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The 4th of You Lie, or: why I stopped stressing and joined the Space Force

Howie Echo-Hawk
4 min readJul 3, 2018

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I’m so alone. Image by Trent Yarnell on Unsplash

Can we just start off by saying the 4th of July is weird?

It seems like a time that is supposed to be celebrating the independence of one settler-state from its birth settler-state through violent bloodshed would be a little more reverent and considerate of people who actually fought in wars, rather than just shooting off fireworks all around them for 24–48 hours.

Also, it always gets associated with the Boston Tea Party, wherein a bunch of settler folk/proto-white people dressed up as Native people and threw tea into water. They did so to be like, “look at us, we’re the native people now, so stop giving us your tea, its too bitter and costs too much.” Or, I don’t know, something like that — I went to public school.

Anyways, the 4th of July is weird.

Especially being a Native person. Like, it’s a conflicting thing, y’know? This settler-state, in its founding documents, had a provision that its first armed forces (or militia) would be established with the express goal and interest of fighting “savages.” Not to mention, most Natives are members of sovereign nations.

When is our independence day?

Like, take my nation for instance: The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma (Previously Kansas/Nebraska area…

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Howie Echo-Hawk
Howie Echo-Hawk

Written by Howie Echo-Hawk

insta: @howieechohawk @everynativeepisode

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