

        Many southerners who fought in and survived the war now wrote books: money was one motive, but also another strong motive was to disclaim their association with slavery whatsoever. It was blasphemous to associate oneself with that condemned institution now.

        Pray tell me, if slavery wasn’t such a strong reason, why did the south cling to that institution throughout the civil war? Not one of the southern states freed their slaves before or even while yet fighting the war of secession – it would have given them a high moral ground. Much higher than the north, actually.

        It’s silly to argue that the civil war wasn’t about slavery. Because it was only about slavery.

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        This is typical liberal rhetoric. You insist the Civil War was ONLY about slavery because that’s what Northern propaganda tells you, and then you won’t listen to the South because they had slaves and therefore didn’t have the moral high ground. (In reality, the North had some serious moral problems that throw this claim into question.) It’s actually quite a childish way of debating. This is not intended as a personal insult; it’s something I observe whenever I debate with a liberal.

        Your questions have already been answered by what Joseph Salemi and I have already said. That tells me you don’t want to listen to our side, only to try to argue us into yours.

        The thing is, we were taught the same propaganda in school as you. We know exactly what you think because we used to think it, too. Then we started reading some actual history outside of our carefully curated school textbooks. If you want to keep on believing everything your liberal textbooks say, I can’t stop you, so it’s time I bow out. But if you want to learn that reality isn’t as black and white as you think it is, there are plenty of books out there for you.

      • Paddy Raghunathan

        Joshua,

        With due respect, I’m neither liberal nor conservative (I have an equal dislike for both, which unfortunately makes me a small minority).

        I also didn’t grow up in this country, and everything I’ve read of the civil war come from an interest I developed on the subject. Just as I developed a love for and taught myself formal poetry in English.

        With regards to my views on the civil war (or anything for that matter), I try to come up with a perception or opinion only after enough reading (I’ve read books written by both sides). If I don’t have an opinion, I’ll simply say I’m not qualified (as I did with the topic of Christianity on this thread).

        While you believe that you and Joseph have said enough to the contrary, you’ve not been able to convince me. You could conclude that it’s because I’m caught up in the liberal rhetoric on the subject…that’s your prerogative. But by and large, I find your arguments just as selective (as you insist mine are), if not more, to support the south’s view.

        We could debate the matter endlessly, and won’t get anywhere.

        Let us agree to disagree then: for in the wise words of H L Mencken, “After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more will be said than done.”

        Best regards,

        Paddy

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Wow, Paddy, I didn’t know all that about you! So how would you describe your politics?

        With regard to the Civil War, where I take issue (this is not intended as further argument, but to explain to anyone reading why I think as I do) is with the fact that the antebellum South has been denied a voice in mainstream historical discourse because the cultural descendants of the North have decided that the South is morally equivalent to the Nazis (and therefore deserves to have no voice), all the while perpetuating the Abortion Holocaust. Sixty million dead in the United States alone. That’s more than if the Ku Klux Klan shot every black person in the United States. And they have the gall to point fingers at the South.

        But you and I come from irreconcilably different perspectives on this issue, so I agree, it makes no sense to argue further.

    • James A. Tweedie

      Bait and switch, Mike.

      Abortion, suppression of parental rights and the imposition of woke, partisan sociopolitical agendas on our children are important issues that have been and will continue to be addressed by you and others on this site. So far as I can tell, they are being neither neglected nor ignored.

      I, for one, am not implying or suggesting that the subject of this thread is either more or less important than any other subject. However, I am, of course, suggesting that the subject of this thread is important . . . or ought to be.

      To review, the issue on this thread relates to Federal abuse of Native Americans, both as families and as recognized nations subject to Federal regulation and control—both in the recent historical past and continuing in the present.

      It is disingenuous to suggest that this thread is somehow at fault for addressing this issue rather than one you believe to be more pressing or more important.

      Are you suggesting that SCP postings be limited to a politically correct list of “more important” issues to the exclusion of others?

      Reply
      • Mike Bryant

        James, I wasn’t talking about any hierarchy of concerns or topics at all. I thought it was interesting that the federal government is engaged in “cultural genocide” today… NOW… as we speak.
        I have a feeling that anyone who had spoken up about the reeducation of American Indian children a hundred years ago, would’ve received the same treatment that this poor mother (on the video I posted) did.
        Certainly no offense was intended, and I am enjoying the great exercise of free speech here at SCP.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        All the powers that be today are united for one purpose: to destroy traditional cultures, but especially Christian, Western culture. If you read books from around the time of World War I or before, you see what a different world that was, especially in rural areas. I would argue that Western culture has mostly been destroyed and replaced by a sort of Borg collective. The powers that be want to assimilate the whole world into a mass of interchangeable parts to make us easier to control. That’s why they make war against religion, family, and community, and that’s why they’ve neutered the arts and humanities. All those things make us harder to control, so if they take that away or trick us into giving that away, we’re theirs.

        The way our government has treated Indians is how they are with everyone in one way or another.

  18. Brian A Yapko

    James, it was not my intent to cause offense either. But this is a subject which is fraught. I love my country. I consider myself a patriot. I take pride in her successes and I grieve for her shortcomings. I believe as you do that we are “one people under God. ” But let’s be realistic about what the frontiers of citizenship actually mean. If I’ve learned one thing from practicing law, it’s that it is unjust to take credit for things I did not do, and it is equally unjust to assume blame for things I did not do. How I would love to go to Europe and crow about how I helped us win World War II and how I helped us land on the moon, but it wouldn’t be accurate anymore than how I subjugated Native Americans. I take neither credit nor responsibility for things I did not do. It’s one thing to point to shortcomings, failings, even crimes. It’s another thing to try to impose shame and guilt on the innocent. Let us be mindful of that distinction.

    I’ve been to Germany five times in my life. I’m trying to imagine having a conversation with a German family I’m friends with about “their” guilt over Nazi Germany. Or trying to make them feel shame over “their” crimes against humanity. Let us regard history as history. Let us learn from it — which is what I believe the laudable point of your poem is. But let us exercise a nuanced caution that is missing in much of today’s BLM-inspired finger-pointing civil discourse which you have inadvertently tapped into: to shame the sixth generation down the line for things they had nothing to do with is an act of profound injustice. Accuracy and nuance matter here when it comes to both blame and credit. I regret that my county did terrible things. I am not proud of these things. But I should not be asked to assume responsibility for them because of the color of my skin or the unchosen circumstances of my birth.

    All of this being said, I applaud your poem. I happen to live in a state in which the strengthening of Indian (no one here says “Native American”) rights and culture are very much encouraged and respected. Navajo, Pueblo and Apache cultures are front and center more here than anywhere else in the U.S. I take no credit for this, but I am proud of this fact.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Mike, Joshua, and Brian,

      Points made, taken, welcomed, and accepted.

      Thanks.

      Reply
  19. Margaret Coats

    James, you did some good. I mailed checks to two Indian schools that have some boarding students and require typical Catholic school uniforms most of the time. These schools were founded in the deculturalizing residential school era, but even then it was the policy of Catholic founders to establish Indian schools on Indian reservations, not so far away even as the closest town, so that boarding students could see their families on the weekend. Today’s administrators of these schools acknowledge bad practices in the past, but say briefly that they try to learn from them. In service to children, they are concerned with the future, and with protecting children from the evils of the present. In fact, some families who have moved off reservation prefer to send their children as boarding students to these Indian schools, rather than to government schools called “public,” and they cite “protection” as one reason. Another is that the high school graduation rate for Catholic Indian schools runs far higher than the graduation rate for Indians “mainstreamed” into public schools. A third reason is college scholarships offered by some schools. And get this, even public school graduates of the tribe served are eligible for these scholarships, not just the students who graduate from the Catholic Indian school. Scholarships for higher education are one aspect of these Indian boarding schools’ commitment to education for those they serve.

    These Indian boarding schools have contemporary challenges. They have been sued for “imposing Catholic values,” which was found not to be a valid reason for legal action. That may change in the bathrooms-and-pronouns conflict.
    The best fundraiser among them was sued for “unjustifiable enrichment” because it had raised money for the stated purpose of serving two poor tribes. Some tribe members considered that the money (not just education, meals, health care, social services, and a considerable number of jobs) should have been shared with the tribes. This “unjustifiable enrichment” suit went on for ten years (enriching many lawyers on both sides) before it came to what may have been a “Dickens Bleak House” settlement (money to pay lawyers gone, suit ended). Tribal leaders did not reveal terms of the settlement, which angered some individuals of the tribes who may have expected enrichment checks for themselves.

    The title of your post is “On Indian Boarding Schools and Continuing Subjugation.” The question is for you and Evan Mantyk, as you attribute the “continuing subjugation” part to him. Can you or Evan cite any example of a present-day school that has “Indian School” as part of its name, and accepts boarding students, and is in the process of subjugating Indian children as you describe in your note? Even if you can, I think you owe an apology to existing Indian schools that are boarding schools at least in part, yet sincerely try to offer education to tribes they have served for generations.

    The ones I know recognize and celebrate tribal culture. Here’s one little story. A young lady who came as a new teacher’s aide to a Zuni school was questioned by some Zuni parents who suspected that she had previously taught in a Navajo school. The Zuni were pleased to discover that she had just graduated from college on the East Coast and would learn about Indians first and foremost from the Zuni.

    Reply
  20. James A. Tweedie

    (Warning:a very very long sentence follows):

    No apology forthcoming, Margaret, since the “continuing subjugation” phrase (which was belatedly slipped in to provide a response to a reasonable question Evan raised about my use of the present tense) is not related to either the Federal Governments past abusive policies promoting the operation of the schools (and the forced seizure of children from their families to populate them) or to any existing schools, public, private, day or boarding that serve those communities today. The phrase is directed at the Federal Government’s continuing and often arbitrary assertion of sovereignty over Indian affairs in violation of treaties and other historic agreements without consultation with, approval by, or compensation for economic hardships imposed on tribal lands and the tribal members who live there. Here’s an example from today’s news—an issue that’s been brewing for some time:

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/native-american-tribe-plans-protests-considers-suing-biden-admin-over-oil-leasing-crackdown

    As an aside, Navajo and most Pueblos no longer let new churches to be opened on reservation land, allowing only historic RC and Protestant churches to remain. As you mention, in at least some tribal areas the RC church does indeed continue to offer important educational options for Native students although the complicity of Christian churches in the forced boarding of children and their mandatory immersion in Christian teaching has left most Native Americans alienated from, distrustful of and in many cases bitterly resentful towards Christianity. There are, however, many others who still embrace the Christian faith and find that the true essence of the Gospel is of an eternal value worth embracing in spite of the abuses of the past.

    I have personally joined in worship with vital on-reservation Christian faith communities among the Makah, Navajo, Pueblo, Yakama and Salt River tribes and when I was younger, I was honored to be invited to serve one of those churches as their pastor—an invitation which, for personal family reasons, I was not able to accept.

    Margaret, I hope this is clearer than mud!

    Reply

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