Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Age
Bureaucracy
Faith
Affairs
Young
Indian
Government
Useless
Going
Affair
Absolutely
Grew
Knew
Bureau

More quotes by Russell Means

Image
If you learn from an experience, that's good - so nothing bad happened to you.
Russell Means
Image
True to your own ancestors, therefore true to yourself.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
May the Great Mystery continue to guide and protect the paths of you and your loved ones.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Indian people are relics we do not exist in the present.
Russell Means
Image
If I want my people to be free, Americans have to be free.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
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
Image
'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
Image
I've always thought it was arrogant to write about yourself, particularly when you're still alive.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
That's our charge as ancestors of unborn generations: to once again become free.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
Colonialism has completed the destruction of the American Indian in the United States - the cultural destruction.
Russell Means
Image
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
Image
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