First off, I haven't seen the production of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. But I read the book. Many years ago. But if this production is true to the book it will be a wake-up call for many. You'll come away knowing exactly what was done to the people of the First Nations. The false promises, outright lies, cruelty, deprivation forced on them. The grief of seeing your wife, husband, father, child...your entire family destroyed. To see land that had sustained your people for eons being taken over and divided up, destroyed, its animal life extinguished with no hope of recovery. And finally, to see the mountains those lands surrounded...mountains sacred to all the tribes and nations of your race...to see the faces of foreign leaders carved into those mountains. Those of you with an ability for true empathy might have an inkling of the despair and hopelessness felt by the people of the First Nations. The majority will feel bad for a short while and then continue with their lives as before. And for some, some will feel a burden on their soul the likes of which you will wish you had never known. You'll learn to live with it. I can promise you that. We whites have an amazing capacity for justifying what our race has done to others and living with its subsequent guilt. But how long can we do that? Injustices done in the past can't be erased. And the injustice to the First Peoples continues to this day. If racial memory is an actuality, how large a burden of guilt can we carry until our collective backs break from its weight?
Review of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
