SEPARATENESS

SEPARATENESS “The Sheep Man” is a movie on GRIT TV that I saw recently. Watching it, I could not help but marvel that cattle men and sheep men were ever at odds, given the similar stock . But, similarities are no barrier to enmity. The Mexicans in that movie, as in others, were treated scornfully, as they had been in other ‘Westerns.’ Needless to say the Plains Indians were treated no better than the Mexicans. The blacks are almost nonexistent in ‘Westerns’ in spite of the historical fact that about 25% of all the cowboys were black men. This fact I learned from reading the autobiography of Nat Love who was also known as “Deadwood Dick” a cowboy in the 1870s-1880s from Texas to Montana to Kansas to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado. Of course, in Europe before their immigration to America, becoming “whites”, generically and supremely, each European nation was at war with each other continually despite their religious, cultural, similarities! American Indians fought each other as well, tribe against tribe, from sea to shining sea; their separateness in time contributed to their continental conquests by relentless waves of now-“white” settlers, explorers, ranchers, miners, farmers, trappers, traders of many diverse languages: Americans, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, according to varying land commercial interest. Even when people are kindred or close , there still can be, has been, separateness. This fact the internet, social media, radio, movies, videos, books, magazines, newspapers, television shows, religious texts reveal . One wonders if there is remedy for separateness?