Letter:  White’s letter hits home

Dear Mike,

I occasionally visit this web site when I am unable to make it home. But the reason I am writing is I would like to comment on Mr. Jim White’s letter. I attend the University of Minnesota Morris in Morris, Minnesota and this letter hit home for me.

I am completing my bachelors degrees in sociology and American Indian Studies. I hope to be done in the spring of 2007.

I was quite impressed with Mr. White's letter and since passed this letter on to my professors. I am taking a history class as well as a soc class which consists of oppression and the strategies of aocial stratification.

Our people of Red lake are a beautiful people and yes Jim is right by stating what are we doing to come to solutions rather then play the negative game of blaming. I could not agree with him more. It’s very difficult going to a university with non- Native people and to hear the negative comments about Native people and Native people as a whole, comments coming from these ignorant people makes me sad and makes me even more determined to prove them all wrong. I hear on this campus as well as what Jim writes about in his letter. Those Indians, all they do is kill each other or theyre nothing but drunks. What they have to realize is how it became that way—genocide.  Believe it or not we are still being genocide and what are we doing about it?

Like Jim stated in his letter playing lip service but action speaks louder then words and doing positive things to change it can and will make a difference.  I left the reservation years ago and I decided to get a college education because I knew what I had learned in Mission School was lies and I was never taught to be proud of my heritage, but to be ashamed, and I learned fast that if we said nothing then we would not be hit or scared in to believing we were going to go to hell.  I look back on it now; no wonder I became a rebel. I did not buy in to this even if I asked questions, and I always promised myself when I grew up I would make a difference. and if it meant having my own children and becoming a grandmother then I would teach them the ways of our people and give them the choice to choose a religion and not have it be forced on you. I push for education and always will because I know in my heart our ancestors fought for us to be here, and if it means beating the white man at its own game then I choose education because that’s how we can and will become a strong nation once again.

If we don't have that education and the true history to what really happened to us as a people, then yes we can blame each other, hate each other and we are just another part of genocide that the white man wants us to become.  I choose not to give in and no matter what people think of me I will always fight for Native people and our rights as nations to be what the Creator wanted us to be, and that is to live in harmony and love each other no matter how much we get hurt--but never. ever stop helping your fellow Anishsinabe.

Also I would like to add this to Jim White's letter.

What our people of the Red Lake Nation need to realize as a nation, our people, our reservation has suffered greatly from oppression and oppressing one another was never our way. Why do we blame each other for problems: And yes Jim is right on when he said all we as a people are is playing lip services and reacting not proacting. This is the reason I chose to go to college and get educated because education is what we as Anishshinabe need in order to help our people. Our future and our children’s future and grandchildren are looking to us to preserve it. That’s our legacy; that’s what our ancestors fought for.

We have a legacy and a responsibility to our future--our youth.

As an enrolled member of Red lake I never realized how much our people have suffered from the cultural genocide and the first contact of the white man. The black robes as they were called in years gone by. They lied to our people. They did a  lot of damage to the people of  Red Lake but also to the other people who attended the boarding schools there. Look at how many wounded people we have as a result of the coming of the Whiteman. I, too, am a bi-product of the missionaries and the black robes coming to Red lake and trying to convert me to Catholicism.

It did not work and if you really look at Canada they brought a class action suit against the Canadian government because of the mistreatment they received from these people. I never knew what racism was until I went to the Mission School.  I was taught by nuns and beat by them. I know the extent it caused many people from my era as well as prior era's of the Red lake Nation. I talk to elders and I listen to them.

I have worked on other reservations in Minnesota and ran in to the same issues; same problems. I know we as a people can't go back and change history, but we have to start acknowledging we were lied to by these first invaders of mother earth and only [if we] can we go back and heal, can we truly help one another.

Jim White hit it right on the head when he said "stop the illegal substances into our homelands. "Stop the state laws from infringing on our sovereignty. ' Show our youth a better way.

That's the truth and Mr. White has my support on his views because I too feel that way, and one day I hope to return home and educate our people because giving in to oppression is just another form of genocide and dividing us all as a nation.  We are one people and we need to believe and conduct ourselves in that way.

Miiwitch-  pedamia-ye   Nizho-binesii-kwe

Kimberly Roy - Greene

Muckwa Dodaime