Wisdom Gained in K Thru 2

Life in the Boomer Lane has been thinking a lot, lately, about Cowboys and Indians. She has visual evidence of how important Cowboys were in her early life when she looks at her second grade school photo. Virtually every boy was wearing a plaid shirt or a solid color shirt with fringe or embroidery, that represented Cowboy. No girl was, but that was difficult when girls were required to wear skirts or dresses. Also, no one ever told us that there was any such thing as Cowgirls. We had to live vicariously through the boys.

School lessons included learning that the West was a huge, empty land, inhabited by basically no one. Indians were there, but only as a nuscence or threat to the brave Cowboys who rode the West, paving the way for the also-brave settlers who, instead of merely riding around on horses and living in what looked like houses made of cloth (i.e.: lives that were impermanent anyway), built actual houses and farmed the land. The settlers, alone, turned empty, non-productive land into the glory that existed in modern times.

Davy Crockett, a type of Cowboy, and, at that time, the most popular among the early elementary school set, defeated the surly Mexicans (like Indians, swarthy and up to no good) at the Alamo. Like a Wild West Superman, he fought for truth and justice, the American way. Every God-fearing male under the age of ten owned a coonskin cap, even though they were not allowed to wear it for the school photo.

It would take decades before LBL would learn that the North American continent, pre-White Guys, was populated by a myriad of cultures, who we conveniently lumped together as Americans Indians. Most lived in permanent homes, farmed, had deep history, culture, medicine, and created astonishing art. She also learned that the Alamo was fought because of the issue of slavery in the Mexican-controlled territory of Texas (Mexico, anti-slavery and the Texans pro-slavery).

In sum, LBL now knows several things, thanks to the Cowboys and Indians.

1. When we are told things over and over, no matter how false, we believe them. We don’t stop to evaluate and to notice that a lot of what we are told simply doesn’t make sense. If the Indians created world-class art, it’s way easier to destroy it than to try to explain how it was created by sub-humans.

2. We like to identify with the winners. More, we like the idea that the losers were either dangerous or inferior. We see no humanity in the losers, whether they be of a different race or a different political party. That makes the winners just, no matter what they had to do to win and no matter what will be done to the losers as a result. And, just in case the winners actually do lose, we readily accept that the loss was either a mistake or false.

3. We like to wear symbols of those we perceive to be the winners, whether it’s cowboy shirts and coonskin caps or red baseball caps and ear bandages. It makes us feel safe to be part of something we perceive as more powerful (and less flawed) than we are.

4. We dismiss the very real accomplishments of those we perceive to be the Losers, even if such dismissal makes our own lives more difficult. The very real accomplishments of the Native Americans (farming techniques, ecology, fire control, contraceptives, syringes, pain relievers, baby formula, women’s equality and on and on) were happily lost, just so that we could discover these on our own, hundreds of years later.

Now Husband tells LBL that there are no true losses. They are merely setbacks, in a larger scale victory. LBL would like to believe that. She would like to believe that our current political system will eventually resettle into something that actually attempts to serve people. And she would like to believe that the Native Americans will eventually receive their due. Mostly, she would like to believe that the decisions of our lives, whether they be personal or professional or pollitical, are based on something other than fear.