Day 6 {Emelia}

The sun rose in Pine Ridge on a tattered American flag, waving in the unobstructed South Dakota wind. Light slowly inundated the land, illuminating the remnants of the flag hung above three secluded hilltop graves. This image resonates as a reflection of what this land represents: the fallibility of the United States, the loss of life, and the persistence of time.

I imagine our country as the pieces of the American flag that clung to the pole. The massacres, sterilization, and germ warfare that saturate the history of Native Americans prove a conscious attempt by the U.S. government and its people to erase a rich culture, quickly labeled as savage, under the illusion of manifest destiny. The land of the free and the home of the brave: I think of Ta-nehisi Coates emphasizing that “one cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error.” The desire to maintain the image of an unadulterated flag overtakes the desire to maintain humanity. Will the government ever acknowledge the massacre at Wounded Knee?

The United States is in fact a wind-torn, sun-bleached, flag with a past. To ignore that past is to let those with privilege live in an illusion of greatness and force the wronged into hidden suffering. However, as much as we try and force the Lakota to be a people of this past, I have heard here the stories of people living, thriving, and fighting for the present.

Emelia