I don’t remember everything from my time growing up in communist Russia, but I do remember a saying we had there:

Русский медведь имеет большие шарики. Вы имеете малые, слабые шарики которые пахнут неудачей.

It doesn’t translate very elegantly to English, but it basically says, “The great bear looks out for no beast but himself. The other beasts must be vigilant in watching out for the bear without losing their suspicion of one other.”

It became a slogan for productivity in the white factories. The slogan was created to embolden the Caucasian workforce by simply reminding them of their dominant position in the Russian society. The slogan means that whites only need to hold back the minorities, but the minorities not only have to try and hold back other minority groups, but also rise up against the whites. It sounds racist, but it really isn’t when put into the cultural context because in Russia minorities are not the equals of the whites.

When I read this article about the Indians applying their war paint once again, this time against their old slaves, the first thing I thought of was that old Russian saying and the lessons I learned as a boy about minorities. The fear in Russia was always that the minority groups would stop considering themselves as separate from each other, and just view themselves as all the same, like we did. In doing so they could have joined forces and become a formidable adversary withing the community.

Things aren’t so different here. For hundreds of years the Indian has envied the white man’s strength. Ironically, the very tribes that many western cowboys considered to be savages became know as “The Five Civilized Tribes” because of their adoption of many of the white man’s civilized practices, like slavery. Black slaves were taken by these Indian tribes and used to assemble TeePees and do other laborious tasks.

Like many minority groups throughout history, the natives became frustrated at their inability to compete with the successes of the white man. Eventually they took their slaves and squaws and moved to secluded areas around the country hoping to start new lives for themselves far away from we pale faces. Things didn’t work out as well as they’d planned and the white man had to provide financial support to the various tribes for generations. To this day we still are paying welfare to the Indian tribes instead of using the money to buy more weapons to fight the war on terror.

The money sent to the tribes is divided between the braves and other Indians. Unfortunately, most of them spend it on alcohol. Some of the older and wiser Indian chiefs invested the money in things like casinos, fireworks stands, and discount cigarette retail outlets. This provided a steady income and many Indians were able to live a life they’d never dreamed of. They forgot their old ways of scalping and savagery, and they embraced many of the luxuries the white man had tried to share with them throughout history. Rather than trading for their blankets or beads, they were now able to simply purchase the things they needed.

Things went well like this until they decided that they no longer needed slaves. Now that they had money, they could hire inexpensive laborers to do the tasks previously reserved for their slaves. They released the slaves, and since many of them had become friends, they were welcomed back into their tribes as honorary Indians. They were allowed to take a cut of the welfare money being sent by our government and they also were given small claims to the revenue generated by the various native ventures. The former slaves were by no means as rich as their former owners, but with the availability of inexpensive cigarettes and fireworks on the reservations, they were able to sustain life quite comfortably—especially compared to the time they spent chained up building wigwams.

Time passed and the Indian chiefs decided that they wanted more money. Since the casinos and fireworks businesses were operating at maximum levels, the only place they could increase their margins was by cutting expenses. They considered telling the blacks that they were slaves again, but they had concern that the Government checks would stop coming if they participated in human slavery so soon after freeing the slaves. The only other solution was to kick all the black out of their tribe. Which is what they just voted to do.

Why does any of this matter? Well, for white people it really doesn’t. But I do find it interesting that in a world where stereotypes have become such an unacceptable form of personal judgement, we still find Indians giving something away and then taking it back.

In Russia, we also had a name for this. It was called: Индийский Датель