By Kenneth L. Hardin

I try to be informed on many different topics, but I was embarrassed recently in a conversation with a MAGA cult member because I was unaware of who this country’s true Founding Fathers were. I had no problem naming the group of late 18^th century leaders, 14 of whom were slave owners, that helped frame our government and free some of our citizens from British rule. I bet that independence felt, smelled and tasted good to all those who came over on top of the boats. How can you find or discover something that is already here and previously occupied by other people? With that, I stumbled when trying to name all of the original recognized Founding Fathers of this land.

I was a decent student in school during my formative years, but if I would’ve had access to Google back in the ’70s and ’80s, y’all might be reading about me in a history book today. I clicked on the search engine and sought to find who I needed to give the proper credit to the next time I’m verbally accosted by someone who has consumed the orange flavored Kool-Aid. My education throughout school favored the pilgrims. The TV shows I watched, like Tarzan, painted indigenous people as savages, and I rooted for the cowboys on a trip to Tweetsie Railroad as a child. This is why I was only familiar with a couple of the forefathers that shaped native Indian history.

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, better known as Chief Joseph, led a tribe located in the Pacific Northwest and fought heroically to keep the land there for his people. Chief Sitting Bull led the Sioux warriors, who took on and defeated General Custer’s Army in the historical battle of Little Big Horn. Geronimo was an Apache tribe leader who evaded capture by the U.S. Army while fighting to keep land for his people. Red Cloud was a Sioux Chief, who fought against the westward expansion to protect his tribe’s hunting grounds from settlers. There’s a great show I regularly watch on the Smithsonian Channel called “Aerial America” that gives you a historical introduction to how each state was formed. While it’s full of interesting facts and detailed information, it’s sad that in nearly every episode, they explain how the land was originally owned and inhabited by the native Indians. They don’t flinch on their commentary of how many tribes were mercilessly killed and their land outright stolen by the descendants of the other so-called Founders.

I was disheartened to discover the famed Mt. Rushmore was born out of a similar controversy. Before bearing the faces of the four U.S. presidents, the rock was referred to as The Six Grandfathers. When gold was discovered in the region in 1874, the U.S. government illegally seized the land from the Sioux nation in violation of an established treaty. In 1927, a U.S. Senator from South Dakota sponsored the bill to construct the monument and recommended that Chief Red Cloud be included. But instead of paying homage to the original founders of the land these new immigrants had stolen, the sculptor said he wanted the monument to, “represent the meaning of America.” I’m having trouble understanding what meaning he was trying to convey.

When I hear the “Children of the Corn” movie extras preaching about making this country great again, I always think back to the indigenous people, who were victims of genocide along with the land theft. So, if we’re going to take this country back to a better time, I suggest we take it all the way back and do right by the original people of this land. Anything else is just propaganda-filled noise. My question to the MAGA cult member was how anyone considered an immigrant today could be vilified and have so much hate and vitriol directed at them when we’re actually immigrants on stolen land?

The trash emptied itself recently on my social media page as people deleted me because they were upset about a question I posed. I noticed a drop in weekly numbers but since I’m one of the few who care little about likes or whether people follow me, I didn’t devote one minute of concern to it. When a commenter questioned why we have so many meaningless holidays dedicated to people that don’t truly deserve them, I asked why we have one dedicated to Columbus? I even posed another question that didn’t receive a response, “How do we know the names of the three ships Columbus sailed on but not the names of the tribe he slaughtered and the land he stole?” The educational system did me a disservice 50 years ago and that failure is continuing today with so many people in power trying to limit what can be taught in school. Instead of teaching real history, we’re offering kids a watered-down version that does nothing to offer dignity and respect to all cultures. It can cause irreparable psychological damage when you have someone like me who looks back on all the times I played a pilgrim in Thanksgiving plays only to grow up and feel shame when I learned the truth. We won’t stop teaching “his-story” until we live up to the quote that reads, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

We can’t continue to push the immigrant lie taken from the dominant narrative of our history and ridiculously yelled out at MAGA rallies. Instead, we should turn the volume down and include the perspectives of all oppressed and marginalized groups. If we don’t cease this pattern of educational fear and intimidation, stop being hesitant to teach this nation’s past failures and atrocities against the original people of this land and acknowledge mistreatment of other marginalized groups in this nation’s growth and development, we’ll never truly be the United States of America.

Kenneth L. (Kenny) Hardin is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.