In the 1920s oil was discovered in the ground beneath the land owned by individual Native Americans in Oklahoma. One by one various of the owners began to die off under suspicious circumstances. Several Native American women of the Osage Tribe who had been married by local white men were murdered – actually shot or poisoned – in order to inherit their land and all the rights to the oil underneath. These men became millionaires overnight.
Initially the members of the Osage tribe registered their land and when it became clear that they all were sitting on an oil “Gold Mine” they all became millionaires overnight, even though it took several years for the oil profits to materialize. In 1923 alone the tribe took in more than 30 million dollars, equivalent today of over 400 million. Many travelled around the world, built fancy mansions, and went to the best schools in Europe. But that’s when the systematic murders began.
It took the newly formed FBI and numerous private investigators years to uncover the whole plot and prosecute and convict the men who had stolen the rights to the oil riches from their wives by first marrying them and then killing them. These men, led by Ernest Burkhart, got away with this plot for many years before they were brought to justice, partly by the efforts of the FBI and mostly by those of several private detectives who had been hired by various Native Americans. There were numerous trials all around the state of Oklahoma.
Slowly the devious plot began to be uncovered and the guilty persons tracked down. Bye then many of the original swindlers and murderers had already died. A great deal of the credit eventually must go to author David Gramm for his continued sleuthing, as well as for his bringing this volume together. The book’s title is Killers of the Flower Moon. It seems impossible to believe that a plot so treacherous and evil could have been born, but in this book the author has dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s”.
Ironically, the U.S. government has recently allowed electric companies to erect windmills all over the reservation land because they “do not impede or trespass’ on any Native American source of livelihood. Besides, oil as a means of power is hopefully fast receding into the sunset, leaving the Native Americans with their land and whatever oil rights they can peddle. Like the Cherokee “Trail of Tears” this white man bamboozle also has left Native Americans out in the cold.
I write about this book and its fiendish plot because I have for a long time been interested in and saddened by the plight of Native Americans ever since the coming of the “White Man.” We have taken their land, pushed them around, even eliminated them by the thousands, all in the name of “Manifest Destiny” and “progress.” In spite of this, thousands of native Americans have helped us fight our World Wars and continue to contribute to the enrichment of our cultural life.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” will also be a film available soon in theaters.

Back in 1982 Dr. Carol Gilligan, an Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University published this ground-breaking book, In A Different Voice.
In it she sought to trace and focus the different ethical perspectives between young boys and young girls. She suggested that when it comes to moral questions girls, and thus perhaps women as well, think and feel differently from boys and men. She had done extensive study of numerous young people of both genders in order to highlight these differences.
Gilligan’s central assumption was “That the way people talk about their lives is of significance, that the language they use and the connections they make reveal the world that they see and in which they act.” (p.2) Gilligan had studied and worked with well-known socio-psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg as a graduate student at Harvard and in her work there she began to question Kohlberg’s work on human moral development because as it turned out all of his studies had involved only young men. The major result of Kohlberg’s work was the conclusion that young males’ sense of morality is primarily based on a sense of rights and obligations, much as it is studied in philosophy and religion classes.
On the other hand, according to Gilligan’s empirical studies with young girls, a young girl might respond by first asking about the circumstances of the posed situation. She might ask if there are no other ways for obtaining the needed drug. She might ask not whether one should steal the drug, but what other options might there be to solving the difficult situation other than stealing. In short, Gilligan found that by and large young girls took a broader perspective on such issues in order to avoid both of the proposed possible scenarios. Where Kohlberg’s analysis offered only two options here, Gilligan’s analysis broadened the scope of the issue to not only include but to begin with more contextual questions about what is involved and why.
Repeatedly Gilligan found that in such situations, young girls always began by asking questions that would bring out more details and thus more possibilities. She describes this difference as that between coming at the issue contextuality or with categorical thinking. To put it differently, between what is categorically “right” and what is contextually “best” or most helpful. Gilligan concluded that whereas men generally try to determine what is “right” or “wrong” thing to do in the situation, focusing on rules, etc. women generally approach the situation by focusing on the relationships involved and how to fulfill them.
Throughout her very insightful book Gilligan offers numerous examples, both from real life and creative literature, of this sort of difference, but the case which strikes me the as the most clear and powerful is that of the dilemma confronting the rabbits who have offered to share their nest with a porcupine but soon find out that whenever the porcupine moves some rabbit gets stuck. The dilemma then is whether to find some form of compromise or to ban the porcupine from the nest.
This dilemma reminds me of what we who play pick-up basketball must often do when there are no referees. We make adjustments for the guy who keeps committing a double-dribble, or the clumsy guy who inadvertently fouls people. The responsible thing to do, assuming we want to continue to play together in such cases is not cart blanch follow the rules, but to bend the rules a bit so that we can continue to play together. Of course, such “bending” will have to have limits.
The crucial point is that in order to live together our “morality” must take into account various important differences of situation: male and female, black and white, poor and rich, young and elderly. If we are going to live together our ethics must be able to “bend” a bit here and there. I think this is what Gilligan meant by her title: “In a Different Voice”, a voice that seeks to find solutions for complicated situations without necessitating bringing our game to an end. We usually tried taking turns taking the ball out of bounds. This issue is not easy, but it’s crucial for our life together. ANY QUESTIONS OR OBSERVATIONS?