Again, I Say Nothing Has Changed

Black Elk was a native of the Ogala Sioux who joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. In 1931 he told his .:life story:. to John Neihardt.

I was in despair, and I even thought that if the Wasichus (white people) had a better way, then maybe my people should live that way. I know now that this was foolish, but I was young and in despair. . . .

I felt dead and my people seemed lost and I thought I might never find them again. I did not see anything to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.

Throughout history untold numbers of non-whites have provided exact diagnoses of .:white pathology:. Black Elk is one of them.