Former 77-year-old Vice President and Democrat nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) call demonstrators since the police chokehold murder of George Floyd May 25 peaceful demonstrators. Portland, Oregon has been the epicenter of the nation’s protest movement, staging demonstrations for nearly four months with no let up in sight. Last night, the unruly mob tore down statues of PresidentsTheodore Roosevelt and Abraham Licoln. Native Americans consider both following President Andrew Jackson’s May 28. 1830 Removal Act, authorizing the U.S. military to remove Native Americans off previously sovereign land, banishing Indian tribes of desolate parts of the Western frontier. Calling Columbus Day today, Oct. 12, “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage,” to commemorate U.S. injustice against Native Americans, protesters tore down statues.
Tearing down and spray painting the statues constitutes peaceful protests for Biden and Harris, as they continue to pander to lawbreakers claiming they’re justified in engaging in rioting, looting, vandalism, arson and anarchy, something that’s turned into endless street violence occurring in American towns and cities. Protesting Columbus Day, commemorating the explorer responsible for discovering the New World, protesters ripped down the statues claiming that Columbus and his Spanish Armada massacred Native Americans wherever explored North America. Throwing chains on the Theodore Roosevelt statue, dousing it with red paint and taking a blowtorch to what remained, “peaceful” protesters vandalize public property to make a point about treatment of Native Americans. What the public sees only three weeks before the Nov. 3 election is anarchy on American streets.
Portland’s 48-year-old Mayor Ted Wheeler, backed by 60-year-old Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, have told Portland police to stand down, letting violence spread on Portland streets. Protesters don’t want to debate U.S. history, they want to tear it apart, adopting news history texts like Howard Zinn’s 1980 “The Peoples History of the United States,” blaming the U.S. government for genocide against native peoples while they colonized the East Coast, then moved West to the New Frontier. Native American tribes have plenty of historic complaints against the White Man, who stole their land and destroyed their communities to build the frontier history of the U.S. Native Americans have come to blame Columbus for starting the ball against Native American tribes in the United States. Columbus of course never made it to what became the Continental United States, landing in Caribbean islands.
Columbus now has become symbolic for the White Man’s genocide against indigenous people, largely greeting settlers with hostility, especially for encroaching on historic Native lands. Whether Zinn’s history is true or not, the fact remains that Native Americans live in the United States with all the civil rights under the U.S. Constitution. When you consider Indian Reservations are considered sovereign territory, it’s interesting that Native Americans also claim U.S. Constitutional rights. With 6.79 million or 2.09% Native Americans living in the U.S. only 20% or 1,358,000 live on the 326 existing Indian reservations. While the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] extends sovereignty to the 326 reservations, they recognize Native Americans as U.S. citizens with all the right and privileges under the Constitution, Bill of Rights and all federal laws, statutes and regulations.
Tearing down and defacing public property is a crime in every state of the Union, including U.S. territories. Yet when local law enforcement stands down in Portland or other U.S. cities, it invites more street violence. Toppling or defacing statues, monuments or federal property is not legal anywhere in the U.S., yet so-called non-violent protesters have been getting away with it without consequences. Tearing down or defacing the statues in Portland, protester sprayed Dakoka 38 to remember the 38 Dakota Sioux Indians executed Dec. 26, 1862 by hanging for the deaths of 77 soldiers and up to 800 civilians killed along the Minnesota River. Native tribes hold Abraham Lincoln responsible for the 38 hung, though they don’t talk about Lincoln commuting the sentences on 266 other Native Americans. Native Americans have far more conflict with the U.S. government than African Americans.
Whatever happened 140 years ago, the right way to resolve disputes is under the U.S. Constitution not vigilante justice. African and Native Americans complain of unlawful White militia groups like the KKK, but they don’t see themselves as taking the law into their own hands. Contrary to Biden and Harris seeing protests as non-violent, there have been plenty of violent street protests leading to 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s call for law-and –order. Since George Floyd’s death May 25, groups like Black Lives Matter have called for de-funding U.S. police departments citing police brutality against blacks and other minority groups. When destroying federal property or U.S. statues and landmarks, anarchists have their reasons for lawless behavior but must ultimately face U.S. courts. When elected officials like Wheeler in Portland condone violence and anarchy, it hurts all civil society.
