The Horror of Trump’s Wounded Knee Tweet
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On Sunday, President Donald Trump took aim at one of his favorite targets: Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is hoping to unseat him in 2020. Responding to a video Warren posted on Instagram in which she drinks a beer in her kitchen and introduces her husband, Trump tweeted:
“If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!”
Trump has long attacked Warren for claiming Cherokee and Delaware ancestry, belittling her as “Pocahontas” and, more recently, challenging her to prove her claims using a DNA test. But his invocation of Wounded Knee—one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history—is a new low.
On December 29, 1890, the U.S. 7th Cavalry massacred hundreds of Lakota near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. It was hardly the largest settler massacre of Native peoples, but it is the most infamous. To Native peoples it has long been a symbol of U.S. brutality, a reminder of the immorality of a nation that claimed it was bringing civilization but instead brought a slaughter.
Wounded Knee was the culmination of decades of tension and conflict on the Plains as Native peoples resisted American efforts to expropriate their lands and confine them to reservations. The U.S. government forced unfair treaties on tribal nations, wrenched away their land, failed to live up to its own treaty obligations, and failed to stop settler squatters from invading Native lands. In the late 1880s, a politically potent spiritual movement that Americans called the Ghost Dance grew from the teachings of the Paiute prophet Wovoka and caught fire among the Native peoples of the Plains. As historian Tiffany Hale recounts, it was a complex movement of beliefs and practices offering solace, hope and courage, but American fears fixated on one notion within it: that the proper practice of a prayerful dance would hasten the departure of the whites and the return of lands to Native control and Native ways of life.
The movement spurred American fears of an “Indian uprising,” and in December 1890, President Benjamin Harrison ordered the Army to suppress the Ghost Dance and arrest its leaders. When the U.S. Indian police arrived to arrest the Hunkpapa Lakota holy man Sitting Bull, a Lakota shot a policeman, and the police shot and killed Sitting Bull. Fearing further violence, the Miniconjou Lakota Chief Spotted Elk (also known as Big Foot) decided it was time to move. Under his leadership, a group of Lakota set out across 200 miles of frozen prairie from the Cheyenne River Reservation to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Other Hunkpapa Lakota fleeing the Ghost Dance crackdown joined him and their numbers swelled to around 400 people—mostly women and children.
Members of the 7th Cavalry intercepted the Lakota refugees on December 28, 1890. Ordering them to make camp at Wounded Knee Creek, Army officials demanded they give up their guns. This made Lakota people, who were hunters, vulnerable to violence and hunger. The next morning, after giving up their rifles, the Lakota were subjected to a destructive search operation. Soldiers scoured the camp for hidden guns, tearing apart the women’s bundles, smashing dishes and seizing knives, awls, tent stakes—anything with a sharp edge. During the search, according to several accounts, a man named Black Coyote either did not understand the order to surrender his rifle (he was deaf and did not speak English) or resisted because it was valuable to him. A scuffle broke out, and someone (it is unclear who) fired a shot. Then, the Americans unleashed their firepower.
The women and children ran, but many were gunned down by bullets and cannon shells fired by U.S. soldiers as they fled. Those who made it past the firing lines could find little shelter in the flat and denuded December prairie, and many were murdered by cavalry troops who hunted them down. While a few Lakota men managed to grab a gun or a knife, they were no match for the Army’s strafing and shelling. The slaughter was relentless. American Horse, an Oglala Lakota who spoke to many survivors of the carnage, reported that as little boys emerged from the ravines, they were immediately surrounded and “butchered.” Powder-burns on the dead made a clear case for atrocity: Only guns held close to the body in point-blank executions leave such marks. Historian Jeffrey Ostler concludes, “By the late afternoon, when the firing finally subsided, between 270 and 300 of the 400 people in Big Foot’s band were dead or mortally wounded. Of these, 170 to 200 were women and children, almost all of whom were slaughtered while fleeing or trying to hide.” At least 20 American soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their part in the massacre.
Wounded Knee was an atrocity on such a scale that, in a way, it became a symbol for all the other atrocities. It is no coincidence that Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is one of the most influential popular books on the larger atrocity that is American policy toward Native peoples, or that Wounded Knee, South Dakota, became the site of militant Native resistance in 1973. So when Trump made light of Wounded Knee, he invoked an episode that still remains raw and powerful in Native memory today.
Not only does his tweet joke about a massacre, his continued taunts reinforce insidious stereotypes about Native peoples, and especially Native women. The popular story of “Pocahontas”—about an Indian maiden in love with a settler man—is itself a Disney fantasy, and one that, as historian Honor Sachs argues, “ props up white supremacy .” There’s more. To Trump, real Indians are clearly a defeated remnant of the past, frozen in time at Bighorn and Wounded Knee, wearing “Indian garb.”
Here’s the thing: In 2019, there are over 570 tribal nations in the United States that are recognized by the federal government, in addition to scores of nations that are recognized by state governments or are seeking recognition. Native Americans are modern people living in urban, suburban, reservation and rural communities. As citizens of sovereign tribal nations, Native peoples have rights and responsibilities that are determined by their nations’ distinct governance practices. Tribal governments, for their part, have laws and policies to address the needs of their citizens: Some nations issue passports for their citizens; they run schools, health care facilities, child welfare offices, libraries and museums. The list goes on and on, undermining antiquated ideas about Native peoples that continue to circulate in pop culture.
While Trump’s tweets rely on stereotypes evoking the Disney character and hypersexualized women dressed up as “Poca-hotties” at Halloween, the reality for modern Native Americans, and for Native women in particular, is different. Earlier this month Indian Country celebrated as Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk) and Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) entered the U.S. House of Representatives. At the same time, Native Americans are all too familiar with depressing statistics about Native women who face appalling rates of domestic violence, rape and murder. As Amnesty International reported in its 2007 study Maze of Injustice, Native American and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the general population in the U.S., and over 34 percent of Native women will be raped in their lifetime. More recently, researchers reported the shocking number of Native women who have disappeared: According to statistics compiled by the Urban Indian Health Institute, 5,712 Native American and Alaska Native women and girls were reported missing in 2016 alone. Native women are also four times more likely than non-Native women to see their children removed from their custody, and Native children are 14 times more likely to be held in state foster care.
You wouldn’t know about the real-world challenges that Native American women face from listening to Trump—or from listening to Warren for that matter. In response to the racist, misogynistic Pocahontas slur that has been aimed at her since 2012—after the Boston Herald published a story reporting that during the mid-1990s Harvard Law School officials “prominently touted Warren’s Native American background”—Warren has mostly sought to protect her own reputation, insisting on the veracity of her family lore.
The one and only time, to our knowledge, that Warren has admitted how destructive the name-calling is—not just to her, but to Native Americans—was in February 2018 when she made a surprise appearance before Native American-elected officials at the National Congress of American Indians. In her speech, Warren compared the Disney film with the “real” story of Pocahontas and then noted that the story has been “twisted” for political purposes. Recalling a November 2017 White House ceremony honoring World War II Navajo code talkers, Warren reminded listeners that Trump had disrespected war heroes when he mentioned Pocahontas in connection to the senator during the solemn event. This was an important moment—Warren noted the disruptive and disrespectful effect these references have. At the same time, it was frustrating. While Warren acknowledged the violence Pocahontas endured during her short lifetime, and she could recognize the manipulation of a young girl’s experience into a racist joke, she never uttered words suggesting she understands this is a slur that targets Native women. And she has been silent since.
If Warren really wants to counter Trump and his gleeful invocation of genocidal violence she should denounce the use of Pocahontas as a racist and misogynist slur. She should use her platform to shift the narrative about Native peoples in the United States, pointing to their enduring sovereignty and the imperative that the American government rectify the harm it has done them. She can draw attention to the recently lapsed Violence Against Women Act , redouble efforts to renew this important legislation and advocate for practical solutions to gaps in jurisdiction and funding that will help Native American women and tribal nations pursue justice. It should go without saying she should abandon and apologize for her talk about her undocumented family lore of Indian ancestry, but she has to go beyond that. It’s time Elizabeth Warren uses this as an opportunity to defend Native women, and not just herself.
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John - this is the part of Trump I don't like. He needs to realize that his lack of sense of humor affects and dehumanizes way too many people and things.
326 women, children and mostly old men were pure, out and out, massacred with malice, cold intent and asinine political support. That fact should make anyone sick to their stomach over the callousness of the U.S. government's treatment of the Native American people.
Sadly, it still goes on today. You doubt it? Look at the political bullshite regarding VAMA.
Lizzy isn't Big Horn, or Wounded Knee !
Lizzy is a fake, that dehumanized those many people for gain, because of her lie !
"SHE", deserves everything Trump throws at her.
I wonder if you read the article. Doubtful. The article is not a defense of Warren, it is a criticism of Trump making light of a massacre of native Americans by the US Army.
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Did you read that part of my comment ?
Trump didn't make "Light" of History....one bit.
but you go-ahead and use "Conjecture" and "Innuendo" as you see fit.
someone with a red knows not
Trump is quoted in the article as tweeting
That is making light of a tragic history. I dont know why I bother replying to you. It is an utter waste of time.
In your mind anyway !
did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!”
So, "Lizzy" brings out the right for Trump to use Bighorn (Custer's last stand) and Wounded Knee (massacre of 326 Indians) as a "slam" against her and her husband who, BTW, are drinking beer (alcohol and Indians don't mix) and slamming the Powhatan Indian Nation by denigrating through the use of his six year old cutesy humor?
"Lizzy" deserves that? What about the Indian Nations/Tribes - do they deserve to be pushed deeper into the quagmire because he "wants to be cute"?????
Lizzy is the one "Claiming", something she's NOT !
"What about the Indian Nations/Tribes - do they deserve to be pushed deeper into the quagmire"
What about them ? Lizzy is the one that "Used" them.....not Trump !
Seems that for decades Trump claimed to be Swedish..Something that he is not.
Really!! Seems Trump really tried but got his ass kicked both times.
I'm sure that the main reason that Trump calls Warren Pocohantas is that he's jealous that Indians are better at running casinos than he is.
Deflect Much ?
its ok for chump...?
Who, What, Where ?
OK let me explain this to you.
He is invoking Wounded Knee, which was a mass murder. There is nothing funny about mass murder, and I don't care who he is poking fun at. Then he goes on to talk about women as if they are not equals.
See this is my issue with people who support Trump. Even when his behavior is beyond the pale, they will defend him. Just say he was wrong and move on.
they can't
No !
He's "Invoking" Lizzy "I'm Indian" Warren !
How one interprets it otherwise....is their issue !
I'm fine with my interpretation of what Trump said !
Does that make me an "ASS" and the "Others" …… GREAT ?
"See this is my issue with people who support Trump. Even when his behavior is beyond the pale, they will defend him. Just say he was wrong and move on."
But Trump ....... Didn't say "BIBLE and GUN CLINGERS" !
wasn't wrong in your eyes, as we all can see, but not through your eyes, would we wish to, as blinders are great for peripheral vision when view is obscured and a skew
But you CAN'T !
If you actually could see what I see....it would drive YOU "INSANE" !
ya think...,
no really, do you think ?
ALWAYS !
You just evaded everything I said. He has a stupid mouth. You don't mock someone by using a tragedy in American History.
So you would be fine with him going after Bloomberg, by using Auschwitz jokes because it was Bloomberg? Come on. There is a line that we all should never cross. Stop defending the indefensible.
And I say this with no malice.
i was absence that day in a Field with some Sally who thought a Neuman could season Pauls salad
I evaded nothing ! Your evading away from what "Lizzy" has done.
"So you would be fine with him going after Bloomberg"
Nothing more than a hypothetical by you (Conjecture and Innuendo) !
Besides..….Liberals running for "Office" are already doing that over "Money" !
And that's not a hypothetical !
You are "Cute" at times.
Can I pinch your cheek ?
ME - read the WHOLE thread - not just your favorite pick.
Trump has long attacked Warren for claiming Cherokee and Delaware ancestry, belittling her as “Pocahontas” and, more recently, challenging her to prove her claims using a DNA test. But his invocation of Wounded Knee—one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history—is a new low.
Now you can see what the author is invoking - that Trump, with his childish playground language, thinking he was being terribly cute, threw out two incidents that have occurred in history, that MOST Americans have heard about in school - one such occurrence so totally blasphemous, to play cute with.
You obviously didn't read the thread 'cause you woulda gotten to the last paragraph, the author also lambasts Warren for not correcting what Trump is/has done, nor has she corrected what she has done to perpetuate the "abuse" she is receiving.
As you tell others on your threads - READ THE WHOLE THREAD - you might actually learn something.
No, Trump is the one who brought up Bighorn and Wounded Knee - not Warren.
You "Assume" wrong. I always "Read" before I post !
"Lizzy" brought this on herself.
Only others can make what Trump tweets, to be MORE than it actually is !
The problem with "People" today, is that they look at things in "Today" values. "Yesterday" isn't, and wasn't, "Today" !
What was…..most likely wouldn't be done today !
But "Yesterday", that was what those people thought was necessary then !
Warren Started the "Indian" thing.
Maybe Trump shoulda used "Fort William Henry" or "Fort Sandusky" or "Devils Hole" or "Enoch Brown School" instead ?
After he mocked a disabled reporter and a Gold Star family does this really surprise anyone?
Trump claimed he was Swedish out of ignorance and didn’t lie about it for professional advantage.
Not the same thing at all.
OK ME - just exactly WHERE in the above thread did Warren malign Bighorn or Wounded Knee - Trump's two references?
Actually it is the same thing, only worse.
On July 16, the Boston Globe reported that Fred Trump concealed his family's origins to boost his real-estate business:
The family hid its German heritage, in large part because Fred Trump was trying to sell apartments, often to Jewish tenants, in the aftermath of World War II.
“He said, ‘You don’t sell apartments after the war if you’re German,’ ” John Walter, a family historian and one of Donald Trump’s cousins, said in an interview. “So he’s Swedish, no problem.”
In his 1987 autobiography "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump repeated the lie that his family was from Sweden. He later admitted that was untrue, and claimed German heritage in later books. When the Globe asked him about the switch, Trump explained it as sensible:
When asked why his father claimed he was Swedish, Trump told the Globe, “Well, he spent time in Sweden. And he talked about Swedish because of the fact, you know, we happened to be at war with Germany, which I guess makes sense in a lot of ways doesn’t it? But he spent time in Sweden.”
“Our country was at war with Germany,” he added. “So being from Germany didn’t necessarily play so well for a period of time.”
I went back and read 6 or 7 of the other articles about this event that happened back in January. Most of them have quotes for reactions from leaders of different Native tribes. It's too bad none of those leaders said anything about Trump's tweet or his use of the Pocahontas as a slur as being racists or misogynistic either.
There are a lot more in addition to these.
I'm trying to imagine the scenario in which someone would gain an advantage by convincing someone else they were Swedish.
I guess no one here is mad that he used "Bighorn" eh? I guess it's ok to make jokes about a battle where the majority of dead were white soldiers. Or put another way, would we even be having this conversation if he had only mentioned Bighorn?
Because the Drumpf / Trump Klan has both a German Nazi and racist American KKK past which Trump tries to sidestep by lying about being a neutral Swede...
Ah, thank you. I was thinking about things like ABBA and easily assembled furniture.
To join the Swedish Bikini Team?
President Trump has a racist past?
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I have yet to see a Trump "joke" that is actually funny.
I'd already read the one from the hill. As I said, the Native leaders said nothing about racism or misogyny.
Now your second link is a new one for me and I'm not surprised to see that it's a female tribal lawyer who finally makes a statement about racism.
“+300 of my people were massacred at Wounded Knee,” the writer and tribal lawyer Ruth H. Hopkins, who is Sioux, said on Twitter. “Most were women and children. This isn’t funny, it’s cold, callous, and just plain racist.”
Still nothing on misogyny though. I'm just pointing out that the authors of the seed have expectations of Warren that they don't seem to have for the Native leadership.
You asked what Trump gained by lying about being Swedish...
You don't have to imagine Tacos....Here it is in his own words.
On July 16, the Boston Globe reported that Fred Trump concealed his family's origins to boost his real-estate business:
The family hid its German heritage, in large part because Fred Trump was trying to sell apartments, often to Jewish tenants, in the aftermath of World War II.
“He said, ‘You don’t sell apartments after the war if you’re German,’ ” John Walter, a family historian and one of Donald Trump’s cousins, said in an interview. “So he’s Swedish, no problem.”
In his 1987 autobiography "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump repeated the lie that his family was from Sweden. He later admitted that was untrue, and claimed German heritage in later books. When the Globe asked him about the switch, Trump explained it as sensible:
When asked why his father claimed he was Swedish, Trump told the Globe, “Well, he spent time in Sweden. And he talked about Swedish because of the fact, you know, we happened to be at war with Germany, which I guess makes sense in a lot of ways doesn’t it? But he spent time in Sweden.”
“Our country was at war with Germany,” he added. “So being from Germany didn’t necessarily play so well for a period of time.”
"misogynistic"
"instead of her kitchen"
Where all "good" women are supposed to be.
Is that the kind of 'misogynist slur' the author of your seed meant?
Lizzy Maligned everything Indian by her "I think I am, I think I am, I think I am" Game for Gain..
How can you Patel she's not Indian ?
She's "That" kind of "Indian now ?
DNA ?
Dulay - I'm not really sure where the reference for misogynist is/was leading to unless it is "supposed" to be tied to "she could recognize the manipulation of a young girl’s experience into a racist joke, she never uttered words suggesting she understands this is a slur that targets Native women."
The "targeting" of Native women could be the slur tying all women in a melting pot.
Just guessing - not sure.
Yet as I said, none of the Native leadership made that connection when denouncing Trump's 'joke'. Yet the authors seem to be tasking Warren with making that argument.
Hey I agree that Trump should be called out on all of it. Yet judging from the fact that Trump KEPT tweeting the same kind of racist/misogynist crap just days afterward leads me to believe that even the 'fallout' from GOP Senators didn't phase him a bit. Which makes me doubt that anything Warren said then or now will do so either.
IMHO, that task should be taken up by men like you who Trump, or at least some of his minions, will actually LISTEN to on the subject, though judging by some of the comments here, I may be wrong about that.
Yayyyyup
Well, he spent time in Sweden.
If you are going to claim a "heritage" simply because you spent time in a certain country, then I guess Trump is North Korean. I spent time in England but never claimed an English heritage until I took a DNA test. As it turns out, I am 52% British after all.
You missed the point. Trump has a habit of attacking minorities and women in general. And if you ever had any doubt how much of an asshole trump is?
On this Thanksgiving, trump said he is most grateful for................
wait for it.............
Himself.
Not his country, not his kids, not his wife, not his friends, (if he has any), or anything else...
Just himself.
Ok now that was funny!
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I'm glad the two of you think you're being cute - but, actually [Deleted] Yeah, I'll probably be suspended for that, but after reading your childish scribbles, I really don't give a shyte.
Get off the thread and stay off please. [Deleted]
Get on topic please.
I dont think it is a lack of sense of humor. It is a lack of compassion and empathy for anyone not named Trump. The Wounded Knee victims are just a punch line to him, and a very poor punchline at that. It isnt funny even on his own terms. What kind of 73 year old moron calls a 70 year old woman "Pocohontas" ? It is something a 10 year old might do.
WTF, why insult children...?
lol, good one.
OK, now you're cutting down 10 year olds
He did go way over the line with that.
Definitely a mistake and not a smart move on Trump's part. He should have just left well enough alone.
Not smart moves are his forte.
And yet you still support our unusually nasty, bigoted, racist president.
WHY?
Look back Krishna - look back to the number of times I've had to explain to John that - as a person, I don't like Trump. BUT - I respect the office of President of the United States, and, many times it's a tough battle as to how to handle each at the same time.
My guess is the R behind his name. Qualified doesn't mean anything as long as the R is behind the name. This goes for the Dems also.
'
In his case, it was also only the office - not the person.
The Washington Post just had an article on how Thanksgiving is a National Day of Mourning in the eyes of many Native Americans.
It describes the diseases (now thought to have been introduced by rats on the European ships) that wiped out up to 90% of the Native tribes in New England before the pilgrims even arrived ... how the English gloated over all those deaths, as if it were the plan of some twisted god to give them control of the country ... it was a sickening article, but all too true.
Not to mention the smallpox blankets given to the Indians by the Brits and the "Redcoats" taken by the French.
If you look at the demographics of the US, Native American represents one of the smallest race/ethnicities. Quite remarkable, and shows just how effective the plan for eradication was.
As an aside, the land, several mile sections, to the East of me is "Restricted Indian Land." Not long ago, my son asked, as we drove down the road, who owned the land. He was anticipating a name, he got a long discussion instead. Almost mentioned this in your recent post regarding the Dawes Act.
Well, when you think about how 90% of the Native population in New England was wiped out inadvertently, by disease, that made it far easier to eradicate the remaining First People. But it's just sickening how the Europeans gloated over it as they realized it made it much easier for them to take over. The entire colonial period of European history is disgusting.
European "dominance" history pretty well sux too. 'Member them going into the ME to "cleanse" the savages of their idolatry to replace it with their version of "Christian" beliefs? Something called the Crusades I believe. Oh yeah, don't forget the English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and numerous other nations traveling the world, collapsing existing nations to install "civilizations" in place of demographics that had been in existence for thousands of years.
Excellent opportunity for teaching Rex - glad you did and do.
And for the European Christians, it was fine to kill all these people (whether deliberately or just by indiscriminately spreading disease) ... well, it was better that they die "saved in Christ" than live a full happy life as a heathen. So it really wasn't immoral in their minds. I'm not sure how much of it can be blamed on Christianity; something tells me if not religion, they would have found another way to justify their atrocities to themselves.
Why mention it all? There is one documented case of anyone even trying this and no evidence that it actually worked.
Christianity was a middle eastern religion and the crusades were a defensive war against imperialist Muslim dynasties.
I know this is the weekly "let's attack Europeans and blame them for everything" seed, but let's keep it grounded in reality.
Actually Tacos, there are more than one "documented" case. In the Colonials, there was Trent and Amherst. And then there was the 1837-1838 smallpox epidemic that, pretty much, wiped out the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, Assiniboine and Blackfoot. Smallpox also struck the “Five Civilized Tribes”—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole—then being relocated from the South to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
But, that's not part of the thread.
Nah, and you know better. Just finished watching "The Persian Prince" last night which is what brought it to mind.
The tweet is not about Wounded Knee. It's about Elizabeth Warren. There's nothing in there that makes light of Wounded Knee. It makes light of Elizabeth Warren.
Just him bringing up Wounded Knee as a joke is disgraceful. I'm 1/2 Polish and 1/2 Sicilian, you can bet your bottom dollar if Crooked donnie denigrated my heritage as part of a joke I would not take it lightly.
He didn't. He wasn't joking about Wounded Knee. At all.
The only thing he denigrated was Elizabeth Warren. If she had falsely claimed to be Polish or Sicilian and he made fun of her for it, he wouldn't be denigrating your heritage. He'd be denigrating her.
He denigrated her using Wounded Knee as part of his joke. Sad you don't see anything wrong with that
He should denigrate his father and himself for claiming to be Swedish. It made for better business with the Jews than claiming to be what they are, German.
No it's not. I understand the joke. You don't - not because you aren't bright enough, but because your political bias blinds you. You're more interested in being outraged by something Donald Trump said than in actually analyzing what he said. I think that's pretty sad.
People like Tacos excuse almost every single thing Trump does. It's that simple.
She understands the joke. It doesnt take much at all to understand the "joke". Like most of trump's jokes it operates at a juvenile level.
I feel sorry for anyone who would laugh at a 73 year old calling a 70 year old woman "Pocohontas".
You might be right. She's probably just willfully refusing to acknowledge it. I did say she was "blind" to the truth and made a point of saying that she was capable of understanding it.
I don't know what their ages have to do with anything. I agree it's juvenile, but then so is a lot of shit people say and do - especially politicians. Pretending to be a Native American when you're not is also pretty juvenile.
Almost??? Two days ago it was "every single thing." No "almost."
John, I'm stunned. Is this you cutting me some slack finally? Are you finally allowing for the possibility that my perspectives on politics might be more nuanced than you had previously admitted? This is a big step for you.
Hug?
Pot calling kettle black, eh? Obviously, even after reading the thread, you STILL don't understand the issue.
And, of course with your great reading ability and comprehension, that the thread is about a comment Trump Tweeted for all to read and he used two historically diminutive instances to Native Americans to emphasize his opinions of Native Americans.
Wonder why that would be, eh?
I understand that misplaced outrage is still misplaced.
You consider the battle at Little Bighorn to be diminutive to Native Americans? Seeing as how the Native Americans won that fight, that seems like an odd characterization.
How do you figure that? Where is Trump expressing an opinion about Native Americans? The tweet is aimed squarely at Elizabeth Warren. He doesn't say anything about Native Americans.
I can't imagine. In this fantasy you have created, I suppose anything is possible.
By the way, yesterday, Trump signed an executive order establishing a task force to address violence against missing and murdered Native Americans. As he signed it, he said it was something that should have been done a long time ago.
Doesn't that say something about his opinion of Native Americans?
The battle at Little Bighorn, Custer's Last Stand , triggered the beginning of the end for the Indians who were trying to resist white encroachment. The Indians never won another major battle.
Take a step back and look at the forest instead of the trees. First, it's not as if things were going to be hunky dory for the natives but for Little Bighorn. Little Bighorn is not Pearl Harbor. Rather, it's a relatively good day in a series of bad days.
Second, do you really think Trump sees Little Bighorn as a low point for Native Americans? I don't. I believe all Trump was thinking in his tweet was "what historic events involving Indians can I remember so I can take another quick jab at Warren?"
Any thoughts about deep historical analysis beyond this are misguided - unless you want to radically change your assessment of Trump's thinking patterns.
Yet you insist on pretending that somehow the Bighorn reference was positive. Just because you and I realize it's significance, even you seem to acknowledge that Trump may merely have been thinking 'Indian stuff'.
BTW, John's point was quite relevant to those of us that DO understand the significance of the 'Little Bighorn', or what the Plains 'Indians' call the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Though I am not a Native American, I have empathy for that horrid history.
It seems that empathy has now become ideological. I remember when those that have empathy didn't stand for the oppressed being the butts of 'jokes' whether directly or through surrogates.
I'm not seeing what your point is. Is there one?
Yeah, I think that's most likely it.
That's nice, but I don't see what that has to do with the tweet. As I think I have said in multiple ways, I don't think Trump was trying to say anything in particular about Native Americans, Wounded Knee, or Little Bighorn. I feel like we are going down a rabbit trail here.
I don't think Elizabeth Warren has been oppressed. Again, if you're talking about the tweet, I am not seeing how any of this connects to that.
Are you denying that you inferred that the Bighorn reference was positive?
So you acknowledge that Trump diminished Native Americans to 'Indian stuff' but still think that it was a 'joke'. Got ya.
You really don't see an issue do you? Trump used Native Americans as a VEHICLE for what you called a 'joke' and you're fine with it. IMHO, that illustrates a need for self reflection.
Who said she was?
Again, IMHO, that's because you're intent on being Trump's #1 devil's advocate. Note that I am giving you credit for knowing better.
To do so, you need to pretend that the reference to Warren is all that's relevant even though multiple members have pointed out that Native Americans took umbrage to Trump's tweet. Instead of showing empathy for their feelings, you've defended Trump's indefensible racism and misogyny. That's on YOU.
If I were trying to get an idea across to someone else, I would be implying something. It is the listener who infers. In any event, I neither implied nor explicitly said anything about Trump's reference to it being positive or negative. As I have already said, I think Trump just listed two historically significant events that popped into his head.
What I said was a response to something 1stwarrior wrote. I said that I thought it was odd to characterize Little Bighorn as a diminutive event to Native Americans.
"Diminutive" means to make something or someone smaller. 1stwarrior used this word to describe both Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee at the same time.
That description makes sense considering the outcome of Wounded Knee, where roughly 25 US military were killed, but 150-300 Indians - many of them women and children - were killed. It was a one-sided massacre and not just of fighters, but non-combatants.
Meanwhile, the battle of Little Bighorn was a clear victory for the Native Americans. That is not a controversial assessment of that battle. Custer's entire battalion of over 250 men were killed. Native American losses were substantially less than that.
History has since regarded Custer as a reckless, egotistical buffoon and the Indians who killed him as clever tacticians. Hardly diminutive. Thus, I questioned why both of those events might be seen as "diminutive" of Native Americans when one was a massacre and the other an overwhelming victory.
Is there something about Native Americans that makes them off limits to be part of any joke? That sounds kinda racist.
You did when you said " I remember when those that have empathy didn't stand for the oppressed being the butts of 'jokes' whether directly or through surrogates." The butt of Trump's joke was Elizabeth Warren. If you think the butt his joke is an oppressed person, then you think Elizabeth Warren has been oppressed.
Well, that sounds like an irrational bias at play. Furthermore, there's no humility in dismissing someone else's conclusions based on your need to demonize them. Rather than address the clear language of the tweet, you want to claim that it means whatever you want it to mean and if I don't agree with you, it must be because I want to defend Trump.
There's not rationality in that. No evidence to support an argument rooted in logic. It's just emotion and bias.
Argumentum ad populum is not very convincing in this case, especially when the political Left has a history of being falsely offended just for appearances' sake.
Now you want to guilt or shame me into agreeing with you? This is another sign that you don't have a conclusion you can support. It's also typical of many of the louder voices on the Left these days.
I do not have some obligation to empathize with anyone's feelings in this forum. I am here to analyze the tweet itself. If the truth hurts someone's feelings, that's their problem.
My fingers worked before my mind did Tacos. The word I "meant" to use was demonstrative and I'm not sure how diminutive came out the tips of my fingers.
I truly apologize.
I believe you can see, from the point I'm trying to stand with, that demonstrative, i.e. demonstrating how two incidents in Native American history were used as a "cast-off" humor call by Trump.
Again - I apologize.
You mention that there were 25 military killed - I "think" NPR and the History Channel have the count as 25 military killed and 39 wounded by friendly fire and that there were 3 hotchkiss machine guns, not one. Also mentioned is how the Medal of Honor was awarded to 21 of the soldiers - 5 of which were cooks in the background of the battle area.
Nah - wasn't a good day for anyone.
That's fine. No harm done.
Which is kind of ridiculous
See you have some serious reading issues. What's the title of the thread again??? "The horror of Trump's Wounded Knee Tweet" - oh yeah - that would explain why the reference and comments regarding Wounded Knee.
Who woulda known, eh?
You think calling it the "wounded knee tweet" makes it about that? You can give anything a label, but an examination of the actual content tells us what it's about.
they are blinded by their hatred of trump and grasping at straws that are not even there so they have to make up the straw and suck on it.
it's all they got left. (that pun is optional)
Because they hate turtles.
perhaps it is the color orange.
maybe orange to a liberal/progressive is like red to a bull?
( just a working theory
Could be in a normal conversation, but the intent of my seed was to discuss the attempted use of humor on a tragic moment in Native American history - Wounded Knee.
Don't start picking on Mother Earth.
I understand, and I think this is just a basic disagreement I will have with people about Trump's Pocahontas taunts. I think he's mocking Elizabeth Warren and I don't think any part of it is meant to mock Native Americans.
None of that is to say that I endorse what he's doing. I think all of his taunts and insults are juvenile and embarrassing (even if the target may arguably be somewhat deserving of it). Believe me, if I actually thought he was going after Native Americans, I wouldn't approve of that either.
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he poked fun at a lying white liberal and nothing more.
what a joke.
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If Trump retweeted that meme, the TDS people would look at it and think Trump made fun of a bar.
yepp... LOL
cheers
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If you believe that 8ball, why are you here? I am not a "leftist" - I am a Native American and what he said and the context in which he said it pizzes me off.
OK a teachable moment.
See the above meme. Funny and not offensive. You know why? It didn't bring a mass murder into the joke. Can you see the difference?
nope. butt hurt is butt hurt regardless of what kind of joke.
funny and offensive are in the eyes of the beholder. not everyone agrees on that. there is no way to appease everyone on any subject or with any joke.
] I'm not even going to try. im just going to laugh at those who get butthurt. because I think that is funny.
IMHO people hurt because "words" are weak and pathetic.
cheers
Wow, Nuance isn't your thing.
Butthurt? LMAO, I said it was funny. It seems that you are the one with butthurt.
So it's funny that Native Americans get slammed with "butt-hurt" over totally unthinkable and HURTFUL comments about their past/history?
The massacre of 326 Lakota by the U.S.Army ain't funny, and if you think it's "funny" - wow.
that meme was funny,
the butthurt is in relation to the left and trumps tweet.
see the difference? LOL
just mashin yer tatters... cheers
trump did not make fun of anyone or anything except elizabeth warren
those who think otherwise regardless of heritage are damn funny / is that clear enough? probably not, but thanks for playing.
cheers
No, the meme was an actual joke, the tweet is another offensive comment, by the king of offensive comments.
The fact that you don't find it offensive is just that it ain't about you.
So you would be fine with him going after Bloomberg, by using Auschwitz jokes because it was Bloomberg? Come on. There is a line that we all should never cross. Stop defending the indefensible.
Kinda curious - didn't you, at one time, claim Apache heritage? If so, what if he had made the comment and used Bosque del Apache as his reference?
I've seen more offensive comments on this site coming from the people complaining about offensive comments.
have you not heard? according to the left every trump supporter including me is a nazi deplorable and everything else evil under the sun. and I only laugh at them for their personal attacks against me. because they too are weak.
sorry, I don't get butt hurt by words of any kind whether those words are about me or not. so, imagined, feigned, and/or opportunistic outrage is denied in full.
bottom line? thin skinned people crack me up... sue me
trump only joked about warren.
stop pretending otherwise.
LOL
yes, and id still think he only made fun of warren claiming to be indian
I don't go out of my way to add things to people's words / just so I can be offended.
cheers
This especially applies to wannabe Apaches.
Looks like it's that time - hit the hay and look forward to prepping for Thursday's BIG lunch.
Will reopen in the morning.
Day before the big day of Thanksgiving - keep that memory in your minds.
Healthy discussion folks - no digs, cuts, ridicule - just healthy discussion.
But, you know, what if Trump was trying to reference the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation and not the Wounded Knee Massacre? 'Course I just can't quite fit that in the circle of how Trump thinks, but, what if. . . . . .?
Well, sorry, but got some who would rather ridicule the thread instead of discussing it.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving - and remember who gave it to you