Editor’s note: This article was submitted for publication Fall 2018. This is a late upload.
By: Wayne Head
Let’s make hate wrong again. Let’s go back to working side by side with others without judging them for their sex, their skin tone, their speech, their physical anomalies, their hair length or color, their slow or fast speech delivery, their age, their education level, their choice of music, and so on. It has become too easy in this society, in this time, in the existence of our society, to judge others harshly based on one simple fact or perception of a fact.
Note that I used the word, harshly. What I have seen happening is not a mild disquiet regarding a fellow human being but a response often resembling a rage: SPEAK ENGLISH THIS IS AMERICA! We are one of the few nations where many of our citizens do not speak at least one other language than our home language. It is almost as if people do not recognize that we are a global entity. We are connected to, and somewhat reliant on, other nations politically and economically. Learning another language means learning something of that other country’s culture, worldview, religion, and history. Experiencing another culture through language can create a tolerance for others, a deeper understanding of their existence.
If these traditionalists truly want to speak the first languages of this nation, of our part of the big blue marble, there are courses available online to learn the Cherokee language, the Lakota language, the Ojibwe language, and so on. But of course, this is not what these hatemongers are talking about. They have their slice of the pie, and they do not want anyone else coming near that treasure.
My great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Robert Marsh, was a Pamunkey Indian Nation citizen. His name may have originally been Quash, but he was registered in the William and Mary College Seminary for Indian males in 1768 as Robert Mush. He was housed in Brafferton Hall on this campus with other Native students and educated in the English language and the Christian faith. He volunteered to serve in the First Continental Line in Virginia during the American Revolution. He was captured along with his unit and interred in a prison ship in Charleston Bay in South Carolina for 16 months. The mortality rate for prisoners on these ships has been estimated to have been at least 50 percent. He joined General Anthony Wayne’s unit in Georgia upon his release from the prison. He served another three years in Georgia. He became a Baptist minister and moved to South Carolina to convert the Catawba Indians there to the Christian faith.
In 1824, I believe, he petitioned for the right to vote and was denied. He took his case to the South Carolina Supreme Court and the ruling was that he was a military veteran, a Baptist minister, and a man of good standing in his community, but he was an Indian and Indians have no rights in these United States. On June 2, 1924, Congress granted Native Americans citizenship. This man gave up his homeland, his language, his culture, his safety, and his freedom for the creation of these United States and was dismissed as not being worthy due only to his race. Eventually, our nation righted this wrong for his progeny. Our history is not perfect, but it is our history. To pretend that America is a white, Christian nation that only speaks English is a misinterpretation of our history and practices. This view belies the old adage of America being a melting pot of peoples and cultures.
Jesus Christ taught his disciples not to judge others, to suffer not the children, to forgive your brother’s wrongdoing seven times seventy, that all are God’s children. If we are a Christian nation what happened to these teachings? In one ear, out the other?
So, let’s make hate wrong again. Stop treating fellow human beings as if they were one dimensional representations of who they really are in this world. Each person is a member of a family, has a history of concerns and triumphs, is a depository of the sacred, has a soul, and is a creation of the Creator. See them and treat them as the multi-dimensional being that they truly are, not as the sound bite label that has harried those who are different from others.
In Native American cosmology people strive to do good things, in a good way, and with a good heart. The Iroquois people talk about considering the consequences of what they do for seven generations from themselves. A lot of what I have seen on Facebook, for instance, does not seem to pass the “what consequence will this hate message have in the next few minutes” test. People are lambasted for statements they make, decisions they are considering, photos of themselves or their animals, and memes that they endorse.
Let’s make hate wrong again. I promise to try myself. Take care.
