This is a response to an NPR article about Native American Boarding Schools.

In class, we read an article about American Indian boarding schools. It was from the point of American Indians, and they explained how going to the boarding schools influenced who they are today. I think that it is absolutely terrible what the boarding schools did, “Kill the Indian…Save the Man.” When the children were forced to go to boarding school, they were tortured, and beaten. They were forced to become something completely contrary to their culture and who they were. When at school, they were whitewashed, and were restricted from speaking their native language, or practicing any part of there culture.  I don’t know how some Indians claim to have come away having a good experience. The NPR article states that the boarding schools main intent was to “…completely transform people, inside and out. Language, religion, family structure, economics, the way you make a living, the way you express emotion, everything.” No person working for, owning, doing anything around the boarding schools begrudged what they were doing to the Indian kids.

What I learned from this article is that certain people want to do something about the Native Americans, as to restrict who they are or what they can do as a way of saying: we are better than you, you are beneath us, and we just want to make you something different. The actions they took against the Indians were genocidal, which in my view is appalling, and shameful. Also, people take advantage of others when they have the power to. Though the boarding schools main intent was to kill the Indian… save the man, there was no saving involved.