Tulalip Reads for Unity thank you

Hey All,

Words are not enough to express my gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the Tulalip Reads for Unity and all the beautiful work, engaged learning and inspiring moments that are coming from it. Thank you to the faculty, staff and students at NWIC-Tulalip and beyond, the Tulalip Tribes and Tulalip Tribes Charitable Fund, community members and the people in various parts of the US and other parts of the world who have looked in at some of the work that was done on the blogs. A special thanks has to go to Paco Cordova and Kohl Younger for taking the time to share their experience, energy, hope and intellectual/academic knowlege with us. Jordan also gets a shout out of appreciation.

The work of the students is wrapping or wrapped up, now the grading begins. I'm actually pretty excited to read what people did for their final research papers. Even our CCC/UWB librarian commented on how seriously so many students were taking their work and how far ahead they were a few weeks back than you usually see at that time for many students. They also seemed to take things like the peer review more seriously and gave each other some good insights and reflected back to their own work in ways that I can't give enough points to motivate them to do.

Of course when you try something new you are learning as you go, so I see ways to do things differently and hopefully better, yet so many Cascadia students were deeply touched, angered and inspired to have a chance to learn more of a non-white washed version of history- that came from being able to start to buld relations. So my deepest appreciation for allowing us to at least make a start at rejecting the Myth of the Vanishing Race and knowing more than just Native American History, yet knowing what can also be considered on some levels our shared histories.

Go raibh maith agaibh(guh rev mah ah-gwiv) Paco, Kohl and Jordan!!!

Since it is St Patrick's Day I thought the thank you in Irish was appropriate. I'm behind on my blogging, slacking on my own assignment..DOH!

Anyways, while I should be out the door right now, I wanted to give a huge thank you to Kohl, Paco and Jordan, who came to my two English 102 classes and helped us connect how the information were are studying works for them and gave us names of books and authors to look for, which was great for for helping my students finish their research papers. We really appreciate them sharing their stories and knowledge with us and hope they enjoyed spending time with us as well.

I'd better get going, yet will blog more later.

Happy St Patrick's Day and remember DON"T DRINK the GREEN BEER. It is considered "Plastic Paddy"-ish and not someplace you really need to go. Have a safe and sane time and I look forward to seeing people at the open-mic.

What about human responsibilities? A universal declaration of.......

Kohl recently posted beautifully about Rigoberta Menchu, human rights and the United Nations amongst other things. It reminded me of a talk I went to by Dr Hans Keung back in 1999 about the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, a companion or mirroring idea to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In its most basic form the idea is you have the right not to be tortured AND you have the responsibility not to torture, which is coming full circle.

There are many versions, yet I like the one by the Inter-Action Council called "UDHR-English" on search engines http://www.interactioncouncil.org/udhr/declaration/udhr.pdf and more about the world's religious and political leaders involved in this group is at: http://www.interactioncouncil.org/

Here are some excerpts:

The following draft of human responsibilities seeks to bring freedom and responsibility into balance and to promote a move from the freedom of indifference to the freedom of involvement. If one person or government seeks to maximise freedom but does it at the expense of others, a larger number of people will suffer. If human beings maximise their freedom by plundering the natural resources of the earth, then future generations will suffer.

                                                                       

There is no need for a complex system of ethics to guide human action. There is one ancient rule that, if truly followed, would ensure just human relations: the Golden Rule. In its negative form, the Golden Rule mandates that we not do to others what we do not wish be done to us. The positive form implies a more active and solidary role: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Bearing in mind the Golden Rule, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides an ideal starting point from which to consider some of the main obligations which are a necessary complement to those rights.

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If we have a right to life, then we have the obligation to respect life.

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If we have a right to liberty, then we have the obligation to respect other people’s liberty.

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If we have a right to security, then we have the obligation to create the conditions for every human being to enjoy human security.

·

If we have a right to partake in our country’s political process and elect our leaders, then we have the obligation to participate and ensure that the best leaders are chosen.

·

If we have a right to work under just and favorable conditions to provide a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families, we also have the obligation to perform to the best of our capacities.

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If we have a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, we also have the obligation to respect other’s thoughts or religious principles.

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If we have a right to be educated, then we have the obligation to learn as much as our capabilities allow us and, where possible, share our knowledge and experience with others.

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If we have a right to benefit from the earth’s bounty, then we have the obligation to respect, care for and restore the earth and its natural resources.

Undoing 'Assimilate or face the consequences' training

As a white woman living in dominant US culture, at some point in the past my ancestors were willing/able to buy into the old melting pot assimilation model. I remember in elementary school being taught how our ancestors did this because in exchange for giving up their language, heritage, old fights, ties, etc, they would get all kinds of economic benefits and privileges.

What they left out was that people who resisted assimilation, including Native communities across the continent, lose or have repeatedly been denied access to the same benefits and privileges.

What they also left out was that connections to our ancestors and the land also has costs as well as benefits.

A few weeks ago Paco mentioned that tribal governments should be studied alongside of the legislative, executive and judicial aspects of US government, so we can understand how the nation to nation status works. I agree, we have to be educated in order to stop, reverse or at least mitigate the ongoing legacies of racism.

Some dominant culture/white people tell me that while they agree that racism is bad and so forth, they really think we should focus on the future and build for a better tomorrow. It sounds so simple when they say it, yet how do you do that when history and the present time continue to batter you, economically, physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc?  Also, when there is talk of building a better future, can we truly do that if many of us really don't know what really happened in the past or what is happening today on the ground that we live on?

Can we move forward while also learning about the past? Can we create a new model that doesn't punish those who refuse to assimilate? Can we create a society that encourages all of us to remember, see and continue to learn about each other?

Washington State Representative John McCoy, helped pass HB 1495 in 2005 "Encouraging tribal history to be included in the common school curriculum."
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2005&bill=1495 

In September 2010 an extensive and well thought out website was rolled out to help people implement the 2005 HB 1495 with lesson plans, resource lists and links, for all levels in k-12 called "Since Time Immemorial" http://tribalsov.ospi.k12.wa.us/  While many people were involved, Shana Brown and Denny Hurtado led the effort I heard. Anyone can access the site and it is less than a year old, so please tell teachers and anyone else you can think of about it. HB 1495 and the Since Time Immemorial website show us a way of resisting the assilimate or face the consequences training. It would cool to hear what other efforts are going on in various places.

The Matrix- an analogy of race relations?

Alright, so the movie The Matrix and the two following parts of the trilogy have been viewed from many perspectives, including many religious and philosophical traditions, yet they are also interesting to think about as analogy of race relations in the US.

Since I'm not sure how many people have seen this 1999 flick, here is the basic outline:

Storyline http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ 

Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a malevolent hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines which live off of their body heat and imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must return to the Matrix and confront the agents, super powerful computer programs devoted to snuffing out Neo and the entire human rebellion. Written by redcommander27  
Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

So, Thomas/Neo gets a choice between taking a blue pill and reality will keep looking like the computer generated one or he can take the red pill and see actual reality- which is not at all pretty. He takes the red pill. To get to the point about race though you need to skip ahead to when they visit Zion, especially in the second and third installments, where those not in the Matrix live. There are some great scenes in Zion, and if you look around the majority of people there are not white. I mean a visually overwhelming majority are every shade of black and brown. This is not a mistake and it makes sense, who would be most likely not to get to believe in the shiny fake-pretty pre-packaged reality? Does anyone else remember this or being struck by it?

Sometimes I think taking the red or blue pill is a choice some of us have the privilege of making on an almost daily basis, while for most others it is not.

For anyone who is thinking about taking the red option (or always have) and then trying to do something about it, I wanted to point out Tim Wise. He is a white anti-racist activist, which even he admits is because of privilege, yet he is a anti-racist role model and can be humorous too: http://www.timwise.org/appreciation-and-accountability/

 http://www.timwise.org/f-a-q-s/
3. Do you think all whites are racist?
I believe that all people (white or of color) raised in a society where racism has been (and still is) so prevalent, will have internalized various elements of racist thinking: certain beliefs, stereotypes, assumptions, and judgments about others and themselves. So in countries where beliefs in European/white superiority and domination have been historically embedded, it is likely that everyone in such places will have ingested some of that conditioning. I think all whites — as the dominant group in the U.S. — have been conditioned to accept white predominance in the social, political and economic system, and to believe that white predominance is a preferable arrangement for the society in which they live, the neighborhoods in which they live, the places where they work, etc.

However, this doesn’t mean that all whites, having been conditioned in that way, are committed to the maintenance of white supremacy. One can challenge one’s conditioning. One can be counter-conditioned and taught to believe in equality, and to commit oneself to its achievement. These things take work — and they can never completely eradicate all of the conditioning to which one has been subjected — but they are possible.

In other words, we can be racist by conditioning, antiracist by choice. That racism is part of who we are does not mean that it’s all of who we are, or that it must be the controlling or dominant part of who we are. By the same token, just because we choose to be antiracist, does not mean that we no longer carry around some of the racism with which we were raised, or to which we were and are exposed.

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Alright, so there are loads of others doing social justice work, carrying on the legacy of the civil rights struggles. Anyone want to share other favorites?

Kohl and Paco ROCK THE HOUSE!!!

So today both of my English 102 classes got a chance to meet and hear from two students from NWIC-Tulalip. Paco and Kohl graciously agreed to come and share some of their stories and experiences with us, which I deeply appreciate.

It was great to get to hear and watch them in both classes, because while they hit some of the same themes, they were two totally different presentations. I think we laughed more in the first one and were a bit more serious in the second, although Kohl and Paco might have a different perspective on that.

It was fantastic was that they were able to hold people's attention for nearly two hours in each class. This was impressive for a number of reasons, including that both classes are held in computer labs, so somehow they managed to compete and win students attention over Facebook and whatever else is online! I'd like to also thank all of the students who did listen so respectfully, asked and answered questions and who came up and talked to them after class!

Another thing that really struck me was how much information, ideas and stories Paco and Kohl were able to share in each class, and it didn't feel rushed or overwhelming. Standing up in front of a group of strangers and sharing so much of yourself, your history and your cultures is not an easy thing to do, yet they made it look effortless.

Since it would take too long to write down all that I remember them saying, I will just give some highlights:

Kohl reminding us about the Gulf Oil Spill last year, and sharing with us his perspective on it.
Paco talking about identity and finding balance within yourself.
Kohl sharing some family stories and some of the historical events that have shaped them.
Paco just getting into various things he was saying, and hearing him talk with the passion and inflection
of a Baptist preacher.
Kohl explaining how generosity works amongst the Lakota people. The idea that sharing increases your status is an important one for many of us to try and understand.
Paco giving us insights into why Native people are still struggling with historical trauma, and the need for us to keep (get?) an open mind about this and other things.

Alright, so I could go on and on, yet those are some highlights. I am also enjoying hearing and reading what my students learned from Kohl and Paco today.

I want to thank Paco and Kohl for being such amazing speakers, student scholars and gentlemen.

Doing our heads in.....with privilege.

"Melissa, no matter how cool a white person is, no matter how much work they've done on themselves around issues of race, class and creed, I always hit the limit of their ability to understand my experience, I find I hit the limit of their privilege- and it always hurts."  B. May 2003

When B. told me that I was at first selfishly heartbroken. I had thought if I worked hard enough I could totally get over having white privilege, that I could somehow examine my conscience, behaviors, actions, thoughts, etc until I was completely free of it and the pain I caused others with it. Knowing it wasn't possible hurt, although not nearly as much dealing with it from the other side. Realizing B. was willing to be my friend, even though he knew I would eventually hurt him with the limits of my privilege, hit me even harder. How could he ever let me or any white person be his friend knowing that?! I'm not sure I could be as open with people I knew would hurt me, even if we are all individuals and hope does spring eternal.

This is one story and many people have stories, opinions and perspectives, yet I've found from other friends that his story is not unique. Some may shrug this off as simply part of being human, making mistakes and forgiving each other, yet it is deeper than that in my opinion. Why and how much deeper? Perhaps others could jump in and share how it works for them?