American Indians continue to suffer from the effects of conquest by European immigrants
over the past five centuries—an ongoing and pervasive sense of community-wide
post-traumatic stress disorder. We live with the ongoing stigma of defeated peoples
who have endured genocide, the intentional dismantling of cultural values,
forced confinement on less desirable lands called “reservations,”
intentionally nurtured dependency on the federal government,
and conversion by missionaries who imposed a new culture on us
as readily as they preached the gospel. . . .
[Indian peoples] suspect that the greed that motivated the displacement
[Indian peoples] suspect that the greed that motivated the displacement
of all indigenous peoples from their lands of spiritual rootedness is the same greed
that threatens the destruction of the earth and the continued oppression of so many
peoples and ultimately the destruction of our White relatives.
Whether it is the stories the settlers tell or the theologies they develop to interpret those stories,
something seems wrong to Indian people. But not only do Indians continue to tell the stories,
sing the songs, speak the prayers, and perform the ceremonies that root themselves
deeply in Mother Earth; they are actually audacious enough to think that their stories
and their ways of reverencing creation will some day win over our White settler
relatives and transform them. Optimism and enduring patience seem to run
in the life blood of Native American peoples.
May justice, followed by genuine peace,
flow out of our concern for one another and all creation.
~ George Tinker
from American Indian Liberation
