Bird Droppings September 26, 2025

Should I be a wolf or a dog in education?

Considering the current news and political turmoil, I recalled a trip to the Atlanta Zoo. An older man approached me as I walked up the hill at the Zoo. I had never met this man previously and hoped never to meet again. He saw my camera around my neck and asked if I had seen the rare creature ahead. I asked him which one he chose, as several endangered animals are housed at the Atlanta Zoo directly down the hill. His next comment took me by surprise. It was a derogatory, racially motivated jab at nonwhites. My first reaction was numbness. Why did this racist man, out of all the random people, pick me to talk to? I know I refer to synchronicity often, this was one time I wish I weren’t as aware of those moments.

Synchronicity, as I say. I watched him walk away down the hill, thinking how, in this modern world, a man like that even lives. How can someone be so jaded and hate so much? Yet every time I sit down at my computer and read even a few social media posts, there is a more virulent, infectious racism countered with, “But I am not racist.” And just as quickly, “I am a Christian.” Over the years, I have mentioned world peace and even offered up the passage of peace to be with you, borrowing from the Eucharist. Wayne William Snellgrove, an artist and medicine man from South Florida, started my morning right today with a line or two from Black Elk.

“Peace… comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) OGLALA SIOUX

It has been some time since I first read the book Neither Wolf nor Dog, which happens to have been written by one of my favorite authors, Kent Nerburn. Listening to political gibberish and sitting watching Twitter comments through Indigenous newscasts, the issue of the Native Peoples has never gone away. It is perhaps equally as appropriate as we are in a situation as a nation that went from a nontraditional president who happens to be of a different life view than what many Americans would prefer to a boisterous man who fans the flames of racism. Many are afraid to say this is going on. It’s so easy to say, “I am not racist, and his church affiliation is for show.” I recall reading a few posts and seeing images of people professing to be not racist, yet through their images on social media, there are confederate flags and pictures of them in t-shirts stating blatantly, “Make America White again.”

I was reading several of my former students’ posts discussing politics, and a little other reason is always mentioned. Listening to polls and news, similar rationales seem to prevail, although cloaked in Republican or Democratic jargon. I saw a poster recently of an Indian woman stating something to the effect that anyone not speaking Lakota and listing numerous more dialects and languages needs to leave, as you are trespassing illegally on Indian land. We Europeans quickly spread across the country through the philosophy of manifest destiny and such jargon.

“Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?” Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake), Lakota Medicine man and chief

This great warrior and holy man died in 1890, shot by his own people, as foretold in a vision he had many years before. At the time, the federal government was concerned with his affiliation with the Ghost Dance cult, which was sweeping the reservations. Armed Sioux officers were sent to bring him in, and as the legend goes, he was reaching for his grandson’s toy, and the officers perceived a gun and shot him multiple times. Sadly, most of the officers themselves were killed in mysterious ways the next year or so. Perhaps the officer’s deaths were retaliation for the killing of a great leader from the Sioux nation. Perhaps it is the paradox of the Indian wars.

It always seems interesting to me how it was patriotic for soldiers to kill Indians. Yet, the statement “I would die for my people and country” is a very patriotic statement we still hear from all patriots throughout history.

Today, around the world, we are witnessing similar events in many countries, and we are the invaders again. It just depends on which side of the fence you are sitting on as to who is patriotic and who is the enemy. I recall on a public broadcast, a “former” rock star who is also an alleged draft dodger from the Vietnam era and is very pro-guns was blasting our former president and came an awful close to threatening him. Many considered that tirade as patriotic; at least the NRA convention crowd applauded. I actually went to one of his concerts for thirty seconds back in the 1970s. It was so bad I left.

“To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle.” Confucius

“Only in quiet waters, things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is an adequate perception of the world.” Hans Margolius

With each word spouted from some conservative’s lips about lowering gas prices, we never ask oil companies to decrease their ever-increasing profits. I have not quite figured out how we, as citizens, will save if oil companies increase profits. Perhaps it is looking for new lands to subdue, which is the credo of so many conservatives and their religious affiliations. Taking away lands from wilderness to own and subdue and to plunder. Sometimes, I wonder if we have run out of the wilderness to conquer as I watch world events. Even the rumor mill is involving Haiti now as a possible new territory for the US. Do we need another General Custer and another battle of the Little Bighorn? I was thinking back to my own time and war, Vietnam, and the Malai massacre, but those folks had no weapons and were only standing around, not fighting back. I am always amazed that Custer was a hero, and yet he disobeyed orders and egotistically rode into battle, outnumbered and slaughtered. Perhaps it was the fact that the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors had the newest weaponry, repeating rifles, and Custer’s men still had breech-loading single-shot rifles. Interestingly enough, word had it the unit was offered the new weapons but felt the old ones were good enough for what they were doing: killing Indians.

“What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.” Sitting Bull

I went to school for a semester in Texas in 1968 and experienced racism I had never seen before to that degree. Hatred for Indians lasted for nearly one hundred years after the wars were over. Geronimo and Chief Joseph were both refused on their deathbeds by sitting presidents to return to their sacred lands for fear of uprisings. Nearly seven years ago, on a Monday, a South Texas town abolished an anti-Hispanic segregation law more than seven decades after it was enacted in Edcouch, Texas. More recently, Arizona enacted even stricter laws that are currently in court and today before the US Supreme Court. Back in the day, we were illegal immigrants, and we stole land and destroyed culture after culture, taking and subduing. In the Georgia government and several other states today, they want to forget that type of history in US History classes since it ruins our image (European white) as an elite people.

In 1973, I met the contingent of Creeks who were working at the Okmulgee Indian Mounds in Macon, Georgia. We became friends, and I was honored to be invited to take medicine at the Green Corn dance. Nearly 150 years earlier, under Andrew Jackson’s orders, the Creeks were taken from Georgia to Oklahoma, the now infamous Trail of Tears. With the Creeks gone, all the land became available. I found searching for information on my Leni Lenape, great, great grandmother, an article about my great-great-grandfather George Niper, who lived to be one hundred and fourteen years old and was the last living person to have voted for Andrew Jackson. I found it interesting that Jackson was a Democrat; I do not think he would be in today’s politics.

“Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.” Sitting Bull

I wonder what slogans were used in the 1880s in presidential elections. Grant wanted a third term, and Garfield supported Grant. It is interesting how Garfield’s speech for Grant got him the nomination over Grant, and he was elected. Tariffs were the main issue; high tariffs were what Garfield backed, and possibly that was what led to his assassination. The plight of the Native Peoples was a small issue during the years recovering from the governmental corruption of Grant’s time. The government seems to be, by nature, corrupt. We watch senators and members of Congress argue over health care, yet they have universal health care for life. Maybe if you were on equal footing, the legislation would be different, and maybe if the threat of losing yours were on the table, things would be different.

“A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky. I was hostile to the white man…we preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times, we did not get enough to eat, and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came…They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight.” Crazy Horse, Tashunwitko

It is interesting how the invaded people fought back, yet we condemned them, and how history changed views. I have been reading a book entitled Today’s Wandering About Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn. It is an interesting book about an older man’s effort to explain who his people really are. Nerburn was asked to write the words of an elderly Indian, a member of the Sioux nation, to explain why and how. One day, maybe someone will offer explanations for the issues of today that go beyond the political views of warring parties and ideologies as we wander today. I am sitting with the lingering aroma of sage and the haunting flute music of Carlos Nakai in the background. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts, and please always remember to give thanks to namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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