Joy Harjo's Web Log

About a week prior to the slaughter at Wounded Knee, L.Frank Baum,
editor of South Dakota's Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer newspaper and author of the celebrated children's books including his most famous, The Wizard of Oz, advocated the extermination of all America's Indians: "The nobility of the Redskin is
extinquished and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.(WHY NOT ANNIHILATION?)Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are."

And from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who kept his mind and spirit open though he lived in a world of pograms, starvation and was plagued by epilepsy, poverty and other health and mental problems:

"Love all of God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding universal love."