Monday letters: US hurt native Americans more than Confederacy hurt blacks

The flag has come down, and that’s not a bad thing. But never forget, from the earliest days of our country through the early part of the 20th century, the U.S. government allowed, encouraged, aided and committed one of the largest genocides in the history of the world. While those in the South enslaved individuals to steal the riches of their labor, the U.S. government destroyed whole nations to steal the wealth of their lands.

I’m sure some native Americans look at the Stars and Stripes and feel even worse than African-Americans feel seeing the Stars and Bars — because they still have to live under the flag of the country that stole their ancestral lands, raped and murdered their forebears, forced the survivors into large prisons euphemistically called “reservations” and destroyed their way of life.

I have a modest proposal. Before we start taking down monuments to those who fought for the South, maybe first we should cleanse our actual government: Take down all statues honoring presidents, governors and legislators who served up until the 20th century. They oversaw state-sponsored terrorism on an unprecedented scale. Also, take down any monuments honoring the soldiers, Texas Rangers, settlers and others who “won the West.” Finally, we should furl the Stars and Stripes and come up with a new banner that doesn’t symbolize death of one’s culture to a portion of our citizens.

If we’re going to cleanse our history of evil doers, we should do it right, right?

Blythewood

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 7:31 PM.