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So I'd much rather get across the concept of freedom. It's what's important to Indian children. The only way you can be free is to know is that you are worthwhile as a distinct human being. Otherwise you become what the colonizers have designed, and that is a lemming. Get in line, punch all the right keys, and die.

Russell Means

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Russell Means
Age: 72 †
Born: 1939
Born: November 10
Died: 2012
Died: October 22
Activist
Actor
Autobiographer
Film Actor
Musician
Peace Activist
Politician
Television Actor
Voice Actor
Pine Ridge Reservation
Way
Free
Concepts
Lemmings
Become
Across
Punch
Human
Keys
Distinct
Humans
Line
Worthwhile
Right
Lines
Designed
Children
Dies
Concept
Important
Rather
Indian
Lemming
Much
Freedom
Otherwise
Colonizers

More quotes by Russell Means

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I find freedom to be the most important issue facing any human being today, because without freedom, then life is pointless. The more dependent you become on centralized power, the more easily you are lead around.
Russell Means
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Colonialism has completed the destruction of the American Indian in the United States - the cultural destruction.
Russell Means
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Indians in America are yet to be considered human beings, even though the Pope issued a papal bull in 1898 that declared us to be human beings. But to show you the institutional racism, the sports teams are still using the Indians as mascots.
Russell Means
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What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of Europe.
Russell Means
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True to your own ancestors, therefore true to yourself.
Russell Means
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I’m a human being, I’m not anyone’s mascot! And I am America’s conscience. And that’s what they don’t want to look at. They would rather look at a cartoon character than at the deceit of this country and this government.
Russell Means
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When a woman grabs my braids and says How cute! I crab her breast and say How cute! She never touches me again!
Russell Means
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Even though the American Indian Movement on a national-international scale has proven to be extremely dysfunctional, the American Indian Movement I was associated with I'm very proud of. We were a revolutionary, militant organization whose purpose was spirituality first, and that's how I want to be remembered.
Russell Means
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I knew at that young age that going to the Bureau of Indian Affairs was useless, absolutely useless. I grew up having no faith in the bureaucracy of government.
Russell Means
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I had often wondered how to best decolonize my people... It must be done one human being at a time. Without that kind of help, Western society does not allow people to come to terms with their feelings. With honesty and therapy, my people can be made whole again.
Russell Means
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They don't understand that a slice of the pie isn't the whole pie - but they wonder why they are always hungry
Russell Means
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It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain.
Russell Means
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Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain.
Russell Means
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If I want my people to be free, Americans have to be free.
Russell Means
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If you learn from an experience, that's good - so nothing bad happened to you.
Russell Means
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Hollywood hasn't changed. It is the most racist, anti-Indian institution in the world.
Russell Means
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'Indian policy' has now been brought down upon the American people, and the American people are the new Indians of the 21st Century.
Russell Means
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Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion. It's an insult to our entire being. It's bad enough getting four white faces carved in up there [on Mount Rushmore], the shrine of hypocrisy.
Russell Means
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Children in poverty aren't trying to get out of poverty they're just trying to rip off a pair of Nikes. So we Indian people are a microcosm of what's happening in America. We are now consumers, and our culture has gone.
Russell Means
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May the Great Mystery continue to guide and protect the paths of you and your loved ones.
Russell Means