Sunday, August 30, 2015

Denali - Returning to Our Roots

As we honor our first citizens, the tallest mountain in North America will be renamed Denali, with an executive order by President Obama today. The name was changed from Mount McKinley, regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place.

Denali, means “the high one” or “the great one.”

“There’s no denying that for some Americans, the deck’s been stacked against them, sometimes for generations, and that’s been true of many Native Americans,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “But if we’re working together, we can make things better.”

We are working together as white people stop putting native peoples lower on their hierarchies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/us/mount-mckinley-will-be-renamed-denali.html?_r=0