A Graphite Jungle

witchsistah:

myencephalonjourneys:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this picture is worth many thousands of bison. This photo from the 1870s shows a man proudly standing in front of a mountain of tens of thousands of bison skulls - an iconic American species that was systematically slaughtered by the millions as European Americans settled the west.

The US Army actively endorsed the wholesale slaughter of these animals for two main reasons: to remove any competition with cattle, and to starve Native American tribes who greatly depended on the bison for food. Without the bison, the resisting tribes of the Great Plains would either be forced to leave or die of starvation.

More than a century after this dark period in our history, the bison is making a comeback. After living on the brink of extinction, this American icon is slowly but steadily returning to the Great Plains - one baby bison at a time.

But according to White folks the ecological turmoil of the planet is ALL of our faults.  ALL OF US.  *sucks teef and rolls eyes*

We have this picture in the archives as my work. It kills me, absolutely kills me. I can walk to work in the morning and see a hundred of these guys on the lawn and the lodge and it still stags me how amazing they are, and I wondered what it must have been like when there were millions of them. And then I remember why there aren’t millions of them anymore. Because my ancestors destroyed them. My ancestors killed the bison by the hundreds in an effort to starve out the ancestors of a number of people I work with, that I am friends with. Anyone who blames native peoples for the extortion of native wildlife is a fucking moron who has obviously never picked up a history book. This was product of white america, and while I’m not proud to acknowledge that, it is what it is. 

(via etherealxxeyes)