Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to introduce legislation to rescind 20 Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Lakota Indians ― mostly women and children ― in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.
Ten 2020 Democratic presidential candidates and one independent in the 2020 presidential race addressed indigenous communities at the first-ever Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa.
It was a two-day event during which the candidates individually answered questions from a panel of tribal leaders and Native American youth and elders on issues including treaty rights, voter suppression, and murdered and missing indigenous women.
Addressing the forum Senator Elizabeth Warren, who came under fire last year after she released the results of a DNA test as evidence of her family’s longtime claim to have Native American ancestry, apologized for her actions saying: “Now, before I go any further in this, I want to say this: Like anyone who’s being honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes. I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened, and I have learned a lot. And I am grateful for the many conversations that we have had together. It is a great honor to be able to partner with Indian Country, and that’s what I’ve tried to do as a senator, and that’s what I promise I will do as president of the United States of America.”
She added, “The federal government’s history with our tribal nations has been one of broken promises. We need to make change. We need to honor our trust and treaty obligations to the Native tribes. And we’re not going to do that with one little statute over here and a couple of changes in regulations over there. It’s going to take big structural change. That’s how I see this. Think of it this way: full funding for housing, for healthcare, for education, for infrastructure. Those are not optional. We need to change the rules and make it happen.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to introduce legislation to rescind 20 Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Lakota Indians ― mostly women and children ― in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, reported Huffington Post.
A 99-year-old U.S. Army Nurse Corps veteran Marcella LeBeau of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe posed a question to Senator Bernie Sanders, related to the massacre at Wounded Knee in which approximately 250 women and children and the leader, who was ill with pneumonia were killed. She asked will Senator Bernie Sanders support the removal of the Stain Act?
The Wounded Knee Massacre (also called the Battle of Wounded Knee) was a domestic massacre of several hundred Lakota Indians, mostly women and children, by soldiers of the United States Army. It occurred on December 29, 1890.
The Remove the Stain Act would strip the highest military award from 20 U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Native women and children.
Senator Bernie Sanders response was quick he said “The answer is absolutely. Medals of Honor are given rarely, and they’re given to people who do very, very important things. And I want to thank you for your work. I know you received recognition, I believe, from the French government and elsewhere, for the work you have done in World War II in saving lives. That’s the type of a person who receives Medals of Honor. They’re very rare, and they’re given to people who show great, great bravery. Massacring women and children is not an act of great bravery; it is an act of depravity — depravity.”
He further said, “You know, this afternoon, and in the few minutes that I have here, we’re not going to resolve all of the issues of the last 500 years, but I think it is important, not differently, by the way, than how we deal with the abomination of slavery, that the time is long overdue for us to be having that discussion of what happened when the first settlers came here and the terrible and horrible things that were done to the Native American people, not only at Wounded Knee, but in so many other places. I think that is a discussion that the American people actually want to have. And at the end of that discussion must be the necessity of us doing everything that we can to repair the damage, the psychological damage, the humiliations, and also address the real needs of the Native American people today, who in many cases are living in poverty. So there’s a lot of work to be done. But to acknowledge — and it will not be easy; a lot of pain there — but to acknowledge what the settlers did when they came here and what has happened over the last many, many years is something that this country is going to have to address. And as president, I look to forward to addressing it with you.”
Mark Charles, a tribal citizen of the Navajo Nation, who’s running for president as an independent claimed that missing and murdered indigenous women is a massive, massive problem in our country, in our communities.
The ten 2020 Democratic presidential candidates included Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D.–Mass.), Bernie Sanders (D.–Vt.), Amy Klobuchar (D.–Minn.), Kamala Harris (D.–Calif.), Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Marianne Williamson, former Rep. Joe Sestak, former Rep. John Delaney and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.