“The reality is, is that the military is full of native nomenclature. That’s what we would call it. You’ve got Black Hawk helicopters, Apache Longbow helicopters. You’ve got Tomahawk missiles. The term used when you leave a military base in a foreign country is to go “off the reservation, into Indian Country.” So what is that messaging that is passed on? You know, it is basically the continuation of the wars against indigenous people. Donald Rumsfeld, when he went to Fort Carson, named after the infamous Kit Carson, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Navajo people and their forced relocation, urged people, you know, in speaking to the troops, that in the global war on terror, U.S. forces from this base have lived up to the legend of Kit Carson, fighting terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan to help secure victory. “And every one of you is like Kit Carson.” The reality is, is that the U.S. military still has individuals dressed—the Seventh Cavalry, that went in in Shock and Awe, is the same cavalry that massacred indigenous people, the Lakota people, at Wounded Knee in 1890. You know, that is the reality of military nomenclature and how the military basically uses native people and native imagery to continue its global war and its global empire practices.”
— Winona Laduke - Native American activist and writer. She lives and works on the White Earth Nation in northern Minnesota. She is the executive director of Honor the Earth. She has just published a new book, The Militarization of Indian Country. (via kenobi-wan-obi)
