Quote collection
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"You see the one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not a Native American. I'm not politically correct. Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans. And if you notice, I put American before my ethnicity. I'm not a hyphenated African-American or Irish-American or Jewish-American or Mexican-American."
"I find freedom to be the most important issue facing any human being today, because without freedom, then life is pointless. The more dependent you become on centralized power, the more easily you are lead around."
"We Indians do not teach that there is only one god. We know that everything has power, including the most inanimate, inconsequential things. Stones have power. A blade of grass has power. Trees and clouds and all our relatives in the insect and animal world have power. We believe we must respect that power by acknowledging it's presence. By honoring the power of the spirits in that way, it becomes our power as well. It protects us."
"Before AIM, Indians were dispirited, defeated, and culturally dissolving. People were ashamed to be Indian. You didn't see the young people wearing braids or chokers or ribbon shirts in those days. Hell, I didn't wear 'em. People didn't Sun Dance, they didn't Sweat, they were losing their languages. Then there was that spark at Alcatraz, and we took off. Man, we took a ride across this country. We put Indians and Indian rights smack dab in the middle of the public consciousness for the first time since the so-called Indian wars."
"All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started. That's revolution."
"[The is] a mistaken belief that [the word Indian] refers somehow to the country, India. When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India. Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492.... Columbus called the tribal people he met "Indio," from the Italian in dio, meaning "in God.""
"The only way you can be free is to know is that you are worthwhile as a distinct human being."
"I’m a human being, I’m not anyone’s mascot! And I am America’s conscience. And that’s what they don’t want to look at. They would rather look at a cartoon character than at the deceit of this country and this government."
"Freedom is for everyone, whatever lifestyle they choose, as long as it's peaceful and honest"
"Golden eagles don`t mate with bald eagles, deer don`t mate with antelope, gray wolves don`t mate with red wolves. Just look at domesticated animals, at mongrel dogs, and mixed breed horses, and you`ll know the Great Mystery didn`t intend them to be that way. We weakened the species and introduced disease by mixing what should be kept seperate. Among humans, intermarriage weakens the respect people have for themselves and for their traditions. It undermines clarity of spirit and mind."
"It’s just unconscionable that America has become so stupid."
"'Indian policy' has now been brought down upon the American people, and the American people are the new Indians of the 21st Century."
"It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain."
"What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of Europe."
"I do not want to be civilized. I want to be liberated."
"If I want my people to be free, Americans have to be free."
"Let me go to Clinton's new proposal: to have uniforms in public schools. And people are doing that. How come they're doing that? Dress codes! I find that abhorrent."
"If you learn from an experience, that's good - so nothing bad happened to you."
"So I'd much rather get across the concept of freedom. It's what's important to Indian children. The only way you can be free is to know is that you are worthwhile as a distinct human being. Otherwise you become what the colonizers have designed, and that is a lemming. Get in line, punch all the right keys, and die."
"Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion. It's an insult to our entire being. It's bad enough getting four white faces carved in up there [on Mount Rushmore], the shrine of hypocrisy."