Immediately after coming down strongly in favor of teaching kindergarteners about so-called “transexuals,” Florida’s Disney World is now desperately sorry that a high school drill team from Texas used cheers that “stereotyped” Native Americans. That fact that these “stereotypes” were exactly the type of behavior in which Native Americans proudly engaged was irrelevant to the uber-woke company that is more interested in pandering to college faculty lounges than to the Americans who still pour money into that increasingly sleazy, disreputable company.

The left likes to paint Native Americans as innocent, earth-loving, childlike people who were the subjects of a deliberate genocide led by White supremacists from Europe. The actual story is much more complex and, of course, more interesting. These are just a few things to know about the Native Americans:

While they were not technologically sophisticated (for example, they never invented the wheel), they were neither innocent nor naïve. From the moment Europeans appeared in the Americas, the various Native American tribes viewed these well-armed Whites as potential allies in the endless tribal wars in which the Native Americans engaged.

It was these alliances that led Native Americans to the practice of scalping. Because the Native Americans did not join the French and English militaries but engaged in what we would now consider guerilla warfare, the European countries allied with them needed a way to encourage their allied tribes to fight against tribes allied with other European nations—and to keep track of what they were doing. Scalping was the perfect solution. The Native Americans also scalped White settlers, just as the White settlers scalped Native Americans. It was ugly and brutal but this was an ugly and brutal time.

And speaking of ugly and brutal, Cortés did not subdue the Aztec nation with 157 Spaniards and their horses. Instead, Native American tribes in the ambit of the Aztecs enthusiastically joined with the Spanish. They did so because the Aztecs were the Nazis of the region. They were a fierce people who warred endlessly with surrounding tribes, routinely taking those tribe members prisoner and using them as human sacrifices in days’ long rituals that saw tens of thousands of people get their hearts cut out before being beheaded. The Aztecs also engaged in cannibalism.

No wonder, then, that many (although by no means all) Native Americans, like pagans in Europe, voluntarily embraced Christianity because it promised an end to these cruel practices. The beauty of syncretism was that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was the ultimate human sacrifice that was constantly repeated through transubstantiation.

Image: Sioux Indian scalp dance. Public domain.

The real genocide against Native Americans came because of the endemic diseases the Europeans unwittingly brought with them in an age before germ theory. It’s estimated that up to 90% of Native Americans (and Caribbean Americans) died because of these diseases. It was not a deliberate genocide. It was, instead, the inevitable result of the tribes’ exposure to myriad illnesses as to which they had no immunity.

And yes, the Native Americans did war whoops, in the same way that the Scots played bagpipes (my dad was still piped into battle during WWII), the Maoris still do the kata, and the Confederates had their famous battle cry. These practices persist across time and place because they induce fear in the enemy.

Ultimately, the Native Americans were always going to lose. They were brave, intelligent, and utterly vicious fighters, but their small numbers (especially after disease tore through their tribes) compared to the ever-growing numbers of White settlers, as well as the Native Americans’ complete inability to mass-produce their own weapons (making them dependent on Whites for guns and ammunition) made victory impossible. Their choices were assimilation, relocation, or death.

Through the centuries, while Whites definitely denigrated Native Americans (to say otherwise would be a lie), the one thing they continuously admired was the Native Americans’ prowess as warriors. That’s why so many sports teams and school mascots were generally “The Indians” (as my high school was) or had the name of a specific tribe.

Port Neches-Grove High School in Texas has resisted the trend to abandon these admired mascots. Here’s the high school logo, which is obvious respectful, not derogatory:

The drill team proudly calls itself “The Indianettes.” But in Disney’s woke halls, that’s not good enough:

Officials at Walt Disney World said Friday that a performance by a visiting Texas high school drill team that used American Indian stereotypes, including chants of “scalp them," doesn't reflect the Florida resort's values.

The performance this week in the Magic Kingdom by the “Indianettes" drill team from Port Neches-Grove High School “did not reflect our core values, and we regret it took place," Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said in an emailed statement.

Put another way, Port Neches-Grove High School remembers and honors America’s Native American history. And Disney, a once family-friendly company that is now obsessed with gay sex, wants it to be water-downed and ignored.