THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

RIDING THE PALEFACES' BACKS | 2004-08-14

Ah, the Noble Indian! He and his Great Culture were driven from their land by the Evil White Man. So they want land and reparations. Now what are the reparations they want? Do they want more feathered bonnets that were part of the culture they were robbed of?

No? Well then perhaps the Noble Native Americans want stone axes of the type their ancestors used before the Evil Palefaces made them live this horrible modern life.

We all know that the Noble Native American lived WITH nature while sinful whites FOUGHT nature. The Native American loved Brother Buffalo, sobbing, when he had to kill one of them and using every bit of that noble animal before he would kill another for his family. He had to kill Brother Buffalo to feed his family, but he himself ate nothing but lettuce, you know.

Since no Native American would touch a hair of Beloved Nature's head, we could resettle them in the national parks. Surely if all we tell ourselves is true, the Noble Indian would be ecstatic to be back in his native habitat. And since he respects nature and the only thing he desires is to live with nature, he would not present a problem for the park.

If all we tell ourselves about these innocent idealistic people is true, putting them in the national parks would just be restoring what they were deprived of in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in reality, nobody wants what the Indians had before the white man got here, least of all the Indians. Real Indians just want to join the stack of people riding around on whitey's back with all the other minority groups. They want casinos and other goodies. They want to join the professors who ride around on whitey's back and peddle anything they choose to call Education. Indians want to join the two and a half million lawyers who ride around on whitey's back in the name of whatever they choose to call Justice. The blacks call their ticket to ride affirmative action. And, as in the Middle Ages, there are still the bishops, the tycoons and the tax gatherers in that stack.

With modern technology the stack on the producer's back is much higher, but it's still the same old racket.