Racism Against Native Americans Is Happening Daily & You Need To Know What We Face
Racism Against Native Americans Is Happening Daily & You Need To Know What We Face
In a video that’s been seen widely across the United States, Omaha citizen Nathan Phillips sings the American Indian Movement Anthem in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. while students from Covington Catholic High School jump, laugh, and perform the tomahawk chop. During the now-famous encounter, one high schooler named Nick Sandmann stares Phillips down, smirking.
“I know that look,” says Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, who is Oglala Lakota and a PhD student at the University of Minnesota. “I have seen it my whole life. I don’t need 500 camera angles or 15 articles to tell me what it is. This is a lived experience.”
The video was met with immediate outrage and condemnation from people who called the behavior of the “Make America Great Again” hat-wearing teenagers an example of “Trump’s legacy.” But the problem lies not simply with the president, his supporters, anti-abortion activists, or elite private schools. The problem is with America.