Stuck in the Times

A passage I am reading for one of my classes reminds me of my experience in a American Indian Studies course. I was one of the only white people in there, which did not bother me...at first.

We first start going over all the prejudices and racial slurs against American Indians, the class came into an uproar. The thirty-some American Indian students in the class each had their own stories about this...except, many of the stories happened in the past. And not even their own past. Their anger came from events that happened in the seventeenth century, to be exact.

In my class, White people were called "the white man" or, my own personal favorite: "Those Europeans who stole our land." I think I just about fell out of my seat. Really, in 2009, this is how white people were being referred to by my fellow classmates. How is that not racist and bitter? I didn't steal anyone's land, my family immigrated from Norway long after the United States became a country, my ancestors had nothing to do with the first Thanksgiving, or any other sort of pilgrimage or colonization in the New World.

I came into that class wanting to learn about the beautiful traditions of Native Americans, from which I have learned about and have respected my whole life, and left the class with a bad taste in my mouth for their culture. I had never known that I was being so harshly judged by Native Americans whom I passed on the street. I had always smiled at and passed by these people without worry. One woman in my class, about forty years old, said aloud how she hated Americans and wished we would "Go back where they came from."

I understand that many many years ago, there were wars and battles because landlines had not yet been set in place, and that, in fact, Native Americans were mistreated in most cases due to the greed of the "white man." But we have come a long way since then. It is as if to say, that it would be appropriate for me to hate all Germans, just because during the Holocaust, Nazi's invaded Norway tortured and killed many of my ancestors.

I also understand that there is the exception, I do not know enough Native Americans to figure out whether the exception is that only a small portion of them continue to hate white people for things that happened in the past, while the majority focus their energy on more important things, or the other way around.

I truly hope that it is the former.