What about those money-hungry pioneers who swarmed over private Native American land in their quest for the gold discovered in Georgia in 1829? Gold fever led to the Trail of Tears, where Cherokee who had clean villages, matriarchal societies, well-fed children and healthy dogs and horses were told they had to leave their farms right now, today. People were penned up, their homes burned to the ground and pets and livestock killed.
It’s so much easier to get people lined out for a 1000-mile wintertime march when you take away everything but their arms and legs.
Gold diggers simply killed or “relocated” the natives and kept pushing west taking what was never theirs. The Rockies, California, Alaska – the pursuit of gold was so widespread it took on the properties of a virus that wouldn’t die.
Of course, there was no retribution and no restitution.
Commandeering land for oil pipeline access is different how?
In the old days, U.S. Senators Daniel Webster and Henry Clay spoke eloquently and rightly against the white male government in Washington stealing yet more from people whose roots went back as far as any Europeans’. But as articulate and forceful as Webster and Clay were, it wasn’t enough. President Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court and ordered removal of the natives anyway. Gold was clearly more important than people. “Good for the economy.” Oh, joy.
Which got us thinking about who really is a benefit to society today? The only major group we could come up with is old people, especially old women.
Women can fix things. Tribal women, jungle women, war brides, crack shot hunters and imaginative cooks, writers, readers, thinkers – women seem to collectively know the advantage of maintaining order and peace. They are less likely to go on a rampage, and certainly less likely to get caught. They tend to plan.
Grandmothers, in particular, know what being pro-life really means. They know that even with control of the family money, they would trade it all for the health and well-being of those they love and those in need. Grandmothers teach that taking something that isn’t offered is wrong. Grandmothers have a tendency to look out for much more than next Tuesday.
There should be no shame in being white or male, nor should there be undeserved pride. White people, or any other color combination of skin, soul, and x and y chromosomes, might want to stand on their own two feet and help out rather than insist they have some strangely concocted right to be hideous to others. Especially when they actually say, “This is good for the economy!” Seriously? Theft and deception and land mutilation are good?
We looked into it: There are 70,000,000 grandparents in the U.S., all of them old enough to vote. 86% of grandparents read a newspaper and 90% talk about their grandchildren, whether asked to or not. 70% use search engines. 65% shop online and 45% are on social networks. A third have been married more than once. Four times more of them have regular sex than have a tattoo, and 15% have demonstrated for a cause. They also control 75% of the real wealth in the U.S.
Twenty percent of grandparents in United States are non-white, but 40% of their grandchildren are a color wheel of diversity. Which means the next generation of grandparents will have a wide, rather than narrow, view of people not from the same neighborhood.
Grandmothers, in particular, can organize better than any other group, ever, because of centuries of doing it to ensure the freedom of the tribe, the block, the apartment building, the family. Grandmothers are the go-to person for confession or advice. They have a more fair and less frantic way of looking at the world than those who are caught up in competition.
Grandmothers could be the unpolled voting bloc that determines the outcome of our presidential election. But we’re willing to bet that before that, they could stop environmental damage caused by those who aren’t grandmothers. All they have to do is not invite the greedy ones to dinner or the will reading.
At the very least, grandmothers know it takes strong women to teach women to be strong, and they know to have no fear of what is to come.