apatheticantisocialite
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/24/apache-students-school-reservation
Having been raised in the WELS myself i can attest that this is how they view everything outside of their little delusional bubble.
Edit: 30 downvotes so far. not sure what to make of that.
Edit 2: 41 downvotes. i've pissed off some group of miscreants.
HaveYouHuggedYourUndertakerToday
This is why it was easier for my ancestors to "just be mexicans" than to continue to identify as Apache. Abandon traditions, language, and religion, and survive; thrive even. There is no hate like Christian love.
texasredheadguy
LEARN. OTHER. CULTERES!!! It will make you smarter and less ignorant
Exyel
I'm so glad to live in a country where the majority of people are not religious.
albertapaws2000
This school and the attitude of the preachers/teachers is appalling and flat-out ignorant. Those type of Christians should be banned from indiginous territory.
PikachuOnDeezNuts
As bullshit as this is, that’s what happens when you go to a private religious school. Had this been a public school, you’d probably have grounds for a lawsuit.
Ktigre
Hell, WELS practically views Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Baptists, megachurches, ELCA, all as close to literal Satan worshipers as you can get. Anything less conservative than them is going to Hell and they're about as far right as you can get without getting into the territory of cults. (Yes, I grew up in WELS and quit going the moment I moved out of the house because I saw it for what it was as a teenager. )
apatheticantisocialite
fourth grade religion class the teacher tells us "you can't understand god so don't even try thinking is how the devils gets to you so don't think about it." an hour later we're in math class and i ask for help on a problem and the teacher says "just think about it" without seeing any irony or hypocrisy. that's what finally did it in for me. i was fucking miserable after that. getting out of my parents house and learning about what churches and conservatives did cemented me in liberal ideals.
deetatron
“WHy dOn’T thEy gO bACk tO TheY’rE oWN coUNtrY aNd dO tHAT!!”
Canofminus
Hey, they paid for a Christian education. I say they just got one.
apatheticantisocialite
i wish i could give awards to comments. i'd make this one the top comment. you are correct. that was a practical education in christianity.
Pizza0Style0Burrito
TheGek0h
Many people don't know, but until the 60s and 70s it was illegal for native cultures to practice rituals or ceremonies associated with their faith in any public place.
Religious freedom has never actually existed in this country, (unless you're some flavor of Christian). The people who worship freedom are the only ones protected by the colonial era legal system that we still follow in the United States.
Cebrail
Caring about downvotes on a site that has millions of users is utterly absurd and pointless. It can be bots, trolls or simply just nutjobs.
Anyway, I hope the lawsuit these people should file will get them enough money to make their own school for people that aint christian whackos
ChelChehalem
From a display at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute on the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon.
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
Never thought I'd feel the teenage urge to burn a school down again.
Silverbananahorse
Ah, a fellow WELS. Took me many many years to break free of the stuff they brainwashed me with. How has your recovery been?
Thundersroar
Wels?
Silverbananahorse
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
paintingagency
I will admit that although I support freedom to worship (or not)... Indigenous Christians baffle me. Genocide swept this continent under the cross. Clerics tortured and raped children. I get that people can't just un-believe, but Christianity has zero good history with Natives.
MaxMschief
It's a survival mechanism that the church has often exploited in the colonisation process - they did it in South Africa too...
paintingagency
I get converting at the point of a sword. Who wouldn't? But now? Even if you believe Jesus was a manifestation or emissary of the great spirit, or something else that syncretizes the positive parts of Christianity with Indigenous faith, to hell with the settler church.
But it's no my choice, obviously.
TsubakiTragic
To be honest, these folks are better off without that christoracism.
CallMeMcGyver
I thought evangelicals were cool with satan… they worship trump, don’t they?
apatheticantisocialite
yes but they have to delude themselves into believing he's not the antichrist.
happyrabbitzz
Why the fuck are they sending their Native kids to a lutheran (or any christian) school?
mrthewhitee
It may be the only halfway decent school they have access to.
Knifesmith
This is sadly true in many places. We want to move, but have a school aged child. The public schools where we want to go are pretty rough, and the other choices are a school with respectable academics, but it's a catholic school (we are not Christian), or a much smaller private/prep school that is both expensive and has very limited space.
graehall
And that's something the right are trying to make common place - so they have even more control over society
StrandedonEarth
Hmmm, cut from the same cloth as the Catholic-run residential schools in Canada. At least those were closed decades ago...
onlyhalfghost
barely three decades ago, though the worst offenses stopped about four ago. America ran a near identical system, too.
Mr21782Man
They're native Americans going to a private Christian school. I feel like they would have been much better served going to a public school and understand what the Christians did to their people.
apatheticantisocialite
it's likely there are no schools out there for them to attend. christofascists set up those schools because they knew the tribes had no real options. this treating them like shit is exactly what christians want to do.
TheSilverSeraph
The USA was founded on religious freedom. This is the opposite of religious freedom, of course - it is religious persecution. The USA was founded to get away from religious persecution. It was not founded as Christian nation.
The evangelical right, the GOP and the idiotic Christian nationalists need to get all of this into their thick skulls
Pally01
The Puritans fled to America not because they were oppressed, but because they were prohibited from forcing their beliefs on others. On Christmas they'd steal people's feasts and throw it onto the street because people were having a good time instead of praying all day. Don't believe the religious freedom lie.
TheSilverSeraph
Well that would explain a lot of things...
Pally01
Some sauce if you're interested https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/12/17/why-the-puritans-cracked-down-on-celebrating-christmas/
CaldariBob
The American religious Indian school system is as old as the United States itself & was created by the same founding fathers. Religious freedom was intended for the White European colonists.
FetteredJuvenescence
But if'n Ah dun got tha right ta persecute otha religions, den that there's infringin' on mah freedom of religion! Ah know mah rights!
Apeofdeath
I have no knowledge of the Apache Religion, but I'm sure I would prefer it to Christianity
mikeatike
That is setting the bar pretty low.
maeta
Knowing less than a percent about it, I would highly recommend it over the bullshit we got.
queefteef
Apache was a loose term for desert aboriginals. Surprisingly developed societies.
signedinjusttocomment
Why did their parents put them in a religious school that has been pulling the same bullshit since the 1890s? I fucking hate religion.
DeadWhiteMale
The Lutheran School, on the Fort Apache Reservation, should be expelled.
sbro11
they ask: hey how can you believe in such obvious nonsense? But:
mikeabon
Why are satanic activities considered bad?
suiseiseki
suiseiseki
Before someone says "that's the Old Testament!": Fuck right off. Jesus explicitly commands slaves to obey their masters "even the cruel ones", in the whole 'he without sin cast first stone' story he still blames the woman and only the woman for the situation, and he goes nuts on a woman for touching the hem of his robe and healing herself.
suiseiseki
That's not even getting into his moronic tirade against an out-of-season date tree from not having dates. *Insert Jesus couldn't even get a date joke here.*
Dimestream
Pretty sure it's hard to do anything satanic in the name of a religion that doesn't believe in a literal Satan. These screeching bullies ever even held a dictionary?
apatheticantisocialite
they very much fear teaching people independent thought.
RetrogradeLlama
I fault the parents for sending their kids to that racist school. I fault the tribe for not kicking those racist phucks off their land.
But I fault the USA for not providing quality schools for these kids so that parents don't have to make such choices.
MyGreatestFearBoner
*F
GrandpaEggplant
I think this encapsulates my entire political view
Goatfer
This was a privately funded school that was chosen by the parents. Legal discrimination is allowed as it is considered protected 1st amendment speech. Still fk'ed up.
FetteredJuvenescence
Allowed, but should not be. I think there's more than enough mountains of evidence that these fuckers are willing to abuse the living hell out of their 1st amendment rights, and they should have them taken away.
Asadsadsadclown
If you pay to be there then you get what you pay for. As long as tax money isn't going to the organization they can do what ever they want. It's terrible they were treated that way but the US government has no business telling them what to do if it's 100% privately funded. That being said if it's native land the Constitution does not apply. They are a sovereign nation and can kick the organization out.
FetteredJuvenescence
Considering what the BIA's budget is like, it's probably safe to assume that the local BIA school is legitimately worse academically than these christofascist churches. The people there should have options, but they don't. That's on us, and the solution should be to ban proselytization by outsiders AND to improve their public schools.
Asadsadsadclown
Those schools were also a haven of abuse and racism when they were in their prime. They were mostly built to "gentrify the savages" in the 50s and 60s. So they are unlikely to be given any amount of trust from the community. It would likely be better accepted by the community to give grants for community run school programs built on the framework of charter schools. The same framework that allows those religious hellhole schools to operate.
mrose50
Might have no choice. Might be a gov sponsored school and tribe too poor to set up an alternative. A lot of 1st nation reservations are like that. Then if home schooling isn't an option or you want your kid to have a good education for the opportunities it brings, or there are pressures to send the kid to school like parents are work or whatever, then this kind of religious BS can just happen. 1st nations need own school funding.
RetrogradeLlama
There are BLM schools... the parents believe the Christian school will be better. It's in the article.
Aplasticinesmile
BLM?
FetteredJuvenescence
It's not government sponsored, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the reservation is viewed poorly so people there are spending their money to try and give their kids a better chance to succeed and then getting treated like this.
Asadsadsadclown
Because schools like that spent generations trying to beat the native American culture out of their students.
FetteredJuvenescence
No, because the BIA tends to have shit-all for funding and their schools are probably pretty bad, to be fair. Basically if we were providing them with a decent public school in the first place, these churches wouldn't be able to prey on them so much. The churches should still be barred from operating there, but you can't ignore the government's role in this either.
mrose50
Exactly! That was a very succinct way of summing up my point (I'm the 2nd commenter). Have a good one.
faoltastic
Annnd discrimination lawsuit
apatheticantisocialite
it's a private school. they're allowed to expel students for anything.
Kastax
They are not allowed to discriminate based on race, ethnicity, or national origin though if it’s a religious school they are allowed to discriminate based on religion. No discrimination is allowed when forming contracts based on race per section 1981 so no business is allowed to discriminate based on race. The case these students have is it was a racist policy that was enforced because they were Native American, ie the characterization of their culturally practices as “satanic” is racist
apatheticantisocialite
that'd be an interesting case to put in a court room.
Radiationaxolotl
Sue anyway. This is America.
RedBeardedGentleman
Dont catch you slipping now
neverscurdOG
Sue a Boy Named Sue
faoltastic
If they’re totally just tuition funded certainly but if they receive any tax money they can’t. It’s weird but they are top 20% in their state so possibly no case here
apatheticantisocialite
no WELS school ever toke government money back in the day. i haven't kept up but i'm pretty sure that still remains the case.
Taalii
Reasonably sure even private enterprise has laws to follow. Some reasons are illegal no exception.
apatheticantisocialite
yeah the law is "if you take government money you have to follow government rules"