Charles Trimble: Confronting racism can work
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Filed Under:
Opinion
"My mother and I were on a bus from Pine Ridge to Rapid City, where we would join two of my older brothers in finding jobs for the summer. We lived in what seemed to be an old converted moving van, windowless and dank, in the Indian ghetto called Coney Island and we needed the money.
My mother wanted us to experience the satisfaction and pride of hard work and self-sufficiency. She was a widow since before I was two years old, and she was doing her best to give us the experience my father would have wanted us to have. I was only perhaps 6 or 7, so I hadn’t planned on finding a job, but would make myself useful otherwise.
As we rode across the treeless, hilly prairie between Pine Ridge and Hot Springs, the bus began to slow down and finally stopped, tilting slightly off the road. We all hoped there was no mechanical problems, for it was scorching hot and, in those days, the buses were not air-conditioned.
The large driver came down the aisle to the rear of the bus where we sat, and growled at my mother that if I stuck my head out the window one more time, he would throw me off the bus. When my mother pointed out that our rear seat window could not be opened and that some other boy in a seat forward of ours must be the guilty one, the driver in a very loud voice told her that if she didn’t quit “smarting off” he would put us both off the bus with our suitcases. My mother said not another word.
Another time we had taken the mail truck from our home in Wanblee to Martin, S.D., where we would then go to Pine Ridge by bus. In Martin, my mother went to a drug store to get some medicine she could only get from a pharmacist. "
Get the Story:
Charles Trimble: Confronting racism can be so satisfying
(Indian Country Today 8/17)
Related Stories:
Charles Trimble: Lessons from Indian banking
(8/7)
Charles Trimble: McDonald's
not a bastion of racism (7/2)
Charles
Trimble: Indian affairs rife for comedy (6/25)
Charles Trimble: No more offensive mascots
(6/17)
Charles Trimble: The demise of
the 'Fighting Sioux' (6/9)
Charles
Trimble: Black Hills return just a dream (6/8)
Charles Trimble: After Custer, still fighting
battles (6/3)
Charles Trimble: More on
traditional names (5/18)
Charles
Trimble: Taking pride in traditional names (4/24)
Charles Trimble: Recalling the Burro of Indian
Affairs (4/20)
Charles Trimble:
Reconciliation and Wounded Knee (4/13)
Charles Trimble: Support Lumbee recognition
(3/27)
Charles Trimble: From the voices
of victors (3/23)
Charles Trimble:
Rebirth of 'Luke Warm Water' (3/20)
Charles Trimble: Never ending Wounded Knee story
(3/16)
Charles Trimble: Facts and truth
of Wounded Knee (3/9)
Charles Trimble:
Answering Obama's call to hope (3/6)
Charles Trimble: Discussing the fate of the Indian
press (2/13)
Charles Trimble: The 51st
state for Indian Country (1/23)
Charles
Trimble: A challenge for the next generation (1/6)
Charles Trimble: Thanksgiving and colonization
(11/21)
Charles Trimble: NCAI service the
highpoint in life (11/17)
Charles
Trimble: Indian warriors serve nations (11/12)
Charles Trimble: Pawnee Nation reburies ancestors
(10/31)
Charles Trimble: Twisting history
for victimhood (10/20)
Charles Trimble:
Sen. Obama a man for our time (10/13)
Charles Trimble: Tribes are players in
marketplace (9/23)
Charles Trimble:
Overdue obituary of Shirley Plume (09/08)
Charles Trimble: Indian Country must take control
(9/5)
Charles Trimble: On the last
Indian war with Giago (9/1)
Tim Giago:
Moving from victimhood to victors (9/1)
Q&A with Charles Trimble: On Indian victimhood
(8/25)
Charles Trimble: Shed the chains
of victimhood (8/15)
Copyright © Indianz.Com
Subscribe