Lakota Nation vs. United States (2022) 100% 1★

Much of what we've learned about the battle for the plains comes from what we've seen in Hollywood movies. When we saw the Indian defending his land, we cheered for the White man's soldiers.
The best way to kill people is to dehumanize them, to make them into caricatures. (…) And this is a classic Hollywood trope that makes invasion look like self-defense.

This is a country where all men are created equal and it's the land of the free and the home of truth and justice and liberty for all. Well, we want to know why that doesn't apply to us.

When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government traders would not extend store credit to Indians. One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide credit to Dakota people by saying, „If they are hungry, let them eat grass.” There are variations of Myrick's words, but they are all something to that effect. When settlers and traders were killed during the Sioux uprising, one of the first to be executed was Andrew Myrick. When Myrick's body was found, his mouth was stuffed with grass. I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota Warriors a poem. There's irony in their poem. There was no text. But on second thought, the words „Let them eat grass” click the gears of the poem into place.

I often ask my parents why we weren't raised with Lakota being our first language. But it always goes back to that trauma that they endured with the boarding school. Both of my parents are survivors of the boarding school era.
Upon entering the boarding school, everything that you had with you was taken from you. They cut your hair, which was a symbol of loss and grief. You were scrubbed down, sprayed with chemicals to kill any bugs on you. You were given White man's clothes and an English name. Punishment was given down to you whenever you were heard speaking your own language.
They were beaten and they were traumatized in all of the ways… Mentally, physically, sexually… For holding on to their unshakable faith and our Lakota spirituality.

One of the old men told me one time, he said „Hoksila”, this road that you're on. He says, „Even a dead dog deserves your respect.” To be a common man in [speaks Lakota] is probably one of the hardest things you can do because you have to put the needs of other people before yours. When somebody is sick, you try to heal them. When somebody is crying, you wipe their eyes. When somebody is hungry, you feed them. When a child is crying, you comfort them. First in battle, the last to eat. All these things. The people will learn to depend on you because you stood up for the rights of the people.