We've all heard the saying that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat

it by George Santaya, and it seems every day we are struggling to remember the lessons

of the past. Speaking of the past, it's time once again for Josh's favorite, Old

Timy Crimey.

As race relations in the United States have once again come to a boil, it's time we look

at the actual history of our area, not the one we were taught in school, and learn from

the mistakes of the past and do what we can to correct them so we don't condemn ourselves.

In the U.S. and especially in the Pacific Northwest, we are taught about the Native Americans

that were in the area when pilgrims arrived. In elementary school, we had frontier days

where we had put on a bonnet, pan for gold, wash our clothes on a washboard, and touched

the peltes of the animals that were used for clothing. But we were never taught about the

dark side of things, about how the white man destroyed not only families, but how small

groups of religious missionaries could destroy entire tribes.

Since the momentum of Black Lives Matter in the last year put the need to protect Black

Lives in the forefront, it has also been an opportunity for Native persons to speak up

and out about the injustices that they need to have heard. Not only the injustices of the

generations past, but current ones. From COVID relief to fresh water availability, Native

Americans are still treated as lesser Americans. For years, and especially more so recently,

there have been talks of reparations for the Native Americans, ideas from financial support

to actually giving back the land to the rightful tribes have come to the table. While that

is something I emotionally support, I don't know that people would ever be willing to

actually do that.

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