That's Just The Way It Is...

The title is from a song by Bruce Hornsby. You remember Bruce Hornsby. I loved that song. If you have ever listened to the lyrics to that song, it's about the constitutional amendment allowing minorities to vote in 1964 and how the law really didn't change anything. I'm not a bitter minority by any right. I'm not on the side of the native people who believe that we need the Black Hills back to make up for anything. This is the modern age and you reap what you sow. You live your life by how YOU make it, not by anybody else or what type of handout you think you are entited to.

Take me for instance. I have very few Native friends. None of my closest friends are Native. I hope that my friends see me as a person and not "the Indian friend". I've known these people long enough to know they would never think that. In my immediate family, My brothers and sister are first generation, non- reservation Skins. We don't talk with the accent of a rez Indian ( I know white guys who imitate that better than I do)

As for discrimination.. Only a couple of times in my life did I think that I was treated unfairly because of the color of my hide and most likely, as every one knows me, I was looking to deep into the question.

My father was born and bred in Red Lake, Minnesota, He was an Ojibwa/Chippewa and my mother was half Northern Cheyenne. Others races in my genetic cake mix are to many to list. I don't ponder on the fact of Red or White. People who know me know that I work hard and treat others with respect.

I'm leading to this topic because (again) of a movie I just watched about an aboriginal in Winnipeg, Canada who was shot by a RCMP officer. The inquiry into the shooting was a fiasco and very shoddy. In the events preceding the shooting, it looks as if the authorities were trying to cover up a major fuck up by law enforcement. This happens in the United States also. What got me were the statictics at the conclusion of the movie. 75% of the people in Canadian prisons are Aboriginal and they make up for only 15% of the population. Now before anybody comes unwound, this movie was produced by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Obviously, a view of one side. Bias story telling is a hard thing to come by anymore. I'm sure there is two sides to every story. I am assuming that Canada is a fair place to live for everybody. No different than than the way things are told in my neck of the wood by any Native media. Look at the plight (sic) of the blacks in this country after the hurricane in New Orleans. Was there really a plight or was it the way the media wanted you to see it? A little of both I say.

After finding other media sources about the killing of J.J. Harper. Yes, the police fucked up and tried to cover it up. Should we look at it in the small context that all of Canada is like they played out in this movie? No. In the same context, the United States looks like barbarians throughout history, if you look at the way they have treated the native people here.