Truth Be Told

Signed copies of the book I co-authored with Soong-Chan Rah, "Unsettling Truths - The Ongoing Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery" are available from my website: https://wirelesshogan.com/2019/12/18/available-now-unsettling-truths/.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

My Twitter Thread responding to @RealDonaldTrump for calling #ColinKaepernick a Son of a B*tch for kneeling in protest during National Anthem.

On Friday President Trump was speaking at a political rally for Luther Strange in Alabama. During the rally he called Colin Kaepernick a "Son of a B*tch" because of his practice of kneeling in protest during the National Anthem. President Trump went on to state that any NFL player who kneels during the National Anthem should be fired by the NFL team owners. On Saturday, President Trump reiterated his statements on Twitter.


I travel throughout the country speaking about the Doctrine of Discovery and its racist and dehumanizing influence on the foundations of the United States of America. Over the past several years I have spoken to thousands of people, but I do not know how to get an audience with President Trump to speak with him about this history. So I decided to address him using his preferred method of communication. Twitter. I composed a thread of 36 tweets. This thread is my attempt to educate him on the Doctrine of Discovery and the work that needs to be done on our foundations. I welcome you read the thread. Some of the tweets are embedded in this post, some are shared as graphics and some are simply printed as text. You can also read the entire thread on Twitter by clicking on the embedded Tweet below.  And if you feel so inclined, please re-tweet any of them. Who knows, we just might get his attention.

You state that you are not racist. So, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I must conclude you are unaware of our nations true history.

Please allow me to share with you a Native Perspective on American history and the Doctrine of Discovery.

The founding fathers embedded the Doctrine of Discovery deep into US Foundations (I.e. Declaration of Independence, Constitution & SCOTUS)



Making it very clear that the only reason founding fathers used inclusive term All men is b/c they had a very narrow definition of humanity.

Article 1 Sec. 2 of US Constitution excludes women & natives, it counts black people as 3/5th human. This only leaves white men.

The purpose of the US Constitution is to protect the interests of white, land owning, men (in 1776 only land owners could vote).





Section 1 of the 14th Amendment extends rights of citizenship to anyone born here under the jurisdiction of the govt.

But Section 2 still excludes women & natives and places the full rights of citizenship under jurisdiction of criminal justice system.

To this day, US Constitution contains 52 gender specific, male pronouns re: who can run for and hold public office or even is a citizen.



Marshall SCOTUS also references Doctrine of Discovery & rules natives only have right of occupancy while whites have the right of discovery.

This legal precedent and Doctrine of Discovery are referenced by SCOTUS again in 1954, 1985 and 2005.

In 1830 Andrew Jackson signed Indian Removal Act which results in Trail of Tears, Long Walk & deaths of tens of thousands of indigenous people.

19th century is filled with numerous massacres like Sand Creek in CO and Wounded Knee in SD.

Between 1839 and 1898 US Congress awards 425 Congressional Medals of Honor to US soldiers for ethnic cleansing of Turtle Island.



This is a hard fact to swallow, so here is the link to the recipients listed on US Army Center of Military History.
http://www.history.army.mil/moh/indianwars.html



Mr. President (@potus), The question is not "Why is Colin Kaepernick kneeling in protest?" The question is "Why aren't you?"


Or we can commit ourselves to working hard to make the USA a nation where we the people finally means all the people.

Colin Kaepernick is respectfully kneeling in protest, doing his part to draw attention to the deep seeded racial problems that we face.

And you called him a “Son of a b-“ and said any NFL player who also kneels in protest should be fired by NFL.

When you are President of a nation that is systemically racist & sexist and you seek to silence the voices of those working for change…

you are either willfully ignorant or, blatantly sexist and white supremacist.

I tagged you in this thread so the prior will no longer be an excuse. But our nation needs you to decide…
The USA needs a national dialogue on race, gender and class. A Truth and Conciliation Commission on par w/ ZA, RW & CA. I call it #TCC2021

Respectfully,
Mark Charles
(Navajo)

And if you have a change of heart, my good friend @LeroyBarber is hosting a #NFLKneelDown protest in Detroit, Oct 8.
http://nflkneeldown.com/
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