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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 13117
[Native]
Date Posted:
6/7/2005
8:41:22 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 17,479
RSS: 9,161
Comments: 7
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Abused Indian School Students Fight Back
Author: David Melmer Source: Indian Country Today
Title: ABUSED STUDENTS FIGHT BACK
  When Cory Hairy Shirt was drinking, he had thoughts of killing a man who severely beat him and a friend when they were in fourth grade; today the thoughts have subsided, but the anger is still there.
Hairy Shirt was a student at St. Joseph's Indian School in the mid-1960s when he suffered what he said was the ''worst beating I ever took in my life.''
Hairy Shirt is one of 21 plaintiffs who recently filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court in South Dakota asking for accountability.
St. Joseph's is a currently operational elementary boarding school that was opened in 1927 in Chamberlain, S.D. The school is listed as defendant, as are the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart in Wisconsin, owners of the school, and the Benedictine Sisters of Yankton South Dakota, who supplied staff and teachers.
The complaint claims the atrocities committed include sexual, mental, psychological and physical abuse.
Hairy Shirt said they were made fun of if they spoke their language and were called heathens, savages and pagans.
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Community Thoughts: There are 7 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Just Politics And Religion At Work. | Jun 7th. at 1:40:26 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
Every time a conqueror takes over, the conquered gets denegrated. Missionaries would go overseas to "minister" to the natives, downgrading their beliefs and forcing upon them impossible standards, then quietly stand back to carp and degrade those that manage to somehow "ape" their ways, while venting their hypocritical fury on those that refuse to submit.
And those that are forced to submit, are treated to abuse, both physical and mental, the loss of their custom and language and whatever else the conqerors can take from them, either by persuasion or brute force. In those countries powerful enough to try to fight back, they did their level best to preserve their cultures intact, with mixed sucess. Others were overwhelmed.
But the natives aren't the only ones to get abused. In such cultures and religions where difference is anathema, those who choose to abstain from their "avowed" faith or culture to embrace something else are also subject to this fiercely protected double standard. What the American Indians went through also happened in the South Seas, in a lesser extent in Asia, Japan, and heavily in South, and Central America.
It is happening still, in Africa and throughout all the Third World countries even now. Such abuse and cruelty make me often wish that I could be almost anything else from time to time, because the abusers delight in being called "human" -- and divine in action and deed.
I would consider it a gross insult to call them "animals"-- and would relegate them to a much, much lower level if I could.
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| Neighborly Complicity | Jun 7th. at 11:11:03 am EDT
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Michael Welch (Audubon, Florida) - Email Me
Also, let's not bring up the truth that many (if not most) of the residents surrounding the indigenous communities (First Nations) were aware that these abuses were heaped upon a proud people and gave consent by their lack of disapproval (if not their outright support) .
"Burning times" had the authorities impell young daughters to turn in their mothers as witches...and mothers turn in the daughters--as well as implicating male spouses and siblings. Such tactics occurred with the First Nations and with many groups who, like them, have been torn apart by dominating forces. The tactic is historically effective and is still used (broadly) today. So it's not just past reparation we seek here, it's assuring generations to come that this curse and it's course will no longer be tolerated to hold sway over ourselves and our children and children's children.
A proud people stand up, here. Look well.
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