#222 / Do Yourself A Favor

Do yourself a favor and track down the August 2019 edition of The Sun magazine. That is Issue #524. Read what Paul Chaat Smith has to say about "Our Fellow Americans - The Complex Truth Of Native American History." Read his article, "Geronimo's Cadillac." 

Smith is a Comanche author and an associate curator at the National Museum of the American Indian. “Geronimo’s Cadillac” is excerpted from the essay “On Romanticism,” from Smith's book Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong. 

What do we get wrong? 

Smith thinks that non-Native Americans "cherish the myth[s] more than the genuine struggles of real human beings." That's where we go wrong. 

Consider what Gwen Westerman has to say about that, in her poem, published in Issue #524: 

Dakota Homecoming

Gwen Westerman 

We are so honored that 

you are here, they said.  

We know that this is  

your homeland, they said. 

The admission price 

is five dollars, they said.  

Here is your button  

for the event, they said.  

It means so much to us that  

you are here, they said.  

We want to write 

an apology letter, they said.  

Tell us what to say.

Do yourself a favor. Read that magazine. Learn something you can say.

Image Credit:

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/524/geronimos-cadillac