The Martians attack and do win the war with earth. Little mercy is shown. They refuse to let us speak our language and punish us if we do. We must learn Martian. The Martians all have green hair. They make us dye our hair green. The Martians refuse to let us practice our religion, whatever that religion is. They beat us when they find us practicing our religion. They destroy our sacred places. They put the faces of their leaders on our sacred places and turn them into tourist traps for Martians. They honor the god Blftt. We are made to honor Blftt. All of our food is destroyed by the Martians. All of our food. We are made to eat Martian food that is brought in for us. All of us humans who remain, after the near destruction of our race, are placed in one small location called a "holding place." A location that does not support much life, is quite barren, has few resources, and is located far from Martian civilization - on Earth. The Martians split up our families. The old are isolated in one portion of the Holding Place; our children are placed in another section of the Holding Place; and children are taken away at age six. Our children are told their parents are evil, are told their ways are evil, are beaten if they practice any of our old ways, and are returned to the Holding Place when they are in their twenties. The Holding Place is controlled and patrolled by Martians. Finally, the Martians give us Earthlings an odd-colored liquid to drink. A liquid that makes us Earthlings act crazy and do weird things. A liquid that makes our Earthling babies come out deformed. A liquid that destroys the very soul of our people.
Far fetched, right? What you have just read is exactly what the dominant culture brought upon the American Indian. We killed 220 million buffalo and thus wiped out their food source. We placed the people on barren land called reservations. We split up and destroyed their families. We took their children. We beat them if they spoke "Indian" or wore their hair long or practiced their beliefs. We flipped a coin to determine if they would be forced to be Catholic or Episcopalian. (American Indians could not legally practice their own religion until 1976.) The dominant culture carved the faces of their own leaders into Mount Rushmore in the most sacred place of the American Indians, the Black Hills. We destroyed their self-esteem, their livelihood, their lives. (The average life span of an American Indian is 49 years). Finally, we poisoned their people with liquor. Now the genocide continues as their babies are born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
What is interesting is that my Indian friends on the Rosebud look at us with affection in their eyes and say, "What goes around comes around. You are now destroying yourselves the way you destroyed us." Terrifying when you really exam the whole scenario closely.
There are many ways to heal these terrible wounds. One way WPI students can help is to buy a Toy for Christmas for a Lakota child. These kids continue to live on the Holding Places called reservations - in particular, on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Many of the people have nothing or so little. You can help by giving their children a happier Christmas. The LEAP students are collecting Toys for Christmas for the Rosebud kids. Please help if you can. Call x-5540 for information.
If you can't or don't want to give a toy (or make a contribution toward mailing costs), there is something else you can do. Learn to drink responsibly and make a concerted effort to not hurt anyone or yourself with your drinking. What goes around comes around.