Every year on the 4th of You Lie (July), patriotic Americans engage in
their multiple colored foray of pyromania by blowing up fireworks to
celebrate the birth of the United Snakes.
This is appropriate as it's a metaphor for Indigenous genocide. The fuse of
colonization was lit and exploded with Manifest Destiny and conquest
ripping through OUR freedom; a true Freedom that existed for thousands of
years before the European invasion of our continent.
Amerikkka's policies toward us have done nothing to help, only to destroy.
Treaties were made and signed with the "utmost honor" only to be broken. In
1492, it is estimated that 5 million Native people inhabited the Western
Hemisphere. By the 1800's our population was reduced to 600,000. At the end
of the 19th century--250,000.
Hardy patriots who support Amerikkka, claim this country to be the epitome
of "freedom."
But can a country that took the land and freedoms of Indigenous people
boast about "freedom" and how to attain it? Can a country that is built on
thievery, the enslavement of 11 million Africans, resource exploitation and
broken treaties be a beacon of hope?
It becomes apparent that any kind of Independence on the part of "brown"
people was not achieved, but merely turned into a gushing wound wrapped in
legislative band-aids by haughty European-Americans hoping to silence us.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, there our Native brothers and sisters who claim
they are fighting and dying for "freedom." Meanwhile, everyday the State
and Federal governments are seeking ways to continually restrict our status
as Indigenous people--diminishing our rights in our own lands.
It should be noted that everything about their so-called civilization has
nearly destroyed who we are. If we still maintain our ways, it is hanging
on by a thread and threatened to be cut by Christianity.
As a foreign occupying force, the United States retains no legitimacy as a
governing entity and neither do the States. The question is, in what ways
do we prove that? One way is to seriously question their institutions from
religious, to educational to legislative. Then hard work within the
community, creating our own agenda and ignoring their agenda. So on this
4th of July (You-Lie), resist the urge to light some fireworks, because
every explosion and shiny burst represents a Native life snuffed out by
Amerikkka's "independence."
