Reznet

I remember being in kindergarten and wondering why I had to make an ‘Indian’ costume out of a paper grocery sack.

“We don’t dress like this,” I thought to myself as I stared down at my tiny mock-buckskin dress, which was made from an upside down paper sack with three holes in the top of the paper sack for my head and arms. The bottom was cut with scissors to look like fringe.

Each kindergarten class was dressing up for Thanksgiving as either a Pilgrim or an ‘Indian.’ There was never a doubt in my mind that I wanted to be an Indian, because I was an Indian. And even at six years of age, I could rattle off my three tribes.

Creek, Choctaw and Rosebud Sioux.

But I was confused as to why I had to dress up in a paper sack and a construction-paper headband with a feather.

That was 20 years ago, and today, in 2008, there are still schools in Oklahoma who commemorate the Land Run (or land rush) of 1889.

The blatant theft of Indian land may be just something to read about in the history books for non-Indian Oklahomans, but the commemoration of a life-altering event for so many Indians is like reopening old wounds.

Granted I wasn’t there, it happened to my great-great grandparents, yet, the fact that it’s as celebrated in Oklahoma as Labor Day is sickening.

Last year when my kids were in pre-k, they were to participate in a land run event at school. I called the school and told them they wouldn’t be there that day. I refused to let my children participate in something like that. They were to dress in their best ‘pioneer’ gear and get ready for a ‘good, old-fashioned land run.’

Good and old-fashioned? Was the school planning on setting up Indian children as the ‘Indians’ so the white kids could come run them over and take their land?

It was an even bigger even last year because Oklahoma celebrated its centennial. Whoop-de-doo. The state that was formed from stealing land and shoving the tribes onto tiny areas of land is turning 100. Sign me up for the cake and festivities.

This year, my 6-year-old twins are in kindergarten and weren’t a part of the activities. Just the fourth grade classes held a land run, but it was equally as disturbing the day I dropped them off and saw the tiny, shiny, red Radio Flyers covered in cloth to look like tiny schooners.

The ‘pioneers’ had their theft wagons loaded and ready.

I don’t understand how a school that has such a high population of Indian students is so blind to the racism.

The school, which is in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, has a high number of Cherokee kids, but other tribes as well.

My kids are part Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Sicangu (Rosebud) Lakota. They can tell you their tribes if you ask them. They know that their great-grandpa was from the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota and that two of their other great-grandparents are full-bloods.

Last year they couldn’t help but get excited about the land run events. The school hypes up the kids to get them involved.

They were disappointed the day I kept them home, but after I took the opportunity to share a piece of American Indian Oklahoma history with them, they understood and know what a land run was and why it shouldn’t be commemorated.