I have to give Glenn Beck credit. He uses people’s fears of muslims, aliens, and everything else that is not white, apple pie or gives the illusion of white power.

No one seems to take him on.

Why?

There is so much to challenge! He talks about the president’s religion. Well, he’s mormon. Mormons have a belief about people of color and Jews that is racist. As an example, look at the blue book of the Book of Mormon. It’s the one I have used as an expert witness to show the court that Indian children should not be adopted by Mormons. It was the reason the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed: because native children who were adopted by Mormons were committing suicide at a unbelievable rate.

For example, Chapter 3, 5 from the Book of Mormon says this about brown-skinned natives: “The Lamanites, your brethren whom you hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skin…”

And there’s this:

8. “O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.” In this part, they are taught to feel sorry for us.

And then this:

9. “Which is the word of God that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own…and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.”

We can be saved from our darkness. Read

Nephi 30:6 And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure white (1830 edition) and a delightsome people.

The mormons disgrace our families and forefathers. If I were to believe what is in their bible, I would hate myself. That’s why so many native teenagers who were adopted committed suicide. But the most disgusting quote is the one in Nephi 12 page 21 and 23: “Unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome,and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of Abominations.”

And on page 61  21: “As they were white, and exceeding fair were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.  And then 22:  “And thus saith the Lord God; I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.”

As someone who has studied our history and spent time with some of the most famous elders, I have never heard of Jesus coming to America, but this is what Glenn Beck believes. This is a joke. There is not a single bit of evidence behind this belief.

Why is this important? Because Glenn Beck preaches that the president is a racist. Really? There is a racist in this conversation and this is his projection. He’s a racist with an identity complex. What he really wants is to be Joseph Smith. He needs the attention. He’s gone from a comedian and alcoholic to a spokesman for the people who believe that the white man is superior and needs to restore the America of the 1900′s.

If he want to bring up religion, then lets look at his!  The real reason for the rally is to promote his fear-based belief that people of color cannot lead. This is why he fears Obama’s  leadership.

Please someone ask him? Someone stop this insanity! I have christian friends who say that Mormons are not real christians. Where are they? Show him for what he is, we need unity not division!

Racism again? Sarah knows all!

For someone who never finished college and doesn’t read, it’s always interesting to listen to Ms. Palin. Her defense of Dr. Laura (who I do know from many years ago) with regard to using the word “nigger” is disgusting.

Here we are again, two white women who think they know racism. Interesting. It’s like me acting like I know what it’s like to be a woman and know about childbirth. My wife would kick my ass and with all rights to do that.

How arrogant for these women to act like  Dr. Laura (doctor in physiology, not psychology) knows what it’s like to live in brown or black skin and have people treat you with disrespect. For centuries, racism has been part of white America. Now that people of color have a little power, she accuses us of having a chip on our shoulder.

Maybe we carry ourselves with pride because we’ve overcome so much and then we have moments like this. We were hunted, enslaved in our own land. Our children were taken and sent to boarding schools that stripped them of our beliefs and culture. And some kids even died as part of the experience.

We were taught that we were inferior,  not allowed to vote even though we fought heroically in two world wars. My wife who is Irish would not have been able to be married to me in Nevada because until 1967, with the passage of the Love Act, people from different faces were not allowed to marry.

Yeah, we might be a little touchy. But in reality, my kids are more concerned with the next new game coming out than asking me, “Dad, what do I do when they call me a nigger or red skin?”  Or “Dad, my teacher says we are not as smart as white kids…is that true and what do i say?”

Dr. Laura aka "Dr. Yuck"

Yeah ,there might be some people who don’t like white people for what has been done to them. But they would be the Sarah Palins of the world. The “Dr.Yucks” … Laura’s of the world.

But let us not forget that there are plenty of warm human and loving white folk who would find the Palins and Dr. Laura’s disgusting for using the nigger word for their own arrogant purposes. Dr. Laura is quitting, thank God!

Now, how do we get Ms Palin to do the same?!

Does anyone have any ideas? We have too many hate-mongers in the world.

I got a call today from a twenty year old guy who I have been working with for about a year. He came to me by way of a man I had seen a couple of years ago. His name is Tony.

Tony is a 78 year old white man, who had been a millionaire then lost it all.  He had been  a lawyer who become a businessman. Tony had worked for an oil company and lost his wife to cancer. He really never got over it and a local doctor told him he wanted him to see me.

Here was a once wealthy white man who was seeing a Native American psychotherapist who came from very humble beginnings. He saw all my little tells in my office: native art and human condition sayings on the wall. He commented on my car, my Mercedes. I could see he was trying hard to see me as an authority figure. I showed him my diplomat and fellow certificate from the American Psychotherapy Association and Forensic Association.

Tony had been humbled by having lost all his money and he said it made him a better person, but he wanted it back. As we worked through his mindset and constructs, I came to help him become a more compassionate man. He was a man who wanted greatly to be loved and have all that a good woman can give a man. It was never to be. But like a lot of people who come to therapy, he found peace with what he had.

Tony wanted to be loved and give love without knowing how to find it. He started to realize that some of the things he learned were not serving him in a spiritual way. He wanted to give without strings. He wanted to help his  grandson. A grandson, who had no father. He had been sent to private school without having family ever visit and grew up to be an angry teenager.

Tony sent him to see me and paid for all the therapy. (His name is”B” for the purpose of this article. ) B was a very good client for therapy. He grew and became very open to having a good life. He had some set backs but in a year or so, we came out of it with flying colors. This C student went to get a job and is in junior college where he is really finding himself. He dropped all his drug friends and started to be very thankful to Tony for what he had done for him.

Tony called me two days ago to tell me how wonderful he thought I was and how proud he was of B’s progress. He wanted me to know he wanted to help pay for B’s old medical bills from a drug hospitalization. He sounded bad. He was coughing and couldn’t breathe very well. I told him I was concerned. I suggested he go see his doctor. That was the last I heard from him.

Tony died and I will have to start the process of not seeing “B” in therapy anymore. He did for his grandson what he could not do for himself. He gave him the opportunity to have a good life and know himself so “B”can find like kind and have a good life.

Tony will be missed and his influence will last forever. He is in a coma now and waiting for family member to be with him when they withdraw life support.

If we want to start talking about offensive words and word that have profound impact, let’s start with “Redskins.” The word Redskin comes from the dehumanizing of American Indians during the days of conquest. Assuming that the white man is the “perfect” color, he used the word Redskin to separate himself from the what he saw as the Creators perfect creation. Even the Supreme Court ruled that the football team known as the “Redskins” can not use it as trademark. The court ruled that its genus was from a derogatory word like the “N” word.

Lets get serious, if we really want to stop using offensive words that have a long history of prejudice, then let’s start with words that have become rooted in the history of real pain and suffering.

Most Americans don’t care about changing their views of native people. Even native people have started to use the word as a symbol and a way of assimilating into American society. That’s just wrong. We can’t participate in our own dehumanization. We are human beings and our tribal names have always symbolized that.

Colleges and schools have been changing their names to help with humanizing First Nation peoples. Can you believe that in the year 2010, American Indians are still fighting for some respect just as a people?

Help out by asking the football team known as the Redskins to change their name to First Americans. They wouldn’t have to change their logo. How easy that would be. It might even have a karmic effect and they might start winning games again.

And that leads to another story. The story of native people who played football. Make sure to stay tuned.

I have two young sons to go along with my older kids, who are 40, 35, 33. Yeah, that’s another post! Anyway, My 16-year old comes from school and says ,”I got in an argument with my teacher at school because of you!”

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Well it seems that Indians got the right to vote in 1924 and you said it wasn’t until the 70′s.”

“That right!” I said , “because in the southwest, Arizona, New Mexico, and some other states, we couldn’t be citizens of our tribes or vote as citizens of the U.S. It wasn’t settled until the late 40′s and early 50′s , but if you read the congressional document, it stripped us of all our eligibility and treaty rights as native people until the late 70′s. ”

“You had to cut your hair , give up religious ceremonies, and all treaty rights. It really wasn’t until 1978 when the Indian Freedom of Religion Act was passed along with the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 that we could go to our own ceremonies and be counted as real citizens.”

Funny, the difference between the reality of the academics and the reality of every day life. It wasn’t good to be Indian until recent times, ask a native or mexican person who is over fifty. Lots of us didn’t even have birth certificates that came from the United States. Many of us we born at home and recieved a Certificate of Birth, sometimes issued by a court or judge. No one tells you that in the history books. Maybe thats why they call it HIS STORY!

Everyone has an opinion on the Tiger Woods situation. He is a highly paid golfer (not necessarily an athlete ) but one that people look up to. He helped Notah Begay with a tournament in the east for native kids. While life for him has been relatively easy and full of good stuff he found himself with a need that couldn’t be filled by his own situation. A star , Money no object, A trophy wife, and still a ( for some female excitement. The drama, the titillation’s of young white women who know how to entice with the sexual goodies. He wasn’t with them because they were the most exciting intellect and spiritual bond . No, the most of what adolescence as all about . the thrill of feeling alive . The charge of a woman touch, the newness of a different women and the thrill of her sexual knowingness. There are women who have it down. They have the symbolic offering (T&A). They have the attitude. They know how to sexually seduce a man! So tiger is 17 again, but this time, he is the football hero or golf hero. He gets the naughty cheerleader. That’s all!

The real issue for Native people is what is this? Is he a man or a boy! In the Native world the word for Grandfather is “real-man”. Yes, in many Indian languages the words grandfather is real man. Tiger is still a boy. That’s all. He may grow up to be a real man but for right now he is a boy. His mommy just happens to be this beautiful sexy woman from the Netherlands . Where is his birth mother in all this and who is his role model for being a man? His adolescence may continue for a while. This might be just part of his development and he has to go through it. This is a tell for all men. Its hard for some men to grow up no matter how old, especially older athletes who have spent so much time working at being the best. Just ask my wife!

As someone who  grew up in the 60′s and worked for Robert Kennedy, I see things now that I remember seeing before. Things seem the same, but they are different!  I have seen these times before: a war we were in  that was unpopular, a man who was trying to make  America a better place for all people of color.  I was even there when I saw him weep when he saw how Indian people lived in poverty on the reservations in Arizona. Robert Kennedy  was a good man and when he was assassinated, I was devastated. I decided to leave politics.

In those days, racism was part of everyday life. Not just against blacks, but Native Americans as well. In those days, mexicans were seen as half-breed Indians.  See the movie Giant ( Charleston Heston, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor). In the movie,  they call the mexican girl in the family, “that skin or half breed or squaw.” Blacks were fighting for the right to vote and trying to be seen as human beings, but native people were not even recognized as citizens in the southwest. We were savages and conquered  people. Half of us were on the reservation and the other half were off the reservation, trying to better our lives in anyway possible.  We couldn’t even practice our religion or be citizens of our own country. ( I plan to tell you the story of a man who was drafted and refused to go to the war and the supreme court agreed with him, because we were not considered citizens. This will be in another blog post).

We couldn’t be a citizen  of our own tribe or vote as a citizen of the United States. There was no value in being part of a conquered people.  Many Indian people were born at home and their birth certificates said “dark” under the description for race.  It wasn’t good to be Indian.

My mother’s tribe is Yaqui. There were times in the 1920′s and 30′s that the mexican government had bounties for Yaqui people . Yes, you could shoot a Yaqui where he stood and cut off his or her ears and the mexican government would give you 100 pesos for a male and 50 for a female and 25 for a  child. I know it’s hard to believe, but it is true. That’s how people saw us.

Many Texas Rangers and others formed groups to make money for themselves. The government had to issue a warning that it was against the law to engage in such behavior. Why am I bringing this up? I want you to have some understanding of history and what generations of people had to do to live and struggle to survive . Many of this is not known.

A few years ago , the Housing Authority issued a report that the most discriminated people in housing in the southwest were Native Americans. There are many  so called “conservatives” who feel that God has ordained them as our master. They feel entitled to the land and to do with us what they please. The book,  Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928 by David Wallace Adams, outlines the philosophy of what was done to  these brown people. The whites even had the right to pick up our children and take them to one of the Indian Schools like Stewart in Nevada or Sherman Institute  in California.

In Indian school, we would be kept and taught how to be Christians. They would cut our hair and take us from our families and culture. Punish us when we spoke our language and if necessary not let us eat or put us in dangerous situations to scare us to death. (Examples abound. They would lock us in closets, refuse to feed us, etc.) Some parents even thought that by sending their kids to boarding school, they were giving them a better life!  I have a video of one Navajo girl who grew up in a Mormon family because her family thought that she would have a better life. She suffers from “Marginal Man Syndrome.” Of course, this is another story.

I was invited to a showing of a film made to share the oral history of Indian families in Nevada. There was a part where a women spoke of not knowing where her son was and she sent her older son to walk 20 miles to see if her youngest son had been taken to Stewart Indian school in Carson City, Nevada. When he arrived there,  they had his brother but they kept him too. The majority of the people in the audience were non-Indians and they started to laugh at this. I stood up and said, ” You think that’s funny!  You think taking someone’s children and keeping them when the parents don’t even know if they are alive or not is funny?  You think it was a summer camp and they roasted hot dogs and ate  melon and sang songs of peace and love.  We were captive people.”  The small amount of Native people that were there applauded and yelled at this.  I haven’t been invited by that group to any other events.

These forms of  ethnocide have been forgotten and not talked about.  Some religious groups did the same as part of their means of getting into heaven. It is by converting brown people (in their eyes, heathens) to their religion that they get mansions in the after life.  The Mormons even have this in their bible in which they refer to us as the lamanites. If we take up the way of the Latter Day Saints, the melonin in our skin will turn white and we will return to being “white-some and delight some.” Mormons have recently changed their ways, but for years, they would take children from uneducated Indian parents under the auspices of helping to educate them and give them a better life. Then the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 and this practice was prevented.

The code word for many of these people was “conservative.” Those were the people who believed that God  had chosen them (Christians). They believed that God had given them this land and they could do whatever they felt was in their interest. This was true for all the conquistadors of the southwest.

If you want to know who conquered us, just look at our names or tribal names. The Spanish were the people of conquest in the west and southwest and the English and dutch in the east and the French in the south. People have asked me, “Why is your last name Spanish?” The answer: because of conquest. Those of us who who grew up knowing who we are, know it was not fun growing up Indian in Arizona, Nevada, California or New Mexico. We were the conquered people with weird food and habits and brown skin. Once, I heard a womean talking to her daughter, “Honey, they are different than us. They like to be with their own kind.”

Some of that is true, but her intent was obvious . She wanted to make sure her daughter didn’t mingle with kids of color. She didn’t say, “They are just like us; we are more alike than different.” This was a very well-to-do family and they were actually very nice people. In fact, if you knew them, you would think they were  liberal and open-minded.  Are they racist? Like Sarah Palin whose father said that she transfered from the University of Hawaii  because there were too many Asians and Natives and she didn’t feel comfortable with them. Or what about Rush Limbaugh’s listeners? I recently heard one listener say, “Why isn’t the media focusing on the fact that Tiger Woods has been having sex with non-African American women?”  Apparently, this listener  thinks that Mr.Woods is solely an African American and doesn’t know that he is a true mixed race person: white, Native American, black and Thai. Hello!

The real  racism is this: when you won’t see a person of color as an authority figure—someone in a position of power—then you’re a racist.” People need to get it.  Respect is everything. I remember when these same types of people didn’t want Martin Luther King to be honored. Same story. “He’s a far out commie!” I can remember people saying things like that. “You want your daughter f—king  a n–g-r? That’s what’s next if you let those people live side by side with you!”

Seeing people of color as authority figures, well, that’s the same problem that some people have with our president. I only bring this up because I hear self-righteous people telling me that it’s not a problem that Obama is black. It’s his ideas that they have a problem with because they see him as a far-out,  left-wing pinko.

This reminds me of a female student I once had. She was very nice and proper with a lot of class. She was quite astute. I knew that she was going to be a leader.  When the semester ended, I had a day where the students could openly express their feelings about the class.  This woman said with great sincerity,  “Dr. Ramirez, I want to tell you something that may sound funny, but I feel safe enough to tell you and the class.” (I thought, hm, this is going to be interesting.)  \ “Go ahead,” I said. “Well, ” she said, “It’s just that I have never known someone like you who is so smart. I know it sounds funny, but it’s true. You are one of the smartest professors I have ever known. You just don’t see many people of your race who are!”

I was blown away by this! I started laughing and some of the other students did too. I said , “Thank you,  I think? It’s too bad … you should have met my father who was very smart and never even got past  8th grade. And then there was my grandfather who couldn’t speak english, but taught me so much about the world.” She just smiled! And I thought to myself that somewhere the spirits were laughing. And no doubt my grandfather and mother were smiling too.

What I’m saying here is that I have lived long enough to have seen this ideology played out before. It is our sense of humanity that is going to make us a great country. Young people haven’t experienced the inhumanity of racism before. They see black people all over in sports and entertainment, but don’t understand why the Redskins are disturbing to First Nation people.  Yet, if anyone called a sports team “the darkies” or “spear chuckers” there would be an outrage.

Instead, there is attitude toward mexican people who have been here for generations yet are totally disrespected. Well, here it is again. So when you hear someone say, “I’m a Christian conservative,” know that for those of us who have lived long enough, we hear the echos of another time. Is it here again?

The white robes and burning crosses are back. The conservatives are not wearing them on the outside, but they carry them close inside their heads. The burning crosses with crowds of white-robed people are now called “tea parties.”  It’s indicative of what  governors of southern states used to claim back in the day: “The Bible tells us there’s no race mixing!” These are the signs of hate, the struggle for power: not power over someone, but power to change the status quo.

We need to change back to a democracy, which is not the same as an America that is run by corporations.

There is a disregard for people of color who are now in positions of power, but it won’t be long before people of color in the southwest are the majority. Most of these people have had unbelievably hard lives and know deeply what the angst of living is all about. These people want health care for everyone. They want more sharing of the pie in America.

I think of myself as a person who is very spiritual and even conservative in a way. I want all of my family to have a sense of history and family history in particular. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I don’t believe that God is a man, but rather a name for something beyond my comprehension. That’s why native people have ceremonies. Sweat lodge brings us closer to being “clean and honest.”.I believe that there are universal principles that govern all mankind and the universe as a whole. I believe that we as human beings are the humblest of all creatures, for we search for meaning our whole lives. Animals know who they are and they just are. Man searches for who he is or struggles with who he is and this is our biggest angst in life.

I believe that what goes around. comes around. I believe in prayer as a form of physics. Will we be able to practice our ways without disrespect? Don’t conservatives believe in prayer or just Christian prayer?

As we evolve, we discover more. We start with what we know and discover what the Creator has laid out for us. Is that a conservative idea or a native way? The Creator gave me a brain, not a book!  We honor what is alive and know that all life comes from other life (plants and animals). We honor that. Honoring life is the native way!  Man makes books, but my brain was given to me by the Creator and it is what gives books meaning.

My nature is in me and like a piece of turquoise, it needs to be polished  so that the matrix will be revealed and show through.  Is that a conservative way? Following my nature is the Creator’s way. Following a man-made book from the Middle East is not our way. Does that make me a commie?  Does that make me a target for disrespect or conversion? Does my worldview make me a savage? Does that make me a threat to those people who call themselves conservatives?

Ever wondered how Native Americans would view what is going on in the world of politics and social change? We may never know for sure what the ancient ones would think of today’s world, but you might be interested in my take on things. My name is Larry Ramirez and I am a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe.  I’m a mixed blood of two tribes .

Although I’m native and have visited many reservations, I’ve never lived on one. Still my ties to my heritage run deep. I was raised in the 50′s and 60′s as a renegade. I know how my family grew up with the fear of being taken back to the reservation or Identified as Yaqui.  The fear of being picked up by the authorities and be taken to a Indian school. We had no rights. Most people don’t realize we didn’t have the rights as citizens . Yaqui are know as the only tribe in North America to have never been defeated or have surrender by the American Government or the Mexican government. The Arizona territory was a place where Mexican government could have bounty on  Yaqui. Yes , I found a newspaper article in the Arizona paper that reminded Americans not to participate in the bounty for Yaqui, That Mexican government would give 100 pesos  for a male and 50 for a female 25 for a child. The article said , if you brought the ears of these Indian you would be paid.  This is why many Indian would have been Mexican rather  than Indian, even though Mexicans are Indians. We have come a long way but most young people have know Idea of what some people had to do to survive . There spirit lives with all of us. Its with these understandings of our people that we will look at contemporary life.