I can easily walk to the huge VA hospital in Phoenix and have been going for more than 40 years, mostly for Agent Orange checkups that I expect will end once DOGE gets a whiff of the program. Something that already did end is the beautiful display of flags at the hospital representing Arizona’s 22 tribal nations—the largest Indian population of any state, more than 330,000.
In mid-March the trump administration ordered all of the flags removed from the VA hospital on Indian School Road—you know, DEI or something. Forget about the fact that more than a fourth of the state’s land is tribal, and Indigenous peoples serve in the armed forces five times more than the general population. Drive through just about any Rez and you’ll see lots of American flags and indications of military service, but now, because acknowledging nonwhite contributions gives the orange buffoon a butt-hurt, the nation won’t extend that same recognition to the tribes in Arizona or anywhere else.
So Gov. Katie Hobbs is displaying the flags in her office.
Following the abrupt removal of the flags representing Arizona’s 22 tribal nations from the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in central Phoenix, Gov. Katie Hobbs is displaying the flags in the Executive Tower at the State Capitol.
“Arizona is proud of the Tribal Veterans who sacrificed for their country,” Hobbs said in a press release. “We should be recognizing their service, not disrespecting their heritage.”
They tried, unsuccessfully for the time being, to write the Code Talkers and Ira Hayes out of the history books. Trump’s piece of shit Smithsonian Executive Order yesterday probably means The National Museum of the American Indian will have to change many of its exhibitions, because we certainly can’t have white people feeling bad about the genocide some ancestors perpetrated. Rather than an educational experience that might spark empathy for American Indians’ treatment and admiration for their accomplishments and resilience, trump considers the truthful depiction of American history “divisive,” so we’ll get trump-approved exhibitions:
Trail of Tears was really a free vacation through the South; Wounded Knee was just that, a little wound; the Indian Boarding Schools were so popular they had a waiting list; Ben Franklin never heard of the Iroquois and got the idea for a constitutional government from a German named Drumpf; the 1680 Pueblo Revolt is now the 1680 Pueblo Revival; smallpox was so small as to be insignificant and they loved the blankets anyway; President Jackson is nowhere to be found in Native history, and Custer won.
“This is an insult to the tribal members who serve in our armed forces at a higher per capita rate than any other group in America, and the removal of these flags sends a harmful message that their sacrifices are being diminished or erased.” — Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe
[Ed: Ira Hayes was a member of the Gila River Indian Community, about 30 miles south of Phoenix.]
The flags do not represent a race or ethnicity but instead sovereign nations within Arizona, and while other political entities can still display flags, Indigenous communities now cannot. The erasure continues. Gawd, these people are sickening.
