YouTube: A short clip from Chato, starring Charles Branson. Language may be offensive to some.
Alright, sports fans, within the past several months the controversy over the Washington Redskins team name issue has been quite forcibly broached by just about everybody everywhere. The most astute and journalistically stalwart minds on both sides of the fray have energetically weighed in on what is perhaps the most culturally compelling dispute thrust upon us as contemporary Native people, especially as processed in a collective sense. But what of the impact of this word on the common Native person? How is the typical Native person actually harmed by the indiscriminate usage of this much-maligned appellation? Ask me, for I am but a common Native man. I am in no way a professional writer or any kind of a nationally directed voice of conscience. As an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (and also of Santee Sioux, Oneida and Northern Cheyenne heritage), I feel that I am distinctly qualified to provide some insight as the questions presented. And as I approach my 62nd winter I feel obliged to stand tough for tradition and honor and to freely share of my life experiences as an elder to our younger people. The time: 1972. The place: An obscure US Army field rocket artillery base in southern Germany. I was only 19-years old then and had just attained the rank of private first class, E3. I was no one of any major or even minor significance in the military scheme of things at that time. But I was most assuredly Native and proud to be so. This particular unit I was assigned to was a very strange one to say the least in that since it was a tactical nuclear missile unit (our mission was to use nukes against an invasion across the so-called Iron Curtain by Russia and the Warsaw Pact and then to beat a hasty retreat to France), the personnel consisted of mega-intellectual, scientific types as well as the dregs of the enlisted ranks. And I use the word "dregs" quite accurately as the unpopular Vietnam War was still raging and the Army was forced to meet its manpower needs with a pathetic multitude of draftees, hippies and even those who were to do their time serving as a GI instead of in some city or county lock-up. With such a diverse array of demographics, a horrid microcosm of US society, there were bound to be racists of every description. And I might add that 42 years ago, the racism towards any and all ethnic minorities was much worse than it is today, more public, more caustic, more violent. And it was due to an integral component of American violence, the western movie, that was to touch my life in such a grave manner. Now I have never been called a "redskin" per se in all of my life. I have, however, been referred to as a "red-skinned nigger." In the opening scene of the film "Chato's Land," the great action superstar Charles Bronson plays a "half-breed" Apache who is forced to shoot and kill a racist lawman in self-defense per this short YouTube clip. For the second time in Hollywood history, "red-skinned nigger" is used by an enraged character in reference to a Native person, the first instance being the outraged cowboy in "The Searchers (1956)" and featuring the bane of Native people of that era, John Wayne. "Chato's Land" was shown at the base theater for a whole week, just long enough for every racist redneck, cowboy, hick, farmer, and so-called "cracker" to ingest the "red-skinned nigger" epithet and to begin to wield it with abandon. In addition to this motley assortment of haters there was an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan known as the "White Rabbits" who had formed to counter the scourge of black-on-white violence among the enlisted crowd. And it was the White Rabbits that yours truly had no choice but to mix it up with. "Martin! You're a red-skinned nigger!" "Hey! Red-skinned nigger!" "Hey! Pocahontas! "These were the most frequently used taunts that the White Rabbits employed against me, the only Native troop at headquarters. Out of a unit of 1100 personnel, for the first six months of my time there I was the ONLY Native soldier. There was one other, but out of some deeply entrenched sense of shame he identified himself as Hawaiian (and whenever I attempted to talk to him he literally ran away). So, one night, after dinner off-base at a local "gasthaus" (guesthouse), I was cornered in the restroom by a very intoxicated member of the White Rabbits. "How yer doin' ya rad-skanned nergger?!" The guy was that drunk. I turned to just walk away as was my custom then in dealing with difficult personalities. "I sad how yer doin' BOY?!" The scent of liquor and tobacco so strong upon his breath that I was close to vomiting. He then grabbed me by the neck. I turned and grabbed him by the neck and we both fell down the stairway. All I recall is the air being knocked out of me and tumbling and tumbling until I reached the floor. My tormentor lay motionless on the hard tiles. I got up and left the building. The next day the talk of the town was that someone from the unit had been found paralyzed from the neck down and was flown back to the states. In all of my 61 years I have never been called a redskin. I have, however, been referred to and very vociferously, as a "red-skinned nigger." Chaske Martin (Lakota/Dakota/Oneida/Northern Cheyenne) currently resides in the Philippines and is working on a novel that focuses on bi-polar illness in Indian Country.
Join the Conversation
