Racism-Effects
The National Museum of the American Indian
Native American Net Roots 9/22/2010
The essay below was written by Carter Camp aka cacamp. In 1973, Carter was one of the original organizers of AIM, he was in charge of Military Operations in the take over of Wounded Knee. They held Wounded Knee for more than 70 days and brought important national and international media attention to the current American Indian issues. (An aside; Meteor Blades was at the take over for 51 days.)
HIDING GENOCIDE: The National Museum of the American Indian
By Carter Camp
There is an enormous cultural rip-off being foisted upon our Nations by Washington D.C. I’ve warned of it before, but a small voice is easily drowned out when millions of dollars are being spent and the voice of the Great White Father anoints Indian leaders.
For a decade or more the Smithsonian fundraising machine has gone merrily along, draining much needed funds away from the Indian community and diverting America’s attention away from the economic, cultural and legal devastation going on across our homelands. Many interest groups coveted the final two vacant spaces on the National Mall. Congress in its wisdom awarded one site to a very politically powerful (and deserving) Jewish applicant and another to the very politically powerful Smithsonian Institution, their ‘keeper of the loot’.
Caribbean excavation offers intimate look at the lives of enslaved Africans
To glimpse those lives, archaeology is required. "One of the very few ways to get at the experiences of enslaved Africans is to look at [what] they left behind," Dunnavant says. That's why he and archaeologist Ayana Omilade Flewellen of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, spent 4 weeks directing excavations here this summer, the third of five planned dig seasons. The team is part of a wave of archaeologists around the Caribbean focused on studying not only the institution of slavery, but also the daily lives of enslaved Africans in all the intimacy and texture left out of history. Seen through Dunnavant's and Flewellen's eyes, the lost buttons, cooked bones, and shards of pots and porcelain are vital clues to how enslaved Africans maintained their individuality and humanity within a system designed to strip them of both. And by studying the vegetation, water systems, and other environmental features of plantations, these archaeologists are also documenting how slavery literally reshaped the islands—and the world.
