‘Commentary’ Archives
Frank Reflections: “Land of the Free” and “Freedom of Speech” predates white settlers arrival”' Who Knew?
By Frank Erickson I find Dakota Nation history, since the arrival of the white Europeans, to be still so raw, current and painful, while others will see it as the distant past. A quick hit 90 second “Minnesota History Moment” on PBS radio, had a man from Fong du Lac, talk about being put in an Indian boarding school in the 1960”'s as a little boy. At night before going to sleep, he said one boy would start crying, and then the boy in the next bed would start crying, until the whole room was crying; Broken-hearted from being separated from their families. As a white man, who grew up in Minnesota having everything I needed and being very wealthy, it is so hard to hear such accounts. Dominate cultures, without even realizing it, can break and crush the outsiders. The white man calls it the “land of the free,” and has taken credit for that freedom, but everything was free around here before Whites arrived, and Natives never called it “land of the [...]
