America’s Holocaust Denial

[chuck freeman]

"To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened - a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful."

These were our President’s words at Buchenwald, Germany, this past weekend. It is infamous as a place of torture for more than a quarter-million, and the place of death for more than 50,000.

In 1996 I watched an 8 part PBS documentary, “The Way West.” It chronicled the Europeans steady, determined migration and occupation of the American Indian lands. My heart and passion went out to the Indian’s in every respect. This surprised me since I am a European who never gave Indians much thought.

My only point of reference was negative. We lived in Rapid City, South Dakota when I was ten years old or so. My Dad was a minister there and I recall him often helping out drunken and destitute Indians.

There is a part of me that wished I never viewed the PBS series. Until this time I essentially believed the American fable that we are a nation founded on and committed to the freedom and nobility of all people. The truth doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes it disturbs, haunts, and invades you like a bacteria that will neither kill or cure you.

The only way I can maintain any integrity in regard to my ancestor’s relationship to the Indians is to call it painfully and regrettably, an American Holocaust.

According to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a "vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record."

By the end of the 19th century, writes David E. Stannard, a historian at the University of Hawaii, native Americans had undergone the "worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people."

In the judgment of Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr., "there can be no more monumental example of sustained genocide—certainly none involving a 'race' of people as broad and complex as this—anywhere in the annals of human history."

I recall a fiery rant from John the Baptist.

“When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’… every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

American translation – “Don’t talk to me about Washington's freedom revolution or, Jefferson and Franklin's “all people being created equal.” Own up to who you are, and show that you have changed by your actions.”

I am enriched to hear our Presidents decry and memorialize the Jewish Holocaust. But, if it serves as a smoke screen of self righteousness on how we liberated the Jews, while never looking in the American mirror we will continue to be like the “brood of vipers” John the Baptist called out. And, we will continue to invade sovereign nations to fight our contrived boogiemen like communism and terrorism.

When U. S. leaders and citizens are courageous enough to confront our denial of the American Indian Holocaust, then healing words of Jesus will be released on their path of natural grace. “The truth will set you free.”

[Bill Edwards]

Confessing one's own sins may be healing; "confessing" other people's (one's ancestors or whoever) sins is actually an artful form of self-righteousness.

Past US leaders' policies to native Americans were often outrageous, but they were not (or very rarely) calculated extermination, as the Nazi's toward the Jews were.

Bill Edwards

[Vicky Dill]

While I am no longer blissfully ignorant of this halocaust, I guess I did not realize the enormity of it. We have been shielded from this part of our history even more than other countries, much criticized by us, have re-written their own histories. Perhaps we could begin to advocate for the current administration to recognize this dynamic and to address the concerns illuminated by Thomas Moore in this conversation. I do feel that, as a nation, we have been pathetically patronizing. There is a conversation going on right now about legalizing pot; surely we can legalize hemp!

[Thomas Moore]

Very good Chuck. It didn't stop there, Native Americans live in some of the worst poverty in the country and have to use casinos to make money (getting something from the white man anyway). Last year I watched a show on PBS about how the government is stopping Indians from raising hemp (not pot) because it is classified the same as pot, even though you can't get high from a ton of it. We took away their land, the buffalo and the rest of the animals and now some whites want to use their spirituality. Can't we at least give them some respect ?

[gary schuhmann]

lincoln signed emancipation and took Indian rights with the same pen.