Någon gång i mars i år sköts tio människor ihjäl – gärningsmannen avslutade dådet med att skjuta sig själv – i Red Lake High School i ett indianreservat långt uppe i norra Minnesota. Jag minns en del bilder, en del ansikten, skolkamrater till de döda. Jag har vaga bilder av en nordlig isolerad trakt – nordligare och mer isolerad än den här – en trakt bortom horisonten, en trakt som vanligen tillhör glömskan, men som en gång fick strålkastarljuset på sig på grund av ett stort elände. Hur kan det vara att leva där? Och vad är egentligen ett reservat? Jag kan inte riktigt föreställa mig vad det är att vara en människa som lever i ett reservat. Och när det sedan händer något som den här stora meningslösa dödsskjutningen…
Nu i dagarna har delar av rättsläget tydligen klarnat något…
The son of Red Lake Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain has pleaded guilty to one charge related to the shootings last March at Red Lake High School. Ten people died that day. Two other charges against Louis Jourdain, 17, have been dropped, including a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
Minneapolis, Minn. — Louis Jourdain was best friends and cousins with 16-year-old Jeff Weise. On March 21, Weise shot and killed nine people on the northern Minnesota reservation before shooting himself. Jourdain was the only person arrested following the shootings. Because he’s a juvenile, details of the charges against him have been kept secret, until now.
I think it’s not so isolated as northern Sweden. I’ve not been there but hope to go sometime. I had a student in an online class that teaches in that school. American society has not been good to Indians and there are high rates of alcoholism and diabetes. Much of this goes back to the days when children were kidnapped and forced to boarding schools far from home where they were forbidden to speak their languages,wear their clothes. When they returned, they had missed important formative years. They had not become white and they didn’t know how to live in an Indian environment. Now we have the effects for several generations. (By the way,this happened in Australia up until the 1970s) But there are some amazing Indian writers, lawyers, doctors, teachers and some tribes have been successul in taking charge of their own education and healthcare. When I asked teachers in Hopi and Navajo schools (in Arizone & New Mexico) several years ago what the biggest problems were,the all said the same: white male principals. I talked to one of these who is one of the biggest bigots I’ve ever met and I could not believe he was at an Indian school.
Also remember: there have been shootings in otherAmerican schools by whites.
Michal
Thanks, Michal, for the information. I have a question: Do the Indians in Red Lake still speak their language?
You know, I’m not really sure how many speak their language. Some do. The author Louise Erdrich learned it as an adult. She now owns a bookstorewith her daughters (she also has a very young child) in Minneapolis. I’ll check more when I’m there, or with my former student who teaches ESL there, which is odd since most of the kids she teaches have English as a 1st language.
Thanks, that would be very interesting. By the way, what does ESL mean? English as a foreign language or something like that?
En något sen kommentar, höll jag på att säga, men det har ju inte ens gått ett år! ESL står mycket riktigt för English as a Second Language.
//JJ
Tack Johan , för upplysningen. Nej, inte är det särskilt länge sedan detta hände, det är bara den här tiden som verkar gå så fort/vara så kort.