tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post3922925804830176519..comments2023-08-21T03:51:17.425-06:00Comments on Enlightened Catholicism: Same Thing Only Differentcolkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-332045212875197602012-09-22T19:24:45.052-06:002012-09-22T19:24:45.052-06:00John when I listen to the elders and they recall s...John when I listen to the elders and they recall some of their boarding school stories they aren't much different from stories about the Navajo long walk or the Cherokee Trail of Tears. What really tore my heart was listening to one Navajo elder speak with a very distinguished Cherokee elder about these historic situations. Their take was that the task of the current tribal generations was to 'walk through' that history--transcend it in other words--before that history destroyed the Native American tradition. It was really a request for Resurrection or the transcendence of cultural crucifixion.<br /><br />I was reading the Detroit Free Press this morning and there was a story about a 26 year old Michigan Native man who killed his 15 day old daughter by forced oral rape. It doesn't get much worse than that. He got life without parole, but my guess is he already suffered that sentence somewhere in the past in his own sexual being.colkochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-21335404508544027972012-09-22T17:03:05.272-06:002012-09-22T17:03:05.272-06:00I recall watching a documentary on the Long Walk ...I recall watching a documentary on the Long Walk of the Navajo of 1864. To this day the elderly Navajos still tell their grandparents stories of the physical and sexual degradation they had suffered at the hands of the Army. I watched these people still trembling 70 years later after hearing these stories of what happened to their grandparents, aunts and uncles. As your post shows , it seems that their history since meeting the European settlers just primed them to accept the abuses you've written about. After seeing that documentary , I wonder how horrific the Cherokee Trail of Tears or Seminole Indian Wars must have been for those that survived.<br /><br />John Fremont Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com