Happy Little Bighorn anniversary
Scrivener June 25th, 2008
My friend Michael Elliott has a really great op-end in the LA Times today, the anniversary of Custer’s Last Stand, on the displays of patriotism among the American Indians at the reenactments of the battle in Montana:
In this, America’s season of intense patriotic display, those of us who are not Indians may be able to learn a few things about patriotism from the Little Bighorn celebration. The first is that American patriotism is not something that you simply have or do not. What that flag means to you will depend heavily on how you regard the history behind it. [...]
The other insight is that genuine patriotism can still take place amid divided loyalties. Americans are capable of more nuanced thinking about what it means to be an American than we usually give ourselves credit for. Non-Indians who attend celebrations like the Little Bighorn anniversary are often surprised by the exhibitions of U.S. patriotism. But for more than a century, American Indians on the Plains have understood that their love of country can contain both their struggles to achieve tribal autonomy and their deeply felt attachments to the United States.