If God is real and Jesus is the Son Of God, then neither The Christ nor His Father can be pleased with what this Christian nation has done to Native American Women and their children. We should not ignore for a moment that European Christians in their invasion, plunder, and conquer of Indian Land also invaded, plundered, raped, and conquered Indian women and Indian Children. But what this "Christian" nation did after the European invasion is equally appalling and represents the worse kind of human rights violations. America's anti-christian behavior towards Native Americans and the devastating results it has reeked on Indian women and Indian children has been nothing short of sinful.
Marlon Brando, in protest to America's treatment of Native Americans, refused to appear at the Oscar Ceremony to accept a 1973 Oscar for his role in The Godfather. Instead, he asked Ms Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American Woman who was also an aspiring actress, to read a two page handwritten letter he had written. However, Oscar Ceremony officials told Ms Litttlefeather she would be forcibly dragged off the stage if she spoke for more than 60 seconds.
Part of the unfinished Oscar Speech Marlon Brando Ms Littlefeather was forced to leave out included these words.
"Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards? Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don't concern us, and that we don't care about? Wasting our time and money and intruding in our homes.
I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing hi(m) as savage, hostile, and evil. It's hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian Children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know."
40 years after the Oscar Awards Television Show where this Native American Woman was threatened with being forcibly dragged off the stage if she read the two page handwritten speech, not much has changed. Photos taken by Robert Johnson at the Wind River Indian Reservation in the state of Wyoming, is a brutal reminder of the abject human rights violations, desolation, and pollution of the lives of Native American women and their children living on Indian Reservations.
Too many Indian women and Indian children live on reservations that kill their dreams. On Indian Reservations, as is true for other places where dreams die, when dreams die, hope dies. It is a life that breeds alcoholism, sexual abuse domestic abuse, poverty, and hopelessness. And Native American Mothers are rendered helpless to do anything about it for themselves or their children.
What this Christian nation has done to Native Americans is a violation against every principle of Christianity we have read in the four Gospels and every other proclamation about Christian love and Christian fellowship we have heard from the mouths of proclaimed Christians.
What we have done to Native Americans isn't exemplary of the soul of a Christian nation that would be pleasing to Jesus Christ. Perhaps we aren't a Christian Nation after all. Perhaps we never were. Historically, some of our most anti-christian behavior has been perpetuated by people claiming to be devout Christians--including the rape and servitude of Native American women and their daughters. And no amount of outrage against that accusation that America is guilty of those kinds of human rights violations can change that fact.
In 2013 some Republican congressional members proudly acknowledged that they voted against the Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, simply because it provided protection for Native American Women. Where was the outrage against that?
Where is the outrage against the corrupt soul of a Christian nation that often objects to Native Americans building profitable casinos on Indian Reservations but are content with having them live on polluted and barren landscapes that kill dreams and breed alcoholism, poverty, hopelessness, and abuse of Indian women and Indian children?
It is way past time that this Christian nation begin to cleanse its "Christian" soul of hate, division, and mental slavery and become more like the Jesus Christ we say we worship. We can begin by doing more than we have done for Native American women and children and sisters stuck on the barren land and hostile soil of Indian Reservations.
True Christianity and the lessons of Jesus Christ require nothing less of us.
However, if we are content with the shameful and sinful behavior that force Native American women and their children into an Indian Reservation standard of life, then we should accept the fact that our national soul is not the Christ-like soul of a Christian nation, but more like the corrupt soul of a false Christian nation. And if we truly believe that God is real and Jesus Christ is His Son we should accept the Christian belief that our corrupt national soul must go the way of all corrupt souls.
Selah.
