Dreams From My President

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to discuss the news with my Republican Cousin Ray Sixkiller. It’s hard to resist needling him a little in the week the government admitted we’ve become too poor to afford any funding at all for the Special Olympics.

Knowing that lots of non-Cherokees will read this, I must get one reason for skepticism out of the way. Cousin Ray is not an outlier in his party affiliation. There are lots of Republican Cherokees, and the reason why in two words is “Andrew Jackson.”

Jackson was the POTUS who claimed to represent the common man, lived in a mansion, and defied the Supreme Court to keep his campaign promise to remove all Indians west of the Mississippi.

Our undying hostility to Jackson always raises the question, “When are you Cherokees going to get over the Trail of Tears?” It’s a cheap shot to say the same time Jews get over the Shoah or the Navajos get over the Long Walk or the Potawatomi get over the Trail of Death. But sometimes correct answers are sold on the bargain aisle.

How long does it take to forget about a disaster of a size that everybody knew somebody who died? Does it make it worse that the whole happening was man-made and based on fraud? What’s the size of the disappointment that Chief John Ross came within one vote of stopping the travesty by convincing the US Senate to withhold its consent and advise the executive that this country does not traffic in fraud.