The Trail of Tears is not a punch line

For those whose knowledge base on Native Americans has come through sources like Tonto, John Wayne movies, shows like F Troop, and the many media representations that used stereotypes created by non-Native Americans portrayed by Italians who kinda-sorta looked like Indians, need to know there is a whole history that is not presented in the media or taught in schools, and, when it is, it is presented from the view point of non-Native Americans.

When Scott Brown ran against Elizabeth Warren, as educated as he was, he based his biases on stereotypes acceptable to his base going so far as to declare that Warren didn’t even look like an Indian.

Trump, the man with the best words and biggest brain, when opposing the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut so he could build one and not have his existing casinos threatened by competition, asked the committee he was facing if they thought the members of the Pequot Tribe even looked Indian.

Greeting people with an unsmiling “how”, clapping an open palm against circular lips to create a noise passed off as war whoops, adding “um” to the end of words in grammatically incorrect sentences, reading smoke signals like they were somehow a form of Morse Code, using the metric pattern of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha as the Native American drum beat in countless movies and TV shows, and describing large amounts as being “heap big” are white man short cut stereotypes.

The Indian Removal Act signed into law by Andrew Jackson resulted in the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole given that designation because they had assimilated by adopting certain European colonial attributes such as centralized governments, literacy, market participation, written constitutions, intermarriage with white Americans, and plantation slavery practices) being uprooted from ancestral lands which was not a pleasant experience, nor was it, as presented, best for the tribes, especially when the reason one band of the Cherokee nation was removed was because of gold discovered on their land while the other band was allowed to stay because there was no wealth to be gained from their removal.

The most notorious aspect of this relocation was the Trail of Tears during which the relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their new designated reserve in Indian Territory, now part of the state of Oklahoma, with many dying along the way. The Native Americans who were relocated were forced to march to their destinations by state and local militias, often being given blankets to keep warm without knowing that many of those blankets had been used originally by people who died of small pox.

Approximately 2,000–8,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee perished along the way

And the aspect least known by most people is how the land they were moved to was taken away from the tribes in later years and given to settlers in violation of treaties, the misuse of the Dawes Commission report that had ignored its own findings to take the land away and destroy cultures, and governmental and legal machinations which often involved removing children from their parents.

When Elizabeth Warren made her run for the White House official, Trump could not help but display his ignorance, and if not his ignorance, his gross insensitivity by tweeting,

“Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!”

Going past his dismissive slur, “Pocahontas”, one he would know is a misapplied put down if he knew the real history, or had even watched the highly incorrect Disney cartoon, his glib reference to the Trail of Tears was beyond childish bigotry and failed immature humor.

The genocide of Native Americans is not a joke.

Again, approximately 2,000–8,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee perished along the way

It came after his previous response to Warren’s tweeted video from her kitchen while she opened a beer,

 “If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen. it would have been a smash!”

Wounded Knee was the massacre of 300 Lakota people, men, women, and children, by U.S. troops, and the Battle of Bighorn is better known as Custer’s Last Stand.

He found genocide to be a good mine for a laugh.
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Donald Trump Jr. found his father’s Trail tweet to be so very humorous, and matched his insensitivity by posting a photo of it to Instagram, captioning it with “Savage!!!!”

The Trumps attack Warren, who has never claimed membership in any tribe, just having some Indian blood, much like my claiming to be Irish-American because of my ancestors is not my claiming I am Irish from the Old Sod.

While they label her a “fake Indian” which emphasizes their belief that she is not of Native American descent, the Donalds Trump, both senior and junior, have no problem constantly using the negative stereotypes wrongly applied to those who are.

He just does not get it.

But, he who loves dictators wouldn’t be expected to have anything but a positive attitude toward Andrew Jackson and his horrendous removal act that would have him belittling the victims of one of the worst things done by an American president.

Trump has repeatedly praised Andrew Jackson who served from 1829 to 1837, and even hung a portrait of him in the Oval Office and honored some Navajo Code Talkers under it as he referred to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”.

He also went to Jackson’s tomb in Nashville less than two months after he took office.

He even stretched history in his praise of Jackson when he opined,

 “I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this.’ “

Jackson died 16 years before the war started.

Besides his actions toward Native Americans, Jackson was a slaveholder.

Either Trump has no idea about the bad things Jackson did, or he just doesn’t care.

And, once again, he displays his bigotry and insensitivity proudly.

There is no way he can deny the disgusting nature of his and his son’s tweet.

There is no way he can deny not knowing why joking about the Trail of Tears is beyond unpresidential in light of his admiration for Andrew Jackson, a man he certainly researched.

 

 

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