By : Dana Lone Hill
“That’s South Dakota for you!”
That is the common response to the word most people in this state like to make about the R-word.
Racism.
It is almost as if it is a way to blow it off, dust it off your shoulder, let it go. Just excuse the pure, ignorant and blatant racism in this state and in the Dakotas as “Oh yeah, it’s like that there.” As if it is ok.
Instead of, as this Craigslist ad states, we Indians like to “whine, complain, and bitch” around about our land that they have no idea how it was “stolen” but hey, if you read your history and the Supreme Court ruling, your America owes us BILLIONS of dollars for the “illegal seizure” of our Black Hills, our Sacred Hesapa.
The very point and heart of where we come from. The very spot where you probably sit on your ass and write this terroristic, hateful, ignorant hate crime from, anonymously.
Yes, the land your Government stole from us, is where most of you that hate us hang your hat. You were probably born and raised in those sacred beautiful Hills and wondering why we “whine” around and at the same time you hate us, yet don’t even know why you hate us. Because it was instilled in you from your parents and their parents and their parents; because at one point and time, they knew where they were living, they were doing it illegally. Their land was stolen and they were thieves. No better than any name you can ever call us.
We are better than that- and if whoever wrote this little, cowardly ad on Craiglist thinks this will make us shut up, you are dead wrong.
You don’t even know us. We didn’t have the privileged life you had, or your ancestors that came here had. We had to prove our strength and character for generations and generations. And we are still here. The thing is we know who we are. You don’t. You label yourselves Heinz 57 and think its funny while putting us down. Yet, we know who we are.
You see, your good ol’ U. S. of A, (that my people still fight and serve proudly because they always have been and always will be warriors), tried to kill us off, but we are and we have been warriors, time and time again. Taking our children out of our home and breaking up families did not stop us. Blankets with smallpox did not stop us. Forced sterilization did not stop us. Infiltrators and rats did not stop us. Incarceration did not stop us. Putting us on prison camps or reservations did not stop us. Killing us in massacres and mass hangings did not stop us. The KKK did not stop us.
We ARE warriors and we will NOT ignore all the racism thrown at us. We will expose it. We will show the world you are a coward. You are the one who cries around, as you sit on stolen land and type your hate crime anonymously- a supposed federal felony on the internet- about how you would “gun us all down.”
To anyone who says to ignore this: this is the land where I was born and raised, this is where my children live. Should I ignore someone who says Hitler should have killed us off? Who says they need a season to gun us down like deer season? Would you ignore someone threatening your future? What if Natives posted threats like this online?
I urge everyone and anyone to contact Craigslist or proper authorities over this blatant threat issued to all Native, on Craigslist, which has been known for having a “Craigslist killer.” Do NOT take this lightly, we have a number of unsolved deaths among our people in South Dakota already.