Hasta La Gadget!

Notes from Indian Country
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)
© 2014 Native Sun News

December 1, 2014

In the old days the education of American children was paramount to the Democratic system of government. The adage of the 3 R’s, “Reading, Riting, and Rithmatic” was always followed by “Taught to the tune of a hickory stick.”

The case of Adrian Peterson, a running back with the Minnesota Vikings, puts an exclamation point to the practice of corporal punishment. Mothers and fathers across Indian Country often used a twig of even a belt to mete out punishment to their children when they believed it was necessary. This was probably a crossover from the colonizers. Peterson was suspended without pay for the rest of the season for using a branch from a tree to administer punishment for what he perceived as infractions by his son.

The system of education wrought upon the indigenous people of America is largely unknown to the general American public. Most do not know that beginning in the late 1800s Indian children were forcibly taken from their homes and placed into institutions like Carlisle Indian School or in Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools, and when the government decided that the children had to be divested of their traditional religious beliefs, Christian boarding schools were constructed on or near the Indian reservations.

With assistance from the federal government to obtain land on Indian reservations, Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian and other religious denominations built schools with the sole purpose of acculturation and assimilation of the children. When children were brought to the schools oftentimes by armed police men, most of them could not speak English. They were stripped of their homemade clothing and issued military styled clothing and they were taken to the barber shop and their natural long hairs, boys and girls, was shorn.

Lydia Whirlwind Soldier, a Sicangu from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, vividly recalled truant officers coming to the homes with children and rounding them up like cattle and forcibly taking them to the boarding schools. This often meant tearing the children from the loving arms of a mother or grandmother.

To this day Whirlwind Soldier abhors the system that divested the children of their language and of all the things that were natural to their traditional way of life in an effort for the white teachers to mold them into miniature versions of themselves. The ancient tiospaye system that had been a part of the Lakota culture for centuries was nearly destroyed. There were behavior patterns within the tiospaye system that regulated the camps or extended families so that they all knew their place in the tribal system. In order to break down the spiritual and cultural practices of the indigenous people everything they believed, everything that had been a part of their lives had to be eradicated.

The white educational system foisted upon the Native Americans was simply “Kill the Indian, save the child.” And the United States government and the Christian churches set about doing this with a vengeance. While the children were being indoctrinated into a new way of life and a new religion, the federal government was quietly taking millions of acres of land from the different Indian tribes.

Life was not easy for the children forced to attend the boarding schools. The BIA and the Christian educators often physically, emotionally and sexually abused the Indian children. Corporal punishment with a hickory stick was nothing compared to the brutal beatings of Indian boys and girls with leather straps and even fists.

My friend Pete Cummings, now deceased, and I ran away from Holy Rosary Indian Mission boarding school in 1943. We were about 9-years-old. When we were captured and returned to the Mission a Jesuit priest named Father Edwards took us into his office and beat us viciously with a leather strap. The welts on our bodies were so severe that we had to go to the infirmary to be healed. The infirmary nun had tears in her eyes as she saw the damage that had been inflicted on our small bodies.

It wasn’t the first lashing we had received nor would it be the last. Today those abusers would have been put behind bars. Father Edwards should have asked us why we ran away.

The sadistic keepers at the boarding schools were supposed to be there to protect us and to substitute as our parents while we were in their care. But the physical and mental scars left on us have brought about a common saying from those of us who were forced into the boarding schools: It is “We are boarding school survivors.”

Many of my friends did not survive. They died in car wrecks, of alcohol and drug related diseases, and many of them took their own lives. Some died at the hands of the police while in the commission of a crime. Those that had been abused, physically and sexually, became the abusers. To this day the Indian nations are still in the process of recovery.

Yes, we call ourselves “survivors of the boarding schools” but there are times many of us wonder why we were the lucky ones.

—

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the Editor and Publisher of South Dakota’s largest weekly newspaper, Native Sun News. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com

Out the door at 6:36 a.m. on a rainy (what else) Seattle morning, I was already late for the Black Friday sales. Close on 24 hours late. What used to be a one-day post-Thanksgiving Day ritual has snuck forward in recent years to form what the media are calling “Gray Thursday”. Online “Black Friday” sales started days or even weeks earlier. Just like we’ve experienced “Christmas creep” with the “silly selling season” starting in September, retailers went as early as they dared to get the jump on competitors.

Black Friday broke borders too. BBC News reported that Amazon UK had its busiest day ever this year after introducing the concept on that side of the pond in 2010. Brazilian shoppers took part in their own version of Black Friday too, even though, as the LA Times noted, “they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and don’t have the day off on Friday”.

Back in Seattle at the local Target, a girl on the checkout told me she had worked all day on Thanksgiving at the Seattle Premium Outlets, then backed up to man the till at Target from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. At Marshalls (an off-price retailer), a bleary-eyed sales associate on the register said she had shopped till she (literally) dropped on Thanksgiving evening — hitting the hay at 2:30 a.m.

When I turned up around 7 a.m. at the local group of big box stores, the car park was two-thirds full, and shoppers were cruising the aisles like sharks, on the hunt for bargains. Toys were popular, as was technology. This was a strictly take-no-prisoners affair though. One burly male shopper was busily checking his smartphone to ensure that the $800 large-screen TV was indeed a deal at $200 off. “Barely worth buying”, he sniffed, when I asked what he thought.

Some stores were busier than others. Target was busy-ish, with sale dump-bins half-empty after overnight trading, and buyers picking over the remnants like the carcass of a Thanksgiving turkey. At Petco, you could have fired a cannon through the store and not hit anyone. Obviously pets and their owners were not all that excited by the prospect of hitting the sales early and picking up a “bargain bone”.

Just before 8 a.m. electronics store Best Buy was on the brink of its second Black Friday opening in 15 hours. The store had welcomed shoppers on Thanksgiving from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., then closed to re-stock, and opened again at 8am on Black Friday itself. The “double dip” approach seemed to have worked. A well-ordered line stretched along the front of the store, under the awning of the next-door retailer, and two police cars were there to control the “crowds” (or maybe just keep an eye on theft).

When the clock ticked over past eight o’clock, shoppers surged in, nabbing the best bargains. I counted 60 x 32 inch LED TV’s stacked up, ready to be carted away. One man was dragging a monster carton housing an enormous TV towards the register. Our ancestors felled sabre-tooth tigers. The modern hunter nabs a different kind of beast.

The real doorbusters had disappeared hours before of course. The shelves at Best Buy were clear of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones at $80 each — down from $170. But hopeful shoppers were still roaming the store, catalogs clutched in one hand, smartphones in the other, seeing what was left.

As I write this, Black Friday has ticked over to Saturday, but the sales events continue. Today is “Small Business Saturday” (an American Express promotion supporting owner-operators), and then comes “Cyber Monday” (the big online sales day) and “Giving Tuesday” (supporting charities).

Only Sunday escapes without a retail handle. But you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be a day of rest for retailers. The relentless run continues towards Christmas and beyond, as merchants race to extract as many dollars from consumers as possible and keep their stakeholders happy.

Imagine if you looked out your window and saw starving refugees from the war in Syria. They have traveled for days to escape the civil war in that country.

Or imagine if you saw refugees from Iraq, who have fled the onslaught of ISIS. Or maybe you see war victims in South Sudan or Central African Republic trying to survive off roots or whatever they can find in the wild.

Wouldn’t you help feed them? The hungry and suffering from these wars may be many miles away. But they do not have to be out of mind. They need your help.

When you sit down for a meal on Giving Tuesday, you can set aside a place for a “silent guest,” one of the world’s hungry. Then you could make a donation to a charity, the cost of feeding your “silent guest.”

This was a tradition started back in 1947 when, throughout the holiday season, Americans made “silent guest” donations. This led to thousands of CARE packages for the hungry in countries still reeling from World War II. The “silent guest” was part of the Greatest Generation’s response to world hunger.

This Giving Tuesday you can feed a “silent guest” and make a donation to the World Food Programme, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, Feeding America, Action Against Hunger, CARE, UNICEF or other charities fighting hunger.

Another way to feed a “silent guest” this Giving Tuesday is to walk or run some Charity Miles for the World Food Programme and Feeding America. Or if you are going to purchase something, why not buy a product like This Bar Saves Lives, which generates a donation of life-saving Plumpy’Nut food for malnourished children.

This past Thanksgiving week newspapers across the country printed opeds and editorials about feeding a “silent guest,” and making this holiday about ending world hunger. With the most refugees globally since the end of World War II, we need this kind of compassion.

This Giving Tuesday you can also be advocate. Do you have Twitter or Facebook? You could post a message about feeding a “silent guest,” so others can join in.

You can also contact your representatives in government. Ask them to support hunger relief both abroad and here at home.

Here are some key things you could mention to your representative. There are 805 million people worldwide who suffer from hunger. Wars in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and other areas have placed millions at the risk of famine. Congress needs to provide enough funding for our Food for Peace program to help hungry people across the globe.

For the long-term, Congress needs to support the Feed the Future and McGovern-Dole programs which support small farmers and feed school children. Asking Congress to fund these programs is vital.

Domestically, Congress needs to fund the SNAP food stamp program, support food banks and build a strong child nutrition bill that expands school breakfast and summer feeding. Many working Americans are still needing food assistance, so these safety nets need to be available to them. There are around 49 million Americans who live with food insecurity. You can find your House and Senate representative at the Congress home page.

This Giving Tuesday and the holiday season can be about that “silent guest,” one of the world’s hungry. The action you take can feed a starving child or war refugee.

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Microsoft’s Xbox One has been trailing Sony’s PlayStation 4 in the market since last year. Both consoles were released back in November 2013 and the PlayStation 4 managed to establish a lead quite early on. It sold ten million units three months before Xbox One though analysts expected Microsoft’s console to make up the gap significantly during the holiday season. The console’s performance over Black Friday 2014 can serve as an indication of what’s to come over the holiday season.

Market research firm InfoScout gathered data from major retailers like Walmart and Target and found that the Xbox One outsold PlayStation 4 this Black Friday, that too by a considerable margin.

Now that might not be because the Xbox One has suddenly sparked a lot of interest. The increase in sales can be attributed to the recent price cut, as well as bundles offered over Black Friday that gave customers an added incentive to go with Microsoft’s console. PS4 bundles were offered as well but Sony hasn’t had to cut the console’s price to drive up sales.

InfoScout’s data shows that Xbox One accounted for 53 percent of all console sales at major retailers during Black Friday, with PlayStation 4 only accounting for 31 percent. Xbox 360 came in third with 9 percent, followed by Nintendo Wii U in fourth with 6 percent and the PlayStation 3 dead last with just 1 percent of the sales.

Even though these numbers show that sales of the Xbox One have picked up, the console needs more than a good day in just one major market to be able to pass PlayStation 4′s sales.

Xbox One Outsells PS4 This Black Friday

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