Thank you, God, for making our predecessors

so easy to eliminate. We invited them to lunch,

and traded them our beads for their great land.

We relocated, restricted and tortured them.

We gave them smallpox-infected blankets.

We killed their buffalo and dishonored sacred

grounds. We bred in them fear and alcoholism.

Carved them out of wood for folks’ amusement.

Slaughtered three hundred Lakotas at Wounded Knee.

Later, we made fun of them on television as well as

in movies and sports; called them ‘Redskins,’

Indians, Wahoos and Chiefs. See also Tonto.

And now their primeval eden is a hotbox of decay.

We turned their vibrant culture into mere survival.

The western world has been tamed by desecration.

And, to tell the truth, the lunch was not all that good.