Addiction––specifically addiction to beliefs––may be the primary impediment to human evolution. Or, turning it around, the obstacle that yields the greatest rewards. At issue: how we define reality and how ferociously we hold on to that definition. There’s reason to smile. Read More
I’ve just read “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann, about the systematic murder of probably hundreds of people and the disenfranchisement and terrorizing of many more as greed and prejudice fueled an ugly response to the phenomenal riches of Osage Indians in Oklahoma a century ago.
The Osage happened to find themselves the beneficiaries of an enormous oil discovery on their reservation. Tribal members soon became some of the wealthiest people on earth. Naturally, this stimulated all sorts of schemes to defraud the Osage of their affluence by those, including members of Congress, whose personal values were not equal to resisting the tremendous temptation.
The lesson I find most noteworthy about that brutal chapter of American history is that it is virtually unknown in our culture. And by “unknown” I mean, most devastatingly, “unlearned from.” This is not surprising, since virtually all the chapters of untold viciousness we Americans have visited upon ourselves and others are significantly “unlearned from”—perhaps most notably, or egregiously, the lives of black people, native people, and women. Oh, there are many others, to be sure, but those are undoubtedly among the more conspicuous.
"The push to change the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because the so-called offensive nature of those terms might limit today’s readership and appreciation of that literary classic, is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we avoid taking responsibility for our feelings––and therefore miss the chance to become more awake, more whole, more useful friends to one another."
The Essay: The Gold in Niggers and Injuns
