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It is impossible to be more absurd than the Obama conspiracy theories.I love Obama conspiracy theories. Out of all conspiracy theories they are the silliest and the most fun to research.My personal Favorite. Michelle is a man named Michael:Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, was born Michael LaVaughn Robinson in Chicago, Illinois on January 17th, 1964. He was the second son born to Fraser Robinson III, a well known cocaine dealer and union thug for Crime Lord/Mayor Richard J. Daley, and Marian Shields Robinson, a transient street prostitute who was diagnosed with the HIV virus in 1998. He [Michael] was a popular high school athlete and in 1982, he accepted a scholarship to play middle linebacker for the Oregon State Beavers.THE PROOF!! Michael’s football playing days.Michelle Obama is a transexual?https://outrageousminds.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/introducing-michael-lavaughn-robinson-the-first-lady-of-the-united-states-of-america/The evidenceThe birthplace/birth certificate is one of the oldest and most nonsensical:Trump latched onto the birther controversy in 2011 but finally renounced it as untrue in 2016 explaining he was mistaken. True to form he took back his renouncement later but what are you going to do? After all we’re dealing with Trump where things rarely stay the same for more than a couple of days.I had forgotten about this one until Lee Cross reminded me so I’m including his comment:Did you omit the official Obama birth certificate sent by the White House to be tested, which was 100% scientifically proven to have been forged, because of your lack of time? All that time consuming and delightful research in the more fanciful theories, I'd guess. Turn your keen intellectual curiosity to real questions and not the obvious bogus claims.Arpaio Press Conference: Obama's Birth Certificate Was Forged. Sheriff Arpaio is a controversial law enforcement officer with a history of breaking the law when if it is inconvenient to his agenda. When facing prison time he was pardoned by Trump.Interview with Sheriff ArpaioDefending the theoryTrump gives it up. A history of his support for it.Trump on Birtherism: Wrong, and Wrong - FactCheck.orgObama is a secret Muslim:This one began right after he took the stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, with chain emails alleging his "true" religious affiliation. The rumor soon found its way onto the popular conservative online forum Free Republic, and took on a whole new life in the years to come. Related: Obama secretly speaks Arabic, attended a madrassa as a kid in Indonesia, referred to "my Muslim faith" in an interview, and was sworn in on a Koran.Obama attended an Indonesian public schoolBarack Obama religion conspiracy theorieshttp://www.politifact.com/truth-...Obama is bringing 100 million Muslims to America:Avi Lipkin and his PR outfit Special Guests claimed to have evidence of a scheme to bring roughly 100 million Muslims from the Middle East into the United States, converting the country into an Islamic nation by the end of Obama's second term and making it easier to obliterate Israel.Obama's Secret Plot To Bring 100 Million Muslims to the USObama once aided the mujahideen:Harlem pastor and professional race-baiter James David Manning contended that in his younger days, Obama went undercover as a CIA agent to facilitate the transfer of cash and weapons to the Afghan mujahideen in the '80s, thereby aiding what would become the Taliban.Where Stupid Meets Racist: Venn Diagram Of Every Major Right Wing Obama Conspiracy! (INFOGRAPHIC)Obama is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood:Billy Graham's son Franklin wants you to know that Obama is allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the federal government.Obama redecorated the Oval Office in Middle Eastern style:Driven by his fierce sense of anti-American interior design, Obama got rid of the red, white, and blue decoration scheme in his White House office.President Obama Has Redecorated the Oval Office Middle Eastern Style-Fiction!Obama married a Pakistani guy:World Net Daily correspondent and conspiracymonger extraordinaire Jerome Corsi posted a video in which he claimed to have "strong" evidence that Obama was once married to his college roommate from Pakistan. The smoking gun: Photos of the chums in which the future president is "sitting about on the [Pakistani roommate's] lap."THE PROOF!!!Corsi raises critical questions about Obama’s mysterious pastRelated: For years Obama wore a gold ring on his left hand. Was it his gay-wedding ring?Tea Party author says evidence proves Obama married a Pakistani man (VIDEO)Obama's ring has a Koranic verse on it:The very same ring, which Obama now wears as his (straight) wedding band, is allegedly emblazoned with a key phrase in the Islamic declaration of faith: "There is no god except Allah." (It's not.)Obama’s ring: ‘There is no god but Allah’Obama was funded by a Saudi prince:Another fairy tale courtesy of Corsi: In late-'70s Chicago, Obama secured political and academic funding from a variety of sketchy Arab sponsors, including a Saudi prince. Which may explain why President Obama bowed to the Saudi king when they met in 2009.Saudis control Obama & Fox NewsObama was born in Kenya:In early 2008, fringe theorists began a push to prove Obama was born on foreign soil and was therefore ineligible to live in the White House. The theory gained national attention thanks to the efforts of perennial GOP candidate Alan Keyes, "birther queen" Orly Taitz, and Corsi. Related: Obama's birth certificate is a fake, he killed his grandmother in Hawaii because she knew the truth, sealed access to his birth certificate and other damning documents, and did pretty much everything you could possibly do for the sake of a phony birth certificate.Unexploded Bombshell: Barack Obama Admitted Kenyan Birth - Freedom OutpostObama lost his US citizenship:According to Corsi, Obama became a citizen of Indonesia while he lived there as a child.Michelle's "whitey" tape:During the 2008 campaign, rumors surfaced that a video of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" would be released to sink her husband's campaign. It's never materialized. Related: The time Glenn Beck called Barack Obama a racist.Whitey tape - RationalWikiMichelle is a male transexual named Michael:More right wing fascination with homosexuality.Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, was born Michael LaVaughn Robinson in Chicago, Illinois on January 17th, 1964. He was the second son born to Fraser Robinson III, a well known cocaine dealer and union thug for Crime Lord/Mayor Richard J. Daley, and Marian Shields Robinson, a transient street prostitute who was diagnosed with the HIV virus in 1998. He [Michael] was a popular high school athlete and in 1982, he accepted a scholarship to play middle linebacker for the Oregon State Beavers.Michelle Obama is a transexual?The Proof!!!Obama was a Black Panther:Well, only if you're not very good at spotting photoshopped images. Obama would have been in grade school at the time the photos were taken.snopes.com: Barack 'Black Panther' ObamaOriginalsThe photoshopped photosFACT CHECK: Was Barack Obama a Black Panther?Obama's favorite:"That military exercises we were doing in Texas were designed to begin martial law so that I could usurp the Constitution and stay in power longer. Anybody who thinks I could get away with telling Michelle I’m going to be president any longer than eight years does not know my wife."Obama Reveals His Favorite Anti-Obama Conspiracy TheoryObama is the son of Malcolm X:Because, you know, black people. This charmer popped up on Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller's anti-Muslim website. (Geller is also known for obsessing over Shariah turkeys she believes are destroying Thanksgiving.)The proofA couple of minutes to honor Geller’s contribution to our freedom.Pamela Gellar’s website: Numbskull Judge Tells Devout Jihad Bomber to "Read the Qur'an, a Book of Peace" in UK Downing Street Bomb/Theresa May Assassination Plot - Geller Reporthttp://pamelageller.comObama is the son of Frank Marshall Davis:The conspiracy film Dreams From my Real Father espouses the theory that Davis, a leftist activist, was not only Obama's ideological mentor but his biological father. Related: Obama got a nose job to make his nose look less like Davis'.Andy MartinObama's mom and dad were communists:That would be his real father, Barack Obama, Sr.Glenn Beck proves Obama is a communistObama murdered Antonin Scalia:Alex Jones tells us "Obama is one vote away from being able to ban guns, open the borders and actually have the court engage in its agenda and now Scalia dies. I mean, this is hard core," said Jones who also claimed the president orchestrated conservative pundit Andrew Breitbart's 2012 death.Obama's ghostwriter was Bill Ayers:Conservative commentators claimed they uncovered evidence that ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers was the true author of Obama's 1995 memoir Dreams from my Father. Beyond their shared radicalism, Obama asked Ayers to help because he had writer's block. Ayers makes fun of the theory but doesn’t exactly deny it.Bill Ayers Admits For Second Time He Wrote Obama's 'Dreams From My Father'First admissionSecond admissionLimbaugh gets in on the plotObama trained to overthrow the government:In 2008, leading Obama conspiracy theorist Andy Martin declared on Fox News' Hannity's America that the then-presidential candidate had trained for "a radical overthrow of the government" during his time as a community organizer in Chicago.Andy MartinObama wouldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance:During the '08 campaign, Obama was rumored to have refused to say the pledge during a town hall meeting. A photo of the incident was actually taken while the national anthem was being sung.Obama removed the flag from Air Force One:…and replaced it with his campaign logo: FACT CHECK: Barack Obama Removes Flag from Air Force One?The proof!!!However the plane is not Air Force One, it is his campaign plane.The real Air Force OneObama ordered soldiers to swear allegiance to him:In April 2009, a clearly satirical report detailing how secretary of defense Robert Gates was growing "extremely frustrated" with the White House's plans to scrub the Constitution from the military oath of loyalty made the rounds on the right-wing blogosphere.Obama secretly gave away American islands to Russia:Texas House candidate Wes Riddle endorsed this theory and noted the relinquishment as grounds for impeachment. However, the seven Arctic islands were actually given away in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.Conspiracy Watch: Did Obama Give American Islands to Russia?Obama caused the recession—in 1995:According to a recent Daily Caller story, Obama's efforts to force banks to lend to African Americans in the mid-'90s led to the subprime mortgage crises that killed the economy in 2008.Obama's youth reeducation camps:Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) warned that "young people will be put into mandatory service" at politically correct, billion-dollar camps run by the Democrats.Bachmann Warns Of "Re-Education Camps" For Young PeopleObama's coming for your guns:Extreme gun-rights outfits, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), alleged that the Obama administration is supporting the (nonexistent) United Nations Small Arms Treaty, which would lead to nationwide gun confiscation. Unfounded fears of gun confiscation have multiplied since the Newtown massacre.Obama counters the accusationThe truth: U.N. Arms Trade TreatyObama's coming for your gold:This theory was floated by Glenn Beck—and the gold company he shilled for.Obama is planning FEMA concentration camps:THE PROOF!! is a photo of a mobile home park in Arizona.Again with the camps. This theory got a big boost from Glenn Beck (who claims he didn't mean anything by it). Related: An executive order titled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," was issued in the middle of March 2012. Conservative commentators saw it as a martial law power-grab that allowed the president to commandeer farmland, steal everyone's food, and draft any American into slave labor for a war of aggression against Iran. Also, he has a "secret vault" at Interpol's headquarters for imprisoning Americans.Secret FEMA Death Camps: Already At A Location Near YouObama wants to confiscate your IRA:Conservatives sent out a message ad claiming that Obama wants to seize your retirement account by force.Obama caused the BP oil spill:Conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones promoted the theory that the Deepwater Horizon spill was all part of the administration's plans of oil nationalization and global government.Obama was behind the Aurora massacre:In July, Gun Owners of America blasted out a press release claiming that the mass murder at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, was suspiciously timed. "Someone in Washington" was probably behind it, paving the way for Obama-led firearm confiscation and "government genocide."WorldNetDaily Pundit Suggests The Obama Administration Is Behind Mass ShootingsObama personally caused Hurricane Sandy:It wasn’t global warming that made Sandy so intense; it was Barack. Alex Jones' site reported the president engineered the storm using a Pentagon weather modification project. The mayhem caused by the hurricane would afford Obama the opportunity to score points by briskly managing disaster relief a week before the election.Conspiracy Theorists Say Obama Engineered Hurricane Sandy - US News- BustleObama had Andrew Breitbart killed:In March 2012, conservative media impresario Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure. Less than a month prior to his death, he had announced that he had uncovered footage of Obama's formative years as a radical. So obviously, Obama had him offed. (The tapes were later revealed to contain things like a young Obama hugging a black college professors.) Related: People—like a Rod Blagojevich fundraiser and an Obama impersonator—died between 2008 and 2012. Obama was in office between 2008 and 2012…coincidence?!?!http://www.nachumlist.com/deadpo...Obama spiked the jobs report:"Jobs truthers" (like former GE CEO Jack Welch and Florida tea party congressman Allen West) accused the Obama administration of cooking the September unemployment numbers to manufacture a rosier picture of the economy and boost the president's chances of reelection.Obama faked bin Laden's death:Since no photographs of Osama bin Laden's corpse were produced, the Al Qaeda leader must still be out there. Fox News' Steve Doocy and Andrew Napolitano entertained the idea that Operation Neptune Spear was merely a ploy to revive Obama's sagging approval ratings.Obama's attempt to destroy Charleston, SC with a nuke:Obama’s response to his militaries failure to carry out this false flag attack was his immediate dismissal of Americans top two military nuclear commanders, and two of the US Marines top officers.http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/obama-trying-to-bomb-the-usObama's plan to fake an assassination attempt:A false-flag operation would create urban tumult and give Obama the pretext to declare martial law, thus suspending democracy, postponing the 2012 election, and prolonging his stay in office. The theory was flagged by Tenn. State Rep. Kelly Keisling, among others, after circulating online.Page on tennessean.comObama’s death squads targets gun rights activists:The tea party, with the help of libertarian websites, has uncovered this one. They were tipped off by Russian security forces.Obama’s death squadsThe Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama Death Squads Targeting Gun Rights ActivistsObama's planning a third term:The dust from the 2012 election had barely cleared when this one popped up.Obama the brainwashing hypnotist:As a master of neurolinguistic programming, Obama persuaded Americans to vote for him via subliminal messages. Related: Rush Limbaugh pondered if hypnosis was the reason that so many Jewish voters were in the bag for Obama. In October, Georgia GOP lawmakers held a briefing on the president's secret mind-control plot.BustleObama's teleprompter:Obama's eloquence is a myth! The 44th president is incapable of speaking in public without his teleprompter.Republicans mock Obama’s teleprompter useObama had a ghostwriter for everything:Jack Cashill over at WND had a hot scoop on how Obama's love letters to his college girlfriend were ghostwritten.Obama's anti-Semitic poetry:However, according to the American Thinker, Obama's ghostwriters did not write his youthful poem "Underground," which compares Jews to fig-eating underwater apes and echoes Koranic verse.Obama's exiled lover:Obama was supposedly fooling around with an attractive young staffer from his 2004 Senate campaign. Michelle Obama had the temptress packed off to the Caribbean before the '08 campaign.Obama is gay:Which explains why he joined Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. (Via Corsi, of course)This Man Has Proof That Obama Is Gay | VICE | SwedenObama lowered age of consent to 13:This one died right out of the starting gate since only the states can pass laws governing sexual activity.Obama Signs Law To Lower The Age Of Consensual Sex To 13 Years Of Age, Effective 3/1/16Obama's crack cocaine/gay sex/murder orgy cover-up:In 2008, a small-time conman named Larry Sinclair and his kilt-wearing lawyer held a press conference to tell the world of the future president's murderous, drug-and-sodomy-fueled crimes.His lawyer really was wearing kilt. Sinclair admits his criminal past.Mom of Murdered Obama Gay Lover Speaks UpFlashback: Obama’s Gay Sex-Cocaine Romps with Larry Sinclair -Obama's campaigns were funded by drug money:During an October conference call organized to oppose pot legalization, a writer from Lyndon LaRouche's magazine asked about "reports [that both Obama's] 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns have been financed in part by laundered drug money."Obama is the Antichrist:Related: If you play his 2008 Democratic nomination acceptance speech backwards, you can hear him instruct listeners to do Satan's bidding.Obama is a lizard overlord:According to codes hidden in Biblical verse, Obama is a reptilian humanoid. This idea has found its way on to some right-wing radio shows, and two Daily Caller reporters recently published a (satirical?) e-book on the topic titled, The Lizard King.https://www.amazon.com/Lizard-King-Shocking-Intergalactic-Ambitions-ebook/dp/B008TW3JQIObama is a LizardBarack Obama is the Lizard-King, Say 12 Million AmericansObama's adventures on Mars:As a teen, Obama participated in a CIA initiative to teleport to Mars using a top-secret "jump room." Self-described time travelers William Stillings and Andrew Basiago claim to have met the future POTUS at American space bases on the Red Planet. In early 2012, a spokesman for the National Security Council actually acknowledged these claims, and issued a fairly convincing denial.Bustle- Mars visitors Basiago and Stillings confirm Barack Obama traveled to MarsWhite House denies Obama teleported to Mars: White House Denies CIA Teleported Obama to MarsObamacare can withhold care from those un-“worthy of medical care”:Sarah Palin informed us Obamacare will have “death panels” who can decided to withhold care from those unworthy of medical care such as Palin’s elderly parents or children with Down syndrome. As a result a worthy section of the bill to provide voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life care options was removed from the bill. "Death panel" was named as PoliticFact “Lie of the Year", one of FactCheck’s "whoppers", and the most outrageous new term by the American Dialect Society.Death panelIn 2014 Tea Party Nation emailed members the following.These guys love legalese:The time has come to DEMAND the IMMEDIATE ARREST and PROSECUTION of one BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA upon his willful and transgression of 18 U.S. Code § 2339A.I hereby call on all members of the house and the senate to begin impeachment proceeding against Barack Hussein Obama and for Andrew B. “Drew” Willison, the current Senate Seargent [sic] at Arms to issue and execute an arrest warrant, taking the president, Barack Hussein Obama into custody.Barack Hussein Obama is in direct violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2339A – Providing material support to terrorists as a result of the removal of five Taliban GITMO detained terrorists and the transfer OF them to the government of Qatar where they, according to the specified arrangement negotiated BY Obama that they only be keep from traveling for a period of one year.IMPEACH AND ARREST THE TYRANT KING OBAMA!!I’m including this just for the fun of it: Trump Exposes Existence of FEMA Camps Through the Immigration Crisis

This is a broad generalization, but I have a couple.1: The lack of support for the LGBTQ community.2: The love for free speech as long as it’s their free speech.3: The desire to push religious fundamentalism into our branches of government.Although I’ve seen an influx in support for those who are gay or bisexual, there is still a great disconnect between letting people live their lives and the conservative/republican party. I am more libertarian when it comes to this subject because two consenting adults who wish to get married have no affect on my personal life. Yet so many republicans are abhorrently against it. Most of this lies in religious indoctrination.Republicans tend to be bigger fans of our Constitution than some of the farther left leaning folks. We see it as one of the greatest written documents in modern history. But, while we all claim a love for the 1st Amendment, I’ve seen a relatively significant amount of republicans carry a double standard for what is free speech. One example; in May of 2017, comedian Kathy Griffin held a bloodied fake head of the current president, Donald Trump for a photo shoot. While I thought it was a bit disgusting, I fervently support her right to do it. It is an expression and thus, protected by the 1st Amendment. Now, this doesn’t means that she is impervious to the potential of getting fired from an employer (like she did with CNN) but the amount of republicans who were outraged was foolish. I found myself defending her right, even though I politically don’t align with her on almost anything. This is just another example of outrage culture.Full disclosure: I am not religious. I’m similar in belief to Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens when it comes to religion. I’m in no way a militant atheist but I find religion overall foolish and lacking in overall intelligence. I roll my eyes in disgust with the amount of republicans that make in their personal mission to push religion into the fabric of politics, despite this violating the Constitution. I don’t personally care that our currency says “In God we Trust” or if the President says he’s praying, but the push for legislation formed by religion is no different than countries that use Islam as their policy or law. Separation of Church and State exists for a reason. I’d like to see more republicans honor that.

Pupils at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania c. 1900 (American Indian boarding schools - Wikipedia)The Dakota expression for child, wakan injan, can be translated as “they too are sacred,[1] ” according to Glenn Drapeau, Ihanktonwan Dakota and a member of the Elk Soldier Society on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. “To us, children are as pure as the holy, moving energy of the universe,” he says, “and we treat them that way.”[2]When it comes to the colonizers' treatment of First Nations Peoples — more commonly referred to as Native Americans, Indian boarding school history represented a new phase of decades of discrimination. Instead of violently forcing Native Americans from their lands or slaughtering them on the battlefield, Indian boarding schools were developed during the mid-19th century as a means to assimilate Indian tribes into the "American way of life."[3] Run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, boarding schools taught Native American boys and girls English reading, writing, and speaking in an attempt to erase indigenous languages and traditions.[4] History, science, mathematics, and, perhaps most importantly, Christianity, were taught to make young Native Americans think and reason like religious-minded citizens of a democratic society.Col. Richard H. Pratt (American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many)Two hundred years ago, on March 3, 1819, the Civilization Fund Act ushered in an era of assimilationist policies, leading to the Indian boarding school era, which lasted from 1860 to 1978.[5] The act directly spurred the creation of the schools by putting forward the notion that Native culture and language were to blame for what was deemed the country’s “ Indian problem”[6]Early in the history of American Indian boarding schools, the U.S. government argued that Indians were savages who should be compelled to send their children to schools by whatever means necessary.[7] Later the government recommended increased Indian control over education at the schools. A report in the late 1880s defended the early days of the schools.According to Col. Richard Pratt's speech in 1892:"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."[8]Most Native Americans were not treated like free citizens inside or outside of the schools; daily life in a Native American boarding school could be emotionally and physically confusing, stressful, and abusive. Not all experiences were the same, however, and some students later recounted making good friends, meeting future spouses, and using school to find a way to balance Native heritage with Anglo-style education.[9] By the time most of the boarding schools closed during the late 20th century, they'd taken on many new forms, but the ‘civilizing’ mission that governed their creation never changed.Many of the former boarding school residents prefaced their stories by saying “'I've never told anybody my story. I've never told my kids. I've never told my grandkids. I had to think about these stories all my life about what happened to me. I don't want my kids to have to think about it or know about it”.[10]Before admittance into the boarding dormatories, students were striped of their traditional long hair.[11] Officials claimed shorter hair helped alleviate lice problems, but long hair was an immediately recognized symbol of the child's savagery. Long hair has a deep and spiritual meaning in indigenous cultures. To many, it serves as an extension of a person’s mind, reflective of its strength and beauty. [12] The hair length and style also distinguish between different indigenous nations.[13]For their part, Native Americans traditionally cut their long hair as a sign of mourning, and the loss of this symbolic possession when they arrived at the schools had negative psychological connotations.[14] Symbolically, the cutting of a person’s hair by an enemy indicated an act of humiliation and forced submission.http://getboulder.com/5117-2/Young men's heads were shaved in military'style buzz cuts, while girls recieved bobs.[15] One Lakota woman recalled how she reacted when she heard her hair was going to be cut:I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself; I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit... Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.[16]This wasn't the only possible humiliation students experienced. According to personal accounts, students were given Western-style baths in tubs of scalding hot water, sometimes three at a time.[17] Not every student was lucky enough to bathe with water, however. Stories circulated of new boarders being given a kerosene baths by the matrons at Stewart Indian School in Nevada.[18]Stewart Indian School in Nevada.Many students experienced extreme homesickness, running away from school. Sometimes their parents forced them to return.[19] When Theodore Fontaine arrived home after running away from the Fort Alexander school near Winnipeg, Manitoba, his mother said he had to go back. He told her he would run away again, but his mother won out in the end and Fontaine went back to Fort Alexander.[20]Sometimes runaways were sent back to school by tribal agencies when they approached their homes on reservations.[21] Using the authorities to force students to go to school was common. US Indian Agent John S. Wtedard highligh the attitude behind compelling students to attend:"The parents of these Indian children are ignorant, and know nothing of the value of education, and there are no elevating circumstances in the home circle to arouse the ambition of the children”.[22]John P. Williamson of the Dakota Agency agreed, claiming, "Compulsion through the police is often necessary, and should this be required during the coming year, it will be heroically resorted to, regardless of results."[23] Numerous agents resorted to the alternative tactic of witholding rations from the families of runaway students.[24]Top: A group of Chiricahua Apache students on their first day at Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pa. Bottom: The same students four months later. (American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many)In addition to the physical changes Native students endured upon arrival, they were also forced to choose an Anglo name. They were not allowed to keep their birth names because officials struggled with pronounciation and considered them symbolic of paganism.[25]Sometimes students were given a selection of names listed on a board, but because they could not read English, they simply chose one at random.[26] Other students were given names by school officials, often from the bible.[27] The English and Judeo-Christian origin of many of the names served multiple purposes, as a name change was part of the larger transformation students were expected to undergo.Photo: Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/Public DomainStudents were discouraged from speaking First Nations languages, some more harshly than others. One boarder from Acoma Pueblo recalled trying to speak Acoma as a child but dealing with "the outright threats of corporal punishment, ostracism, and the invocation that it would impede our progress towards Americanization."[28] During rare occasions when students were allowed to speak Native languages, profanity was never tolerated and punished harshly.[29]Many of the American Indian Code Talkers attended boarding schools and many have memories of being punished for speaking their native languages. John Brown, Jr., a Navajo Code talker, remembered:They tell us not to speak in Navajo language. You’re going to school. You’re supposed to only speak English. And it was true. They did practice that and we got punished if you was caught speaking Navajo.[30]They also remembered how the schools were run like military organizations[31] and how this later made it easier for them to adapt to life in the American military.We even had to march to school, march to chow, march everywhere, to church. It was still kind of military basis. So when we were in the service everything just came natural, physically and morally and everything. —Merrill Sandoval, Navajo Code Talker, National Museum of the American Indian interview, 2004[32]However, many students continued to develop subversive ways to speak to one another in Native languages.[33]Intermediate” students inside a classroom at an American Indian boarding school in Beaulieu, Minnesota, c.1900. (A brief history of American Indian boarding schools)Teaching Native Americans to speak, write, and read English was at the core of the white colonizers' educational model. It was believed that once students learned English, described by Commissioner of Indian Affairs T.J. Morgan as "the language of the greatest, most powerful and enterprising nationalities beneath the sun," they would assimilate more quickly and with greater ease.[34]Students were also taught history, some math and science, politics, and the fundamentals of democracy, and Christianity — all from a white, Eurocentric position.[35] In addition to classroom teachings, students received vocational training. Boys were introduced to Western-style farming and animal husbandry practices, while girls were trained in home economics and other domestic tasks.[36] Many children educated at the schools were then serviced out to work for and with white families.[37]Female student at the Sherman Institue are pictured in the Domestic Science class in 1915. (The Sherman Institute of Riverside, California: A History in Photos)As a cost-saving measure, the federal government eventually turned much of the boarding-school system over to churches, primarily the Catholic Church, which used it to help expand its empire throughout the West.[38] Churches, abbeys, convents and monasteries were built on or near reservations, and religious orders were founded and flourished.Christianity permeated every aspect of life and learning at an Indian boarding school. From the names students took or were given to the enforcement of strict moral codes to using the Bible itself as an educational text, students were immersed by Christian teachings.[39] In addition to regular church services, students attended Sunday school classes and were forbidden from practicing their cultural religions.Dining Hall at Carlisle Indian School, 1899 (Seperated by gender, here Native American students sit down to a...)Students at Indian boarding schools were introduced to dining halls complete with knives, spoons, forks, and tablecloths — the likes of which many had not used before.[40] Meals consisted of new foods like corn flakes, chipped beef, and corn beef hash.[41] When students were given a chance to relax or participate in sports, they played football, baseball, and basketball. These games were used to encourage teamwork among the students, but ironically also reinforced traditional Native American ideas of group consciousness. At the Phoenix Indian School, students participated in band, performing in parades and even at public events against whites.[42]Sometimes students would watch movies. On one occasion, students were "treated" to a movie about cowboys and indians at Sherman Indian Institute in Riverside, CA.[43] One Navajo student remembered the experience: "Here we're getting all our people killed, and that's the kind of stuff they showed us."[44]Many Indian boarding schools were decried for abusing their students. In addition to punishments for speaking tribal languages, running away, or failure to follow the strict regulations imposed upon them, students could be subjected to long hours of manual labor, malnourishment, or deprived of medical care.[45] Diseases and illnesses were common, with breakouts of measles, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.[46] Many school administrators believed that the students’ independent spirit had to be broken in order for them to accept a new way of life. Students who did not adhere to school schedules and regulations received strappings (whippings) as well as humiliation in front of peers.One fact that many may not be aware of is the fact that Native Americans had a good education system before being forced to attend boarding schools. They even had one of the first women's colleges.[47] Rather than preparing students for life after schooling was complete, a mixture of willful neglect and abuse negatively impacted many residential school students for the rest of their lives. Some Native leaders tried to convince the government to establish schools on the reservation rather than shipping their children away from them."It will not cost so much to give us schools at home on our own lands, and it will be better for our children and our people, too. You now educate our children in the East, and fit them for your life full of civilization, and then send them back to us, who have no civili-zation. You spend a great deal of money, and make our people very unhappy”.[48]Neah Bay Indian School at Bahada Point on the Straits of Fuca, Washington Territory, ca. 1876–1896 (Indian boarding schools teach manual labor)Some tribes consented to or even promoted on-reservation boarding schools[49] , especially on reservations where the great distances between settlements made day schools impractical. For example, the Pit River Indians in northern California asked the government "to establish an Indian boarding school at or near [the] village (Fall River Mills), it being a common centre to which they could all, within a circuit of fifty miles, send their children. If such a school cannot be had they earnestly desire two district schools about fourteen miles apart."[50]In 1928, the Meriam Report concluded that children at federal boarding schools were malnourished, overworked, harshly punished and poorly educated.[51]“Nearly every boarding school visited furnished disquieting illustrations of failure to understand the underlying principles of human behavior. Punishments of the most harmful sort are bestowed in sheer ignorance, often in a sincere attempt to be of help. Routinization is the one method used for everything; though all that we know indicates its weakness as a method in education. If there were any real knowledge of how human beings are developed through their behavior, we should not have in the Indian boarding schools the mass movements from dormitory to dining room, from dining room to classroom, from classroom back again, all completely controlled by external authority; we should hardly have children from the smallest to the largest of both sexes lined up in military formation; and we would certainly find a better way of handling boys and girls than to lock the door to the fire-escape of the girls' dormitory.[52]Even the education students received was criticized, with a call for employing more qualified and skilled personnel at the schools. The report also found young students were subjected to inappropriate manual labor that violated child labor laws.[53] Former students later came forward with allegations of sexual abuse as well, many at the hands of the Catholic Church.[54]It Happened Here: Indian boarding school established at Fort SimcoeThe schools, which slowly started to reform in the 1930s, were not just an American phenomenon. Australia and Canada operated similar institutions, also intended to indoctrinate and “civilize” their native peoples.[55]More than 40 years after the Meriam Report criticized government boarding schools, a report known as the Kennedy Report declared Indian education a national tragedy.“Apparently, many of the teachers still see their role as that of "civilizing the native." BIA administrators believe that Indians can choose only between total "Indianness" --whatever that is — and complete assimilation into the dominant society. Thus, the goal of BIA education appears to direct students toward migration into a city while at the same time it fails to "prepare students academically, socially, physchologically, or vocationally for urban life. As a result, many return to the reservation disillusioned, to spend the rest of their lives in economic and intellectual stagnation."[56]The negative information and revelations about Indian boarding schools resulted in a Pan-Indian movement during the 1970s and 1980s.[57] Advocacy and community-building among Native American populations during the late 20th century has only begun to help many former students face the painful legacy of the schools themselves.Increasingly, the damage from that early abuse, loneliness and lack of love is being seen as a major factor in ills that plague tribes today, passed from one generation to the next and manifesting in high rates of poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, depression and suicide.[58] As awareness of the enduring harm grows, tribes and others in Washington and nationwide are reaching out in new and varied ways to elders, their children and their children’s children in hopes of repairing the damage.150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend residential schools (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.702280)In Canada, the federal government recently reached a record $5 billion settlement under which some 80,000 former students are eligible for an average of $28,000 — more if they were sexually or physically abused.[59]The father of Washington state Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, was fluent in the tribe’s language but refused to teach it, saying “they beat it out of me” at boarding school.[60] In 2005, McCoy helped win passage of a bill that encourages Washington school districts to teach native history and culture and to consult tribes in developing that curriculum.[61] Ten years later, the bill was amended changing what was once encouraged to mandatory. As of 2018, McCoy has continued to push for legislation on a federal level, making the legacy and history of the First Peoples mandatory in each and every school.Footnotes[1] When Ancestors Weep[2] South Dakota Boarding School Survivors Detail Sexual Abuse[3] Brutal Realities of Everyday Life on the Trail of Tears[4] Brutal Realities of Everyday Life on the Trail of Tears[5] Mar. 3, 1819 | Congress Allocates Funds to 'Civilize' Native American People[6] Death by Civilization[7] American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many[8] American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many[9] American Indian Boarding School Experiences: Recent Studies from Native Perspectives[10] 'I've never told anyone': Stories of life in Indian boarding schools[11] Boarding School memories haunt Lakota man [12] The Significance Of Hair In Native American Culture[13] hair length indicative of indian tribes[14] They Called Me Uncivilized[15] http://getboulder.com/5117-2/[16] They Called Me Uncivilized[17] Boarding School Blues[18] American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many[19] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/66821/Peterson.pdf%3Fsequence%3D8%26isAllowed%3Dy&ved=2ahUKEwjI-PvS7eroAhUEDKwKHUjtDaAQFjAJegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2d8uRh0EZxyPO-TIdzyG3C[20] Broken Circle[21] Tribal Nations Demand Answers About the Fate of Indigenous Children Who Disappeared at U.S. Boarding Schools[22] American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many[23] A Brother to the Sioux (Winifred W. Barton)[24] Annual Report of the Department of the Interior[25] Assimilation and Indian Names[26] Cultural assimilation of Native Americans - Wikipedia[27] Boarding School Blues[28] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/how-boarding-schools-tried-to-kill-the-indian-through-assimilation[29] Pipestone[30] Native Words Native Warriors[31] Boarding School Blues[32] Native Words Native Warriors[33] US Indian Boarding School History - The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition[34] American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection :::[35] Colonized Schooling Exposed[36] Pipestone[37] Native American History and Culture: Boarding Schools[38] Boarding schools: A black hole of Native American history[39] American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection :::[40] Native American History and Culture: Boarding Schools[41] No More “Die Bread”: How Boarding Schools Impacted Native Diet and the Resurgence of Indigenous Food Sovereignty[42] The Phoenix Indian School Band, 1894-1930[43] American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many[44] The Sherman Institute of Riverside, California: A History in Photos[45] Punishment and Abuse[46] Native American History and Culture: Boarding Schools[47] Boarding school seasons : American Indian families, 1900-1940[48] Statistics of Indian Tribes, Agencies and Schools[49] The Schools That Tried—But Failed—to Make Native Americans Obsolete[50] The Journal of the Assembly, During the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California[51] Digital History[52] The Problem of Indian Administration; National Indian Law Library, Native American Rights Fund (NARF)[53] Laws allowing U.S government to force Native American children into boarding schools still in force[54] South Dakota Boarding School Survivors Detail Sexual Abuse[55] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.702280[56] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED034625.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjDtr704ujoAhXXG80KHbP2Dr8QFjABegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1rwIN1fn96ToRfHho94v_W[57] The Last Indian War: Reassessing the Legacy of American Indian Boarding Schools and the Emergence of Pan-Indian Identity[58] http://Increasingly, the damage from that early abuse, loneliness and lack of love is being seen as a major factor in ills that plague tribes today, passed from one generation to the next and manifesting in high rates of poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, depression and suicide. And as awareness of the enduring harm grows, tribes and others in Washington and nationwide are reaching out in new and varied ways to elders, their children and their children’s children in hopes of repairing the damage.[59] Why 2,800 children's names were made public[60] Tribes confront painful legacy of Indian boarding schools[61] McCoy's bill to help teachers implement Native American history in classrooms passes off Senate floor - Sen. John McCoy - Washington State Senate Democrats