Blurred Visions.

Racism will thrive and encourage our cultural decay as long as we as native people allow the double standards and the paralyzing conceit of white supremacy to dominate the social Framework of our communities here in 'Ojibwe country'. Bemidji is the pinnacle of racism here in northern minnesota, here where the dominant narrow minded views of the conservatives renders our social misery invisible and unworthy of public attention. Their obnoxiously overt racism has become too obvious and vulnerable to attack, so they are forced to become more covert with their discrimination. Here where liberals integrate only those of us they deem to well behaved enough to be accepted and acknowledged by their exclusive and most times executive social circles. These liberals then believe they can relieve their guilty conscious by supporting overrated and misappropriated public programs that devalue any significancy to solutions they are too weak willed to confront with decency that they allow to be suppressed by their deluded criticism they subject my people to. The problems of Indian people should not be the focal point of discussion, it should be the historic flaws that our society has allowed itself to be nurtured of. Our burden to assimilate ourselves into American society is met with extreme insensitivity, resistance of accepting the humanity of my people has become a paradigm. Classism has encouraged division in Indian country, where working class Indians are considered wealthy in comparison to the poverty most Indians are subjected to. This most times results in a very uncompassionate Attitude towards ones fellowman who is overwhelmingly victimized by the rigors of discrimination. Ones success should not validate intolerance of any kind towards disparity, economic dimensions are disregarded as well in the eyes of racism. So those of my people that think their 'too good' to endure discrimination and prejudice give themselves this false sense of security, they then in turn obliviously make themselves vulnerable to the infectious ignorances that ravages the social image of our people simply because of the color of our skin. The apartheid of reservation life should not dictate our value in society, the drug invasion has turned our once proud tribal communities into ghettos. Yet our personal integrity, and self respect should not be held captive by the reciprocating discrimination that our white counterpart has failed to take accountability for. Each and everyone of us are a testimony to the resiliency of our ancestors, yes some of them were debilitated by the overwhelming disempowerment to effectively confront our oppressors. But we today have the tools at our disposal to overcome systematic institutionalized racism, we can honor those ancestors by providing our children with the equality and justice they died pursuing.