Sunday, January 20, 2019

We Weep









Nathan Phillips

 Omaha Elder

Vietnam Veteran

 Former director of the Native Youth Alliance

 Keeper of a sacred pipe Honoring Native American Veterans at Arlington National Cemetery

 Water Protector at Standing Rock ND

~~~~~

Most of us have seen the photos and videos of the taunting.

If not, Google "Students Taunt Native American."

There's plenty to be found, even a variety of visual angles, about the taunting that occurred in Washington, DC on of all things, the eve of Martin Luther King weekend.

These kids deserve punishment.

They also deserve to learn through their actions by taking personal responsibility and spending every possible day for the rest of their lives trying to do some good for humanity.

If they do, we will all be better off as a nation. 

These students also deserve better examples than what many so-called adults in leadership positions are teaching through their reprehensible, mean-spirited behavior or negligence.

Where were the chaperones?

Where might they have seen or read---on numerous occasions---in numerous settings, their disrespectful and mean  behavior modeled?

In honor of Nathan Phillips and others who have been victimized by the ruthless and insidious behavior that sadly is becoming the norm in this country, I have a proposition.

Before allocating 5.7 Billion dollars for a steel or concrete or paper wall along the Mexican border, put that same amount of money into American education, both public and private. 

With that allocation, deem that every school in America require, during the next year or so, a course, carefully created to reach various ages of students,  on Cultural Affairs and Appreciation. 

With all the chaos we have in this country, I fear most for our young people. 

For the most part, we adults have learned and lived our American values.

 For many of us, that is why we  now weep (figurately speaking) nearly every day as we see them eroding before our very eyes.

If we don't find some way to stop this trend, future generations may have no idea of what truly made America great. 

It was certainly not red hats with a slogan on the heads of unsupervised teens on a school trip. 

What has made and still, in many corners, makes America truly great, and, thankfully still in many circles, are scores of people, like Nathan Phillips----all part of a diverse tapestry of beliefs and traditions.  

Those kids may have had their moment of notoriety demonizing and mocking him for his cultural beliefs, but, good still does rise to the top

Thankfully, in this case, Nathan Phillips is getting the respect he deserves, and maybe, hopefully, some kids will learn the lesson of a lifetime and do the right thing.  

~~~~~~~~~  


The following story originally ran in the Omaha World-Herald on Nov. 26, 2000.
Spiritual Journey Grounded in Mall Prayer Vigil
For 26 days now, Nebraska native Nathan Phillips has conducted a personal, somewhat eccentric vigil on Washington's National Mall.
Joined by his companion, Shoshana Konstant, and their two small children, Phillips plans to spend all of November praying for his fellow American Indians from one of three tepee lodges he's set up on an expanse of grass between the Washington Monument and the White House.
A member of Nebraska's Omaha Tribe, Phillips says he doesn't consider himself a protester but rather a man answering a call to honor his people and his Creator.
"I would call myself a spiritual runner, " he said.
Born and raised in Lincoln, Phillips conducted his first month-long prayer session last year in conjunction with Native American Heritage Month. 

Joined by Konstant and their kids — 3-year-old Zakiah and 14-month-old Alethea — Phillips spends his time praying and tending to a fire inside a canvas lodge that for weeks has served as the family's primary home.
Those searching for a neatly packaged social studies lesson, however, won't find it at Nathan Phillips' prayer lodge.
While friendly enough, Phillips directs most onlookers away from the lodge where he lives, sleeps and prays. 

He asks them instead to peek inside two other lodges set up nearby — one for storage and one for display. And he almost always demurs when tourists ask him to pose for photos.
"They want us to be happy Indians for them, " he said. "They don't want to hear about the struggle."
That struggle, as Phillips explains it, involves centuries of religious, economic and cultural oppression of American Indians.
More personally, he says, it involves his own fight against alcoholism, a childhood floating through foster homes in Nebraska, and an early adulthood spent first in the Marine Corps and later being thrown in and out of jail.
Now 45, Phillips has been sober for 16 years. He met Shoshana Konstant, a former middle school teacher, in 1990. For several years, the couple bounced around the country agitating on behalf of American Indians being displaced from their homelands.
They settled in Washington, D.C., about six years ago, Phillips said, after their truck broke down and caught fire during a demonstration in front of the White House.
When asked about his reasons for living for 30 days on the Mall, Phillips doesn't offer an easy or quick answer.
"It's just everything, " he says, sitting beside the fire. "We've got so many issues in Indian country."
After struggling for a few more minutes, Phillips expands his cause to include suffering children in Africa and the soldiers left missing in action in Vietnam.
"This is not just for the Indian people, " he says. "It's for everybody."






Today's charcoal/pencil drawing I was working on an important painting today, I stopped so I can draw this I'm disgusted with the racist behavior & ignorance by the students who harassed indigenous Omaha Nation elder & Vietnam Vet Nathan Phillips at the




1 comment:

Dennis Brady said...

Some of the most compassionate and insightful words I’ve ever read in your column thank you for sharing.