Now is a good time, amidst the current and necessary focus on racial inequality, to remember the atrocities inflicted upon Alaska Natives and American Indians. We're familiar with well-known examples of horrible things done, like outright murder (even of women and children), stealing of Native lands, diseased blankets given, children stolen and forced into cruel boarding schools, The Trail of Tears, and so on. There are many more we have not known of but are not surprising.
Two examples every American should be aware of are in the book titled “Killers of the Flower Moon,” by David Grann — a shocking story of unbelievable horror experienced by Osage Indians in Oklahoma on land to which they were forced to relocate by the U.S. government, and in an article written by Pemina Yellow Bird, titled “Wild Indians: Native Perspectives on the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians” — a story of mistreatment again by the U.S. government so awful it will make you cry.
If anyone thinks this is all in the past, think again. Natives still suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, homelessness, depression, substance abuse and multi-generational grief, among other disorders, directly caused by continued colonization, loss of our lands, our spiritual leaders, our cultures.
I’ll take this opportunity to also remind us all that negative feelings about those who are “not like us” must be balanced and tempered by respect and respectful behaviors. My Inupiat ancestors knew and taught that it’s okay to dislike someone, but not okay to act on it in a harmful way, for to do so creates chaos and disorder.
Augusta Reimer
Shareholder, Bering Straits Regional Corp.
Anchorage
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