Gyasi Ross: America seems comfortable with deaths of Natives

I’m not sure that there is proper or a wrong way to mourn. I mean, I get the politics—Native people have definitely been on the Lebanese side of national mourning; it seems like no one ever cares when we die. And that makes me stingy with my mourning—honestly, I tend to save it for when my folks die because I know that nobody else seems to care about it.

But I don’t know if that’s right either. I mean, when a child loses her/his parents because of some unnecessary and evil act, it’s terrible. The color doesn’t matter. When a child gets killed for whatever reason, of any color, it should hurt everybody’s spirit. It’s easy to simply act militant without much thought, “Screw them! Our people were killed and nobody cared so I’m not gonna care about anybody either!” You know the rhetoric.

But that’s stupid. And dishonest. At some point, we’re all just humans. And that’s cool. Because Native people show, by virtue of everything from our exemplary service in the military to our continued participation in this system that continues to give us the shaft that we’re willing to be part of a larger team.

America. To see everyone as human beings. Justice for all.