Geronimo pissed in a river... that water flowed into an ocean...

[cherokeeprogressive]

Today, that piss couldn't be measured by any objective means whatsoever. Parts per billion? Parts per trillion? Parts per quadrillion? Parts per google? Yet there are people here on this board though who think they speak for Geronimo himself, as if he lived yesterday. Fuck that and forget that "Geronimo" wasn't his given name. Forget that the name was given to him by his fucking ENEMY. Forget all that. Focus on the notion that the name was somehow (and there is much disagreement on whether the word was tied to Bin Hidin', the operation to get him, or the exact moment of the operation's success) an intended slight to a Native American tribe or Native Americans in general. Fuck all that.

Be outraged publicly. Pretend that you spend your life looking out for the past wrongs suffered by the indigenous peoples of this continent. Pretend that you really, REALLY care about those people like my relatives who live on the reservation in Tahlequah, OK (and who didn't even have RUNNING WATER until the early 80's), and pretend you've done something, ANYTHING to make their lives better. Profess outrage, and pretend you've done something to make their lives better. Do that if it makes you feel better.

I wish that the people here at DU who profess outrage at the use of the word Geronimo in a military operation would focus that energy in the direction of actually MAKING the lives of Native Americans who live on reservations better and not simply standing on the sidelines and saying "Yeah! What HE said".

My Grandfather left the reservation after marrying a white woman when he came home from WWII and had to leave OK. Yeah, in the 40's, that was a serious interracial marriage. They wound up in a tomato field outside of Hanford, CA which is where my Mom was born. My Grandma carried my Mom from tomato bush to tomato bush as she picked... and she was a WHITE WOMAN, but she was married to an Indian.

I'd willingly give ten years of my life for one week with my Grandfather. He was my Hero, and truth be known, more of a father to me than my own Dad, given the things he taught me.

My point in all of this is that if I were able to ask my Grandfather, the full-blood Cherokee Indian whose roots go back to Nancy... if he were offended by that which seems to make Whites self-conscious, he'd laugh and laugh...

In the end, he'd ask me why it mattered at all.