Category: LANDBACK

Monuments to White Supremacy July 4, 2020

Following are excerpts from a blog post I wrote about the gathering on July 4 last year related to white supremacy and monuments to white supremacy.

Statues to Confederate soldiers are monuments to White supremacy. These White men committed treason by seceding from the United States, and going to war to preserve the institution of slavery. They were clearly saying White culture is superior to all others.

Another campaign of White supremacy was the theft of Native peoples lands and the cultural genocide from forced assimilation of more than 100,000 Indigenous children. This occurred in White run boarding/residential schools and was the epitome of White supremacy. Forcing native children to give up their ways, and try to learn how to fit into White society. The trauma related to forced assimilation that affected the children and their relatives has been passed from generation to generation and is felt by those living today.

Systemic racism in the U.S. today is the interconnected web of ways White supremacy continues in our society.

As I have learned more about Indigenous peoples, it is clear to me we would not be in this rapid spiral into deepening climate chaos is we had lived within our ecological boundaries, as Indigenous peoples have always done. Another way we are all suffer because of White supremacy.

Besides the Confederate statues, pioneer monuments are also displays of White supremacy.

The earliest pioneer monuments were put up in midwestern and western cities such as Des Moines, Iowa and San Francisco, California. They date from the 1890s and early 1900s, as whites settled the frontier and pushed American Indians onto reservations.

Those statues showed white men claiming land and building farms and cities in the West. They explicitly celebrated the dominant white view of the Wild West progressing from American Indian “savagery” to white “civilization.”

Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments by Cynthia Prescott, The Conversation.
Pioneer statue, Iowa State Capitol grounds, Des Moines, Iowa

My friends Christine Nobiss and Donnielle Wanatee organized the event at the Iowa State Capitol on July 4th, 2020, regarding removing the Pioneer statue on the grounds there.

Following are rough notes I took from Christine Nobiss’s remarks.

Christine Nobiss: As an academic, as an Indigenous person, as an organizer railing against monuments to White supremacy, whether they be statues, murals or entire buildings.

As an organizer, rail against statues, murals, buildings, spaces
Uprisings George Floyd
Movement to taking these statues down
Concerns about safety of my people, the safety of black people, people of the world majority when taking statues down.

Is it our job to take them down?

In reality, in the best sense of how all this is occurring, the best thing would be that they would just be taken down. The states would see these as human rights violations, symbols of hate speech that leave out and single out portions of the populations and make them feel unwelcoming spaces.

So it wold be the duty of the state and Federal governments to see these as symbols that glorify of slavery, ethnic cleansing, land theft and so many violations of human rights.

But that’s not happening, is it?

So it is, again, up to people on the ground to do it, to make this happen.
But I don’t want people to get hurt.

I would like to see legislation, I would like to see us push for the ancestors of these people who put them up take them down.

They put them up, they should take them down.

S.A. Lawrence-Welch: I have to concur. I believe in the power of the people. We need to start holding the government accountable for the atrocities that have occurred, are still occurring, and these monuments that remind us day after day that this has happened. You know that taking them down we are not erasing history, we are acknowledging the actual stains on our history as a nation.

It is incredibly uplifting to see this uprising happen, but to decentralize the White superiority narrative I think that we need to work as people of the world majority, especially in these United States, to dismantle the government as its known now by influencing and having them follow our lead.

Christine: I am not saying I want to rely on them. I’m saying lets make them do it.
I would love the nation states to recognize all the wrongdoings that are perpetuated and how they are responsible for the daily historical trauma of people that have to look at these and be reminded of what’s happened in this county. And look our whitewashed history because that history is not the truth, that is absolutely not the truth of this country was founded at the point of a gun for the sake of free land and free labor. That little sentence just basically barely describes the amount the violence and terror that people have had to deal with for centuries. All of these statues are monuments to that. They are basically irresponsible acts to put these up. Its not the truth and I believe they are human rights violations. They are symbols of hate speech.

Photo gallery from this event: Monuments 7/4/2020 – LANDBACK Friends

#NoMonumentsToWhiteSupremacy

Stop Whitewashing Genocide and Slavery

Bring back critical race theory and remove monuments to white supremacy in Iowa. July 4, 2021. 1 – 3 pm. West terrace Iowa State Capitol

May be an image of 3 people and text that says 'XSTOP WHITEWASHING WHITEV GENOCIDE & SLAVERY DEFENID BRING BACK CRITICAL RACE THEORY & REMOVE MONUMENTS Το WHITE SUPREMACY IN IOWA July 4th, 2021 pm-3pm West Terrace Iowa capitol 1007 E Grand Ave Des Moines, IA GreatPlains Action Society cči DSM BLM COLLECTIVE HMH Put Your Logo Here'
Stop Whitewashing Genocide & Slavery!!!
Bring Back Critical Race Theory & Remove Monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa!

We have an event planned for July 4th at the Capitol Complex and we would love to see a mass turnout to support the BIPOC struggle in Iowa. If your organization would like to join our coalition and co-host, hit me up ASAP and send me your logo.

Don’t be a bystander to white supremacy. Fight back!

Join us on “Fourth of He Lies” to demand that the Iowa legislators remove whitewashed monuments to white supremacy in Iowa. Organizers will present a petition demanding that all racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, whitewashed historical depictions be removed from all state grounds and facilities. These monuments fall into the realm of hate propaganda and make folks feel unwelcome in public spaces. So, we need legislation that removes all monuments, murals, and depictions of white supremacist persons, acts, and ideologies from all Iowa state grounds and state-funded institutions.

In response to police brutality and racial injustice, monuments to white supremacy are being removed all over the country but People of the World Majority are being forced to put their safety on the line to carry out this long-overdue purge. Folks have been shot, arrested, and targeted. We are an Indigenous-led coalition who do not want any more People of the World Majority to put their bodies on the line so this is a permitted event with the intent of making the state–the colonizers–do their job.

To start, we insist that the following statues and mural be removed from the Iowa State Capitol Building and grounds.

On the West Lawn, there is a 15-foot bronze statue on a large pedestal that stands in front of the Iowa State Capitol Building. According to the Iowa State Government website, the statue depicts “The Pioneer of the former territory, a group consisting of father and son guided by a friendly Indian in search of a home. The pioneer depicted was to be hardy, capable of overcoming the hardships of territorial days to make Iowa his home.” The father and son settler invaders are standing tall and proud, looking west, as the “friendly Indian” sits behind them in a less powerful, dejected position.

Inside the capitol is a piece that overwhelmingly encompasses this sentiment called the Westward Mural, which covers a massive wall. The artist writes that “The main idea of the picture is symbolical presentation of the Pioneers led by the spirits of Civilization and Enlightenment to the conquest by cultivation of the Great West.” He also speaks about overcoming the wilderness with plowed fields–as if the current Indigenous inhabitants, such as the Ioway and the Meskwaki, had not already created capable and efficient land management systems.

On the South Lawn, there is a Christopher Columbus Monument that was celebrated in 1938 by five thousand people who showed up for the dedication of the statue on Columbus Day. The statue was put up just a couple years after the Columbus Club of Iowa successfully lobbied to have Walker Park renamed to Columbus Park and have a Columbus monument placed there.*This is a peaceful event led by Indigenous Folx. Please do not take actions that will put Brown and Black folx in jeopardy.

Great Plains Action Society

Some of my photos from last year’s event
Monuments 7/4/2020 – LANDBACK Friends

Line 3 6/23/2021

There is an urgent call to support the Red Lake Treaty Camp in Minnesota Line 3 where Enbridge is moving in heavy machinery to prepare drilling at Red Lake River without a required tribal monitor present. Indigenous leaders have been exercising their treaty rights there to oppose the construction activities. They received notice this morning from the state that the camp may be evicted by the end of the day.

  • Show up at the Red Lake Treaty Camp, answering the call to help them move the camp (see Taysha Martineau’s livestream). See information on how to get to camp here. Stay tuned for more information.
  • Call on Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan and Gov. Tim Walz to demand that activities be stopped until Enbridge can adhere to their legal requirements – 651-201-3400
  • Call, email Margaret.Anderson.Kelliher@state.mn.us, or tweet @MAKMinnesota at MNDOT Commissioner Margaret Anderson Kelliher 651-366-4800 asking her to reconsider evicting the Red Lake Treaty Camp.

Space between stories, worlds

I’ve been broken by the latest calamity, the verification of the remains of 215 Native children on the grounds of what was a residential school in British Columbia. More tragic is knowing hundreds of other Indigenous children died, or were killed, in these institutions of forced assimilation in the lands called Canada and the United States.

I’ve known about forced assimilation for years. But this is raw, because I see how devastated my Native friends are. And I know Quakers were involved in some of these institutions.

The trauma for Native families has been passed from generation to generation. Some of my Native friends have shared how this affects them and their families today. The news has re-opened deep wounds in Native communities. Many have been triggered by this atrocity. One of my Native friends wrote that she was NOT OK. Another told me, “I’m trying not to be enraged in my mourning.”
[see: Time for a Reset]

I’m deeply troubled. I feel caught between my Native relatives and my Quaker community. To the extent that I’ve said I need to “step away” from my involvement with Quakers for a time. Even though I’m not sure what that means, or what will allow me to return.

What I am not getting Friends to see is capitalism is the root of the problem, for reasons I’ve explained in detail elsewhere.
[See: capitalism | Quakers, social justice and revolution (jeffkisling.com) ]

It is frustrating to know all the work, the good intentions of Friends and others, will not lead to needed solutions as long as that work is done within the context of capitalism. [See the diagram below]

What it would take for me to return to Quaker justice work would be for Quakers to see capitalism must be abandoned. And to actively search for alternatives.

I’ve tried to explain this in An Epistle to Friends Regarding Community, Mutual Aid and LANDBACK. If you are so led, you are invited to sign the letter.

We do not have a new story yet. Each of us is aware of some of its threads, for example in most of the things we call alternative, holistic, or ecological today. Here and there we see patterns, designs, emerging parts of the fabric. But the new mythos has not yet formed.

We will abide for a time in the “space between stories.” It is a very precious — some might say sacred — time. Then we are in touch with the real. Each disaster lays bare the reality underneath our stories. The terror of a child, the grief of a mother, the honesty of not knowing why. In such moments our dormant humanity awakens as we come to each other’s aid, human to human, and learn who we are.

That’s what keeps happening every time there is a calamity before the old beliefs, ideologies, and politics take over again. Now the calamities and contradictions are coming so fast that the story has not enough time to recover. Such is the birth process of a new story.

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein

I am in that very precious, sacred time Charles Eisenstein describes. Abiding in the “space between stories”. The teachings of my Native friends have awakened the honesty of not knowing why.

I invite you to be open to new ways of being, such as LANDBACK and Mutual Aid. And pray we can hold onto the space between stories before the old beliefs, ideologies, and politics take over again. There is an urgency to this.

It is instructive that Eisenstein is expressing the concept of Mutual Aid when he writes “in such moments our dormant humanity awakens as we come to each other’s aid, human to human, and learn who we are.“

What we have is each other. We can and need to take care of each other. We may have limited power on the political stage, a stage they built, but we have the power of numbers.

Those numbers represent unlimited amounts of talents and skills each community can utilize to replace the systems that fail us.  The recent past shows us that mutual aid is not only a tool of survival, but also a tool of revolution. The more we take care of each other, the less they can fracture a community with their ways of war.

Once we envision that world our ancestors want for us, finding our role is natural.

My friend and mentor Ronnie James, The Police State and Why We Must Resist

Friends express this as seeking what the Inner Light is asking of us.

I urge us to discern whether there are circumscribed limits we might not be aware of, that hold us back from venturing into a new story.