http://www.gilroydispatch.com/news/contentview.asp?c=212045

A Native Perspective on Virginia Tech Headlines

Thursday, April 19, 2007

By Kat Teraji (kattoy@...)

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee, Deep in the Earth, Cover me with pretty lies
- bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Didn't we learn to crawl, and still our
history gets written in a liar's scrawl. They tell 'ya "Honey, you can
still be an Indian d-d-down at the 'Y' on Saturday nights." - lyrics to
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," written by Buffy St. Marie

"The worst shooting rampage in American history…" "Massacre and Mourning,
33 die in worst shooting in U.S. History," and "Rampage called worst mass
shooting in U.S. history." "What first appeared to be a single shooting
death unfolded into the worst gun massacre in the nation's history." You've
seen and heard these headlines and reports all week as the media provided
non-stop coverage of the tragic shooting of 33 people at Virginia Tech
University on Monday.

"The worst in U.S. history…" Really? It is certainly the worst shooting on
a college campus in modern U.S. history. But if we think it is the worst
shooting rampage in U.S. history, then we are a singularly uneducated
nation.

"I can't take one more of these headlines," said Joan Redfern, a member of
the Lakota Sioux tribe who lives in Hollister. We met at First Street
Coffee to talk while we scanned Internet stories. "Haven't any of these
people ever heard of the Massacre at Sand Creek in Colorado, where
Methodist minister Col. Chivington massacred between 200 and 400 Cheyenne
and Arapaho Indians, most of them women, children, and elderly men?"

Chivington specifically ordered the killing of children, and when he was
asked why, he said, "Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice."

At Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, the U.S. 7th Cavalry attacked 350
unarmed Lakota Sioux on December 29, 1890. While engaged in a spiritual
practice known as the "Ghost Dance," approximately 90 warriors and 200
women and children were killed. Although the attack was officially reported
as an "unjustifiable massacre" by Field Commander General Nelson A. Miles,
23 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for the slaughter. The unarmed
Lakota men fought back with bare hands. The elderly men and women stood and
sang their death songs while falling under the hail of bullets. Soldiers
stripped the bodies of the dead Lakota, keeping their ceremonial religious
clothing as souvenirs.

"To say the Virginia shooting is the worst in all of U.S. history is to
pour salt on old wounds-it means erasing and forgetting all of our
ancestors who were killed in the past," Redfern said.

"The use of hyperbole and lack of historical perspective seems all too
ubiquitous in much of the current mainstream media," Redfern said. "My
intention is not to downplay the horror of what has happened this week in
any way. But we have a 500-year history of mass shootings on American soil,
and let's not forget it."

This is only the most recent mass shooting massacre in a long history of
mass shootings in a country engaged in a long love affair with firearms and
very little interest in gun control.

Let's not forget our history and the richness of our Native roots. While
spending time on the 1.5 million acre Hopi Reservation in Arizona, I met
families living in homes they have occupied for over 900 years. On the
surface, it looks like a third world country: you will observe many homes
without running water, travel unpaved roads, and notice that there are no
building codes. But sitting in a Hopi home being served a delicious lunch
cooked by a proud Hopi working mother, I experienced so much more: the
continuity of a long and deep heritage, a sense of the sacred, an artistic
expertise, and wisdom about many things that remain a mystery to my
culture.

Most of all, may we never forget all those innocent civilian men, women,
and children who lost their lives simply for being in the wrong place at
the wrong time, just as the students happened to be this week in Virginia.
May we always remember the precious humanity of these students, but may we
also never forget the humanity of those who lost their lives simply for
being born people Native to this country. ..

Kat Teraji is communications coordinator for a large non-profit
organization that benefits women and children. Her column appears every
Thursday in the Take 2 section of the Dispatch. You can reach her at
kattoy@....