A new Senate bill would rescind medals from 20 U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Native Americans. “The horrifying acts of violence against hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee should be condemned,” Ms. Warren said.
WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Wednesday introduced legislation to revoke Medals of Honor from 20 United States soldiers who killed hundreds of Native American women and children in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.
The proposal from Ms. Warren, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, follows a House bill on the same subject that was introduced in June by Representative Denny Heck of Washington. It has
yet to receive a vote.
“The horrifying acts of violence against hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee should be condemned, not celebrated with Medals of Honor,” Ms. Warren said in a statement released Wednesday by her Senate office. “The Remove the Stain Act acknowledges a profoundly shameful event in U.S. history, and that’s why I’m joining my House colleagues in this effort to advance justice and take a step toward righting wrongs against Native peoples.”
Congress has rescinded more than 900 Medals of Honor since enacting legislation in 1916 to create a board of retired military officers to review previously awarded medals, according to Ms. Warren’s Senate office.
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The
Wounded Knee massacre,
one of the deadliest attacks on Native American people by the United States military, took place on Dec. 29, 1890. Amid a crackdown on a religious movement called the Ghost Dance, United States troops arrested a Lakota leader, Chief Big Foot, and confined him and his people to a camp in southwestern South Dakota. When they were asked to surrender their weapons, a gun went off and soldiers opened fire. More than 300 Lakota Sioux are thought to have been killed.
Congress formally
apologized for the massacre in 1990, though it did not provide any reparations for descendants of Native Americans killed at Wounded Knee.
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A new Senate bill would rescind medals from 20 U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Native Americans. “The horrifying acts of violence against hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee should be condemned,” Ms. Warren said.
www.nytimes.com
Even if Warren is doing this because of Trump's ridicule of her for claiming she has Native American ancestry, I still think on the whole it's positive. This is a minority group in our country that is unarguably most oppressed and exploited by our government, historically and currently.
Your thoughts?