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The Tragedy of the Dakotas

from Self​-​Help Acoustic by Scott Steven Erickson

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lyrics

A cloudburst on the Great Plains
An abandoned gas station
Surrounded by the ghosts of bison
Drowned in blood of the Lakota

The tragedy of the Dakotas
Buried hearts and broken treaties
Can we transcend this brutal heritage?
Can we restore our humanity?

A tacky tourist trap
Shadowed by a monument
To genocidal maniacs
Might as well keep Andrew Jackson
On the twenty dollar bill
Seeing as we haven’t cured this
Tendency toward racism
With hatred thrown at Native children
Apartheid in the rural towns
Next to reservations

The tragedy of the Americas
Buried hearts and broken treaties
Can we transcend this brutal heritage?
Can we restore our humanity?

Now travel south a continent
Or sail west across the seas
And you’ll find the same sad story
From the Maya to the Maori
Oppression with guns, germs, and steel
Smallpox blankets to a thousand peoples
With biblical delusions of manifest destiny

The tragedy of the First Nations
Buried hearts and broken treaties
Can we transcend this brutal heritage?
Can we restore our humanity?

Empires rise, empires fall
Empires had their free-for-all
But now it’s time to evolve
Empires strike back, empires stall
Empires can get overhauled
To bring restorative justice once and for all

credits

from Self​-​Help Acoustic, released August 1, 2015

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Scott Steven Erickson Olympia, Washington

Upbeat, quirky, and just a tad bit nihilistic.

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