GUEST BLOG: Hone Harawira – The lesson for indigenous peoples from MAGA hat incident
Teen in confrontation with Native American elder says he was trying to defuse the situation
A crowd of teenagers surrounded a Native American elder and other activists and appeared to mock them after Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial.Videos of the confrontation show a smiling young man in a red Make America Great Again hat standing directly in front of the man, who was playing a drum and chanting. Other kids could be seen laughing, jumping around and seemingly making fun of the chants.
Nathan Phillips, an elder with the Omaha tribe, said the confrontation felt like “hate unbridled.” In the moment, he said he was scared for his safety and the safety of those with him.
One lesson to be learned from this incident is to never, ever let your elders be put in a position where their mana, their dignity, their spiritual essence can be challenged or demeaned by ignorant and/or abusive people.
Always have your warriors travel with them to guard them from harm.
Hone Harawira is the leader of the MANA Movement
The vids been the subject of wide debate online, the unedited ver is quite different, unfortunately disrespect of elders has been used in another metoo moment, publicizing such behavior only leads to another woke trend, they dont get the Mana concept in the U.S. obviously
Homes right though. Should never allow your own to be put in a situation like that. Alone, in the media, no support. Tragic really.
yeah but, you’re so pussy you’re scared of blog comments. bunker wimp
Nigga. Keep writing. I refuse to confirm your negative.
He’s an old man FFS…not some mystical being.
Being brown doesn’t imbue you with certain powers once you reach old age.
Some of the posts on this blog remind me of Mark Twain when he said “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years”. That was me , still at 14 in Twain’s terms, driving my mother south from Whangarei. I picked up a hitchhiker, a Maori boy, who put me to shame. He was enthusiastiscally respectful of my mother, an old wise woman – which she was.
I am trying to say many Maori have a strong cultural regard for the elderly which we Pakeha could learn from.