Today we celebrate the Indigenous Peoples of America for their sacrifice of allowing White Liberals to bask in the limelight of cultural shame for the great evils their more capable ancestors committed in conquering the continent where we all reside.
A good PSYOP signals one goal while achieving another. In this case, the creation of a national holiday to pity certain brown people allows the powerful to both pat themselves on the back and avoid ceding control. The intention is to virtue signal shame, which costs nothing. The effect is psychological warfare: it is a reminder to the downtrodden that they still have a master cutting the checks, controlling the land, and wielding the power.
You know it's a PSYOP from the double-pluralization and outside apostrophe, left like elitist calling cards to make sure you know that they know the proper way to pity the perpetually destitute.
Normal people call other people "people." The word is already plural. It's the over-educated snobs, bureaucrats, and childless middle-aged cat moms who insist on referring to particular groups of people as "peoples."
It is always as a diminutive, always referring to minorities, and always patronizing.
Nobody every says, "The alternatively-moneyed peoples of Martha's Vineyard," for example. Everybody knows what it means to be from Martha's Vineyard. And everybody knows who you are when the powerful remind society that you are not to be called, simply, "people."
Search the term "peoples of" on Google and the suggestions under the non-plural "People also ask" section include things like, "What are native Mexicans called?" and "What is the difference between native and indigenous peoples?"--questions only non-peoples would Google, so they can casually drop this astute cultural knowledge into high-brow conversations over martinis and caviar at Sheryl's house on Tuesday.
The Indigenous Peoples holiday, like smallpox, was a gift no indigenous people asked for, needed, or appreciated once received. Smearing shit in the face of Italian and Native Americans alike, the White House simply "declared" it into being.
But unlike Martin Luther King, the indigenous didn't get their own day on the calendar. Biden inserted it into the place previously held by the most famous explorer in the history of America. With the feeble swipe of a shaky pen, Columbus Day was no more (though, it still exists in some States).
The White House issued a statement so vapid that if it were written about anyone but "the Indigenous" it would be flagged for excessive pandering.
"Since time immemorial," it began, and already you can taste vomit in your mouth, "American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures — safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations."
FACT CHECK: False. First of all, nobody is talking about Hawaiians. Hawaii is a fucking paradise. Their culture is so highly celebrated they've turned it into an international tourist attraction for Christ's sake. Biden didn't turn Columbus Day into "Indigenous People's Day" out of pity for a withering lei.
As for the land, it has been anything but safeguarded. Inhabited Native land is just section 8 housing on dirt, occupied temporarily with with gracious permission from the generous master, the United States Government. As for Native language, culture, and knowledge, they are all but dead outside a few university courses, as we're reminded by the Woke press every year around this time.
"On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples," Biden wrote, "recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations."
Sovereignty does not need qualifiers. "Inherent" was added because the Millennial do-gooders on Biden's declaration-writing team know that if you're using a word disingenuously, you have to beef it up with other bullshit words. "Inherent sovereignty" is yet another reminder that Native tribes are not sovereign, either by virtue of their humanity or by the strength of their war parties. They do not have borders or border patrol, let alone a military. They do not have industry. Depending on the reservations, they do not have street names, paved roads, or doors on their homes.
Natives have higher rates of drug addiction, alcoholism, obesity, rape, domestic violence, and suicide than any other racial demographic. It's not a secret. It's a bludgeon to shame White people for the great sins their ancestors committed when they "settled" this "stolen" land. But the bludgeon strikes Natives, too.
To flatter an un-resilient people with praise for being resilient is insulting (and dishonest; Indigenous communities are a wasteland of violence and poverty). They have been anything but resilient, hence the constant think pieces reminding good Liberals to bow their heads in shame at the slow death of Native culture.
A paragraph later, apparently having exhausted all other positive attributes, they say it again: "Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience..." for the "immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society."
What positive impact? According to Biden: "public service, entrepreneurship, scholarship, the arts, and countless other fields." Natives, Biden wrote, have served in the U.S. military and worked in "essential jobs" during the COVID pandemic. You know who else works in public service, as entrepreneurs, scholarship, the arts, military, and COVID jobs? Literally every other race on the planet.
Now for the big tell: "The Federal Government has a solemn obligation to lift up and invest in the future of Indigenous people and empower Tribal Nations to govern their own communities and make their own decisions."
How? By giving people another day off.
The U.S. government has long insisted on meddling in the affairs of other nations. If indigenous people are indeed "sovereign"--as the declaration thrice declares--then the U.S. Government doesn't have an obligation to "lift up" or "invest in" or "empower" them any more than it is obligated to save the Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Brits, or any of the other people defeated in battle throughout our history.
The way to empower people to govern themselves is parenting 101. You don't hold the purse strings and pay the rent indefinitely. You cut them loose to live their own lives.
Natives have a beautiful culture with a fascinating history, but it is no more the U.S. government's obligation to teach it, preserve it, or honor it than it is Tribal Governments' responsibility to teach Chinese-American history.
Regardless of your color, creed, or socio-economic status, the education of your children, protection of your land, and preservation of your heritage are your responsibility. To expect that someone outside your tribe will save you is to put the nail in your own cultural coffin. This is as true for Natives as it is White Americans.
The internet is full of pity pieces blaming the U.S. government for "not doing enough" to save dying languages and improve quality of life on reservations. These are PSYOPs too, meant to keep the gravy train flowing from guilt-ridden taxpayers while perpetuating the oppression of a people we care about only on paper.
Imagine knowing the realities of reservation life and saying things like, "On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor America’s first inhabitants and the Tribal Nations that continue to thrive today."
Define "thrive."
The honor in being an American is found in the merit of her Constitution, not being meekly anointed a federal day of pity. Boots are for picking yourself up with, not for licking.
These types of left-handed compliments are as insulating to Natives as they are non-Natives. Talk to one and you will find shame in the White Liberal's incessant attempts to pity their poor lot in life. The strength and courage that put Natives on the map as a people to be honored (and feared) is now white-washed with false narratives of tranquil nomads living docilely off the land, sharing peace pipes, calmly opposing the invasion of the White Man.
It is a false history.
Like most tribes of people throughout history, Native Americans were brutal warriors, scalpers, slavers, even cannibals. They were rugged survivors, skilled craftsmen, and capable defenders of their women and children. We once honored the real attributes of Native Americans. We named sports teams after them (now offensive). As kids, picking cowboy versus Indian was a wash: whether the advanced weaponry of the one could defeat the cunning of the other was a matter of luck, at least in play.
The soft bigotry of low expectations creates dictates like the one Biden gave one year ago today. Like the U.S. government has done to Blacks, we throw money at communities that are in desperate need of belonging and purpose--problems money cannot solve, as this centuries-long experiment has proven.
Every renewed commitment to the well-being of "others" seems only to further shackle them--because no man was made great by giving him everything he needed to survive.
A true proclamation of sovereignty would cut loose the shackles of Government welfare, in land and handouts. Rather than pretending they're heroes for giving out medicine, we would encourage their return to a life that honors their rich heritage, separate from the self-immolation of American consumerism, to exist as they did, as truly sovereign people, if they so choose.
The reason no such proclamation has been or ever will be issued is control. Tribes with the most resources are those with the biggest tribal governments, and the U.S. government is happy to continue contracting out its oppression services to reservation fat cats if they promise to keep a boot heel on the necks on their own peoples.
Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.