I saw a yard sign in the Seward Neighborhood, it said, “Real Americans Vote” ”“ no, that is not correct, most real Americans do not vote, most Native Americans do not vote, and they are the “real Americans”.
When I tell people I have not voted in over five years, and I”'m proud of it””they are disgusted, shocked, but if I was not a middle-aged white guy, but a Native man, they of course would be much more respectful and understanding of my desire to not participate””now why is that?
For anyone to assume that I should participate based on my skin color is arrogant and racist. Minnesota is 98% white, it”'s a white thing, and I get sucked into it and am expected to do certain things because I am white ”“ and when I don”'t, it is like I”'m turning my back to my own kind. Here is the white belief, this place is about us, for us, owned by us, ours to govern, ours to sell, created for us, ours to manage ”“ and that I would not want to participate in my “own” state”'s “democratic process” is just appalling!
How do you think we even got the chance to vote and have this “democratic process””¦? “People died for your right to vote!” that”'s right, millions of Native Americans died to create this “democratic” nation. Without the killing off of Native people and taking of their land there are no elections, there is no Minnesota.
I find it very odd that in 1865 there were two nations on the same soil, the Dakota nation and the United States ”“ did the United States somehow not realize that there was a nation already here?
If German “settlers “packed- up and invaded France, setting up their towns and farms in 1865, how would the world have defined that?
1865, two nations overlapping each other in the upper Midwest, so how did one prevail and the other disappear”¦the answer is, not by voting, not by a fair and democratic process. I”'ll stay home on Election Day; you do what you have to do.
Thank you,
Frank Erickson
