Category: residential schools

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings 2

Yesterday I wrote of my conflicts with Quakers, which stem from lack of response to atrocities of institutions of forced assimilation. Which Quakers had been involved with.

Native organizations are not asking us to judge our Quaker ancestors. They are asking, “Who are Friends today? Knowing what we know now, will Quakers join us in honest dialogue? Will they acknowledge the harm that was done? Will they seek ways to contribute toward healing processes that are desperately needed in Native communities?”

Paula Palmer

Will Quakers join us in honest dialogue?

Yesterday’s post included conflict resolution ground rules from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems by Joy Harjo. Following she discusses skills to enhance mutual trust and respect.

2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

  • If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters “as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run.”
  • The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.
  • A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.
  • If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.
  • At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.
  • There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. “It feels like wartime,” said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.
  • If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.
  • We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.
  • If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange “as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run.”
  • Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.
  • We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.
  • White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice. We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
  • These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.

Harjo, Joy. Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

That is the opposite of mutual trust and respect. Particularly related to the remains of thousands of Native children on the grounds of institutions of forced assimilation.

Quakers should support Indigenous leadership. Show up. Follow Native social media sites. Attend events posted there.

I follow the Great Plains Action Society. And am part of Des Moines Mutual Aid, which is supported by Great Plains Action Society, including involvement of my friend Ronnie James, an Indigenous organizer.

The website LANDBack Friends has information about these things, including An Epistle to Friends Regarding Community, Mutual Aid and LANDBACK

Friends should not add to the burden of Indigenous peoples. Instead find events such as the above, and show up for support. But do NOT try to offer suggestions, etc.

A focus of Great Plains Action Society is stop whitewashing the truth.

Conflict Resolution 1

How can I work through conflict with my Quaker community? What is the conflict? How resolved?

Fundamentally, what is the relationship between spirituality and how we live our lives?

I agree with my friends Alton and Foxy Onefeather, “Earth is my church”.

Alton and Foxy Onefeather

That is why I’ve had lifelong tensions with Quakers about burning fossil fuels. I was able to live without a car in Indianapolis because of a city bus system, bicycling and running. With no mass transit in rural Iowa, Friends do what they can. It is humbling to now live in a small city with no public transit, to need to use a car sometimes.

Unresolved conflicts have an immediacy by definition. Something is being done now that causes conflict. Our spirituality guides us through our own conflicts. But what do we do when we see others acting in ways we disagree with? How do we deal with what our ancestors might have done?

How we live our lives should be an example. We hope this might encourage others to change. But need to consider we might be wrong. We can discuss our differences but should not try to force change. I’ve done that.

Several weeks ago I felt a strong leading to stop attending my Quaker meeting. It has been difficult. I didn’t want to.

I’ve been praying about why, and when I can return. Historically Friends who had strong leadings, for example about enslavement, worked within Quaker communities.

My current conflict is an overwhelming grief at news of the discovery of the remains of hundreds, soon to be thousands, of Native children on the grounds of residential institutions of forced assimilation. I feel this in ways I would not have several years ago, before I was blessed to begin to know and work with my Native friends. I have spoken to each of them about Quaker involvement in forced assimilation early in our relationships. We could not have moved into deeper relationship if this truth was not spoken.

One of my good friends told me he is trying to not let rage get in the way of his mourning. I have met his son and cannot imagine their discussions about this.

As I was praying about conflict, I remembered Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems by Joy Harjo. I’m surprised how the following gets to the root of the conflicts I feel now.

1 . SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

  • Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
  • Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
  • Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
  • The land is a being who remembers everything.
  • You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
  • The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
  • As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
  • By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
  • Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
  • You must speak in the language of justice.

Harjo, Joy. Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

To this day we have not come to grips with fundamental injustices our country was built on, the cultural genocide and theft of land from Native Americans, the enslavement of African Americans and the legal justifications of bestowing rights and privileges on white land-owning men. The consequences of these injustices continue to plague our society today. And will continue to impact us until we do what is necessary to bring these injustices to light and find ways to heal these wounds.

Several Friends recently assisted Boulder Meeting Friend, Paula Palmer, to lead workshops and discussions as part of her ministry “toward right relationships with Native people.” Part of the tragedy of the theft of Native land is that some Native people don’t have the concept of land as property, belonging to a landowner. Rather they have a spiritual connection to Mother Earth, that the land is sacred and not something that can be claimed as property by anyone. Being forced to leave their land broke their spiritual bonds with the land.

Native people have asked us to begin work toward reconciliation and healing. The first step needed is truth telling, recognizing that injury or harm has taken place. One of the important parts of holding “right relationship” workshops is to determine which Native nations were on the land before white settlers arrived.

Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) 2019

Tensions between Native peoples and Christian religions

There is growing sorrow and anger in Indigenous communities now. Related to the awful and expanding discoveries of the remains of children, thousands of them, found on the grounds of former Native residential schools.

A good friend told me he is trying to not let rage get in the way of his mourning. I know his son, and can’t imagine the conversations they might have had about this news.

It is so traumatic to imagine the terror of the children, who had to know about at least some of these deaths at their school. To have been abused in so many ways. Punished if they spoke their language. Not even be allowed their practices that might give comfort. Alone, isolated from their families. Knowing they could die themselves.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that she is launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the “devastating history” of the U.S. government’s policy of forcing Native American children into boarding schools for assimilation into white culture.

Deb Haaland Launches Review of ‘Devastating’ Native American Boarding Schools. The Interior Department probe will identify Indigenous children who died at schools the U.S. government forced them into for assimilation into white culture By Jennifer Bendery, HuffPost, June 22, 2021

Quakers were involved in some of these schools. Not to say they mistreated the children. But the concept of trying to assimilate Native children into white culture is by definition cultural genocide.

What is our accountability today?

From our twenty-first-century vantage point, we know (or can learn) how Native people suffered and continue to suffer the consequences of actions that Friends committed 150 ago with the best of intentions. Can we hold those good intentions tenderly in one hand, and in the other hold the anguish, fear, loss, alienation, and despair borne by generations of Native Americans?

Native organizations are not asking us to judge our Quaker ancestors. They are asking, “Who are Friends today? Knowing what we know now, will Quakers join us in honest dialogue? Will they acknowledge the harm that was done? Will they seek ways to contribute toward healing processes that are desperately needed in Native communities?” These are my questions, too.

Quaker Indian Boarding Schools. Facing Our History and Ourselves By Paula Palmer, Friends Journal, October 1, 2016

I belong to the spiritual communities of Quakers and of my Native friends. There is great tension between these communities. The article below, “why we’re burning Bibles” describes a Native view of Christian religions. This was written by the Great Plains Action Society, where I have many friends. I am sure some Friends will object to these ideas. But we don’t have the right to pass judgement.

This is a confusing time for me. I’ve been learning and telling others about the Native boarding schools for years. I have spoken about this and apologized to each of my Native friends for the Quaker involvement in the residential schools.

Below is an Epistle to Friends Regarding Community, Mutual Aid and LANDBACK in which I write more about these things. My Native friends tell me the best way I can help them is by teaching others about the concepts of LANDBACK. So I’ve recently created the website LANDBACK Friends. There is a lot of information about the Native boarding schools there.

When I began to learn of the verification of the remains of Native children at those schools, I wondered how that might affect how Native peoples view Quakers, view me now. I am touched by them telling me I am still welcome to work with them.

Native organizations are not asking us to judge our Quaker ancestors. They are asking, “Who are Friends today? Knowing what we know now, will Quakers join us in honest dialogue? Will they acknowledge the harm that was done? Will they seek ways to contribute toward healing processes that are desperately needed in Native communities?”

Paula Palmer

Why We’re Burning Bibles

Stand with First Nations Peoples on Cancel KKKanada Day and burn your bibles for the rape, torture, and murder of Indigenous children. Use #bibleburner and post your video or pic online or on the event page.

https://www.greatplainsaction.org/single-post/why-we-re-burning-bibles?

In the wake of over 1300 unmarked/mass graves that have recently been uncovered on reservations such as the Cowessess and Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nations in Canada, we demand truth, justice, and healing from genocidal policy set forth by the US and Canada that allowed Christian clergy to neglect, rape, torture, and murder Indigenous children. We also demand redress and reparations to the fullest extent as we know that there are thousands of Indigenous children also buried here in the US—and the search hasn’t even begun.

For now, we will start by expelling the codified christian text that is the blueprint behind our genocide. The Christian bible has proven to be the deadliest of all human-made weapons. It has been the permission slip for all of the atrocities following colonization. The cost of building the global Christian Empire is an ongoing and immeasurable loss that we can never truly have a full accounting for, as the newest discovered mass graves of our relatives painfully remind us today.

As we mourn the loss of our loved ones and relatives, murdered and discarded after being violently stolen from us, we don’t forget the who or the why. For over 100 years the churches have used these schools to destroy us, to “kill the indian to save the man”.

This has never been a secret.

This is why we reject the entire premise of the Christian faith and its supportive texts. The Bible remains a supportive tool to persecute Indigenous people. Rejecting this tool is vital to the continuation of supporting Indigenous people and our livelihood. We ask our supporters to join us in burning the Bible as an act of solidarity and to send a message to Christian faiths that we will no longer allow this tool to exist in our spaces.

Why We’re Burning Bibles

#everychildmatters
#bibleburner

An Epistle to Friends Regarding Community, Mutual Aid and LANDBACK

Dear Friends,

The measure of a community is how the needs of its people are met. No one should go hungry, or without shelter or healthcare. Yet in this country known as the United States millions struggle to survive. The capitalist economic system creates hunger, houselessness, illness that is preventable, and despair. A system that requires money for goods and services denies basic needs to anyone who does not have money. Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) are disproportionately affected. Systemic racism. The capitalist system that supports the white materialistic lifestyle is built on stolen land and genocide of Indigenous peoples, and the labor of those who were enslaved in the past or are forced to live on poverty wages today.

Capitalism is revealed as an unjust, untenable system, when there is plenty of food in the grocery stores, but men, women and children are going hungry, living on the streets outside. White supremacy violently enforces the will of wealthy white people on the rest of us.

It has become clear to some of us who are called Friends that the colonial capitalist economic system and white supremacy are contrary to the Spirit and we must find a better way. We conscientiously object to and resist capitalism and white supremacy.

capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power.

in the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices. 
Des Moines Black Liberation Movement

Mutual Aid

How do we resist? We rebuild our communities in ways not based upon money. Such communities thrive all over the world. Indigenous peoples have always lived this way. Generations of white people once did so in this country. Mutual Aid is a framework that can help us do this today.

The concept of Mutual Aid is simple to explain but can result in transformative change. Mutual Aid involves everyone coming together to find a solution for problems we all face. This is a radical departure from “us” helping “them”. Instead, we all work together to find and implement solutions.  To work together means we must be physically present with each other. Mutual Aid cannot be done by committee or donations. We build Beloved communities as we get to know each other. Build solidarity. An important part of Mutual Aid is creating these networks of people who know and trust each other. When new challenges arise, these networks are in place, ready to meet them.

Another important part of Mutual Aid is the transformation of those involved. This means both those who are providing help, and those receiving it.

With Mutual Aid, people learn to live in a community where there is no vertical hierarchy. A community where everyone has a voice. A model that results in enthusiastic participation. A model that makes the vertical hierarchy required for white supremacy impossible.

Commonly there are several Mutual Aid projects in a community. The initial projects usually relate to survival needs. One might be a food giveaway. Another helping those who need shelter. Many Mutual Aid groups often have a bail fund, to support those arrested for agitating for change. And accompany those arrested when they go to court.

LANDBACK

The other component necessary to move away from colonial capitalism and white supremacy is LANDBACK.

But the idea of “landback” — returning land to the stewardship of Indigenous peoples — has existed in different forms since colonial governments seized it in the first place. “Any time an Indigenous person or nation has pushed back against the oppressive state, they are exercising some form of landback,” says Nickita Longman, a community organizer from George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The movement goes beyond the transfer of deeds to include respecting Indigenous rights, preserving languages and traditions, and ensuring food sovereignty, housing, and clean air and water. Above all, it is a rallying cry for dismantling white supremacy and the harms of capitalism.

Returning the Land. Four Indigenous leaders share insights about the growing landback movement and what it means for the planet, by Claire Elise Thompson, Grist, February 25, 2020

What will Friends do?

It matters little what people say they believe when their actions are inconsistent with their words.  Thus, we Friends may say there should not be hunger and poverty, but as long as Friends continue to collaborate in a system that leaves many without basic necessities and violently enforces white supremacy, our example will fail to speak to mankind.

Let our lives speak for our convictions.  Let our lives show that we oppose the capitalist system and white supremacy, and the damages that result.  We can engage in efforts, such as Mutual Aid and LANDBACK, to build Beloved community. To reach out to our neighbors to join us.

We must begin by changing our own lives if we hope to make a real testimony for peace and justice.

We remain, in love of the Spirit, your Friends and sisters and brothers.

The quiet became unbearable

The more I learn about the assimilation institutions in this country and the land called Canada, the deeper I fall into despair. It is so difficult to think of how these things affect my Native friends and their families. To have witnessed some of their anger and sorrow.

I was going to say but this is not about me in order to put the focus where I thought it should be, on the unimaginable suffering of my friends. But then the Spirit told me this is definitely about me and other white people. We must recon with the past before we can be part of any healing. If healing is even possible.

So much is being written now about the horrors of the Native residential schools it’s overwhelming. I have trouble figuring out what I should write about all of this. One thing I am compelled to do is call as much attention to these things as I can.

I believe in the power of stories. When I saw the following story in the article, With the help of the Mounties, the priests piled the children into boats and floated away, I felt it’s power.

Warning: The information and material here may trigger unpleasant feelings or thoughts of past abuse. Please contact the 24-hour Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419 if you require emotional support.

An elder told me a story. It goes like this.

It was long ago and late summer in a remote northern village. A Cree village. Everyone still lived in tents. One day priests visited. They announced that the next time they came, they would take the children. It would be for the best, they explained. The children would go to school. The priests left, and some short time later — maybe a week, maybe two — they returned. This time, the Mounties came with them. The Mounties wore red coats, black boots and each Mountie wore a belt with a gun. The priests did as they’d promised. With the help of the Mounties, they piled the children into boats and floated away.

That evening, the villagers made their fires, cooked supper and ate in silence.

Their world was silent.

No children played or laughed.

No children quarrelled or cried.

The quiet became unbearable.

The sun had not yet set, but they crept into their tents anyway.

Soon a sob broke the silence. It was a woman crying.

Then another sob.

Then another woman.

The sun sank orange, the yellow moon rose, and all night long the only sound heard in the village was mothers crying.

With the help of the Mounties, the priests piled the children into boats and floated away By Karyn Pugliese aka Pabàmàdiz, Canada’s National Observer, June 30th 2021

“The schools were never meant to do us any good,” the elder told me. “They knew. They knew that when you break the hearts of our women, you break the strength of our nations.”

Perhaps we should stop calling these institutions schools. It’s misleading. Schools are built to teach. There may have been individual teachers with good intentions. There may have been individuals attending these institutions who benefitted. But any benefit was a side-effect. The system was designed to erase us.

Understanding the legacy of residential institutions is important, not just for the harm that policy caused. But because every policy, every program, every law aimed at Indigenous people over the same hundred-year period was shaped by the same attitudes of racial superiority. Poor water, shoddy housing, underfunded schools, child welfare. Unresolved land claims that led to standoffs with police. Residential schools were not an exception in government policy. They were the rule.

Reconciliation is not about guilt. Few people living today had the knowledge or power to stop what was happening. You didn’t do anything wrong. All of us are trapped and living with the same history. The question is, what will we do about it?

If you didn’t like what you saw when you stepped through the looking glass, you can change it.

This opportunity is precious, fragile, and it almost didn’t happen.

I worry about what will happen if it fails.

With the help of the Mounties, the priests piled the children into boats and floated away By Karyn Pugliese aka Pabàmàdiz, Canada’s National Observer, June 30th 2021

Four Indigenous Climbers Arrested “LANDBACK”

From NDN’s Landback campaign. NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.

Four Indigenous Climbers Arrested After Mounting “LANDBACK” Flag From 100 Ft Dakota Mills Grain Silo

Action Calls Out Hypocrisy of July 4th, Uplifts Demand for Reparations and Justice 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JULY 4, 2021

Rapid City, SD — Today, Indigenous climbers representing 10 different Nations from Turtle Island and Palestine were arrested for confronting the legacy of white supremacy that is commemorated every 4th of July. Climbers ascended the 100-ft Dakota Mills Grain silo situated on Lakota lands in downtown Rapid City and mounted an upside down American flag with “LANDBACK” written prominently across it. 

This flag represents the murders of those children they secretly buried them without markers and thought they could get away with it. The number on the banner that is orange (1505), it represents the number of relatives that we have found so far.

Photo Courtesy of NDN Collective.

NDN Collective’s LANDBACK Campaign team released the following statement: 

“An upside-down flag represents being in distress and is a prominent symbol across Indian Country; we have just celebrated the Battle of Little Bighorn, and at that battle the three sister nations of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho defeated General Custer and the 7th Calvary. In that battle, they claimed the American flag from the defeated US army. That flag belongs to us. Today, we refute the dominant narrative that the American flag represents a legacy of freedom, democracy, and equality.

“This day is nothing to celebrate for the Indigenous Peoples here, or anywhere else the United States has consumed through imperialism. LANDBACK is not a metaphor; it is our present reality and our future struggle. There is no repair or justice until Indigenous Peoples reclaim our land. This place, the Black Hills, represents the entire cycle of life and deserves nothing less than Return.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

“Today, we stand with our people, who are in distress, to speak the truth of what the 4th of July means in Mniluzahan, or so-called ‘Rapid City.’ The self-declared “City of Presidents” honors the legacy of past United States leadership on one hand, while brutalizing the original peoples and caretakers of the land on the other.

“Last year, on July 3rd, we saw Indigenous peoples brutalized and arrested by police atop our own sacred site and treaty lands, the Black Hills. 21 people were arrested, including NDN Collective’s President and CEO, Nick Tilsen, who is Oglala Lakota. Tilsen is still fighting the extreme charges filed against him over a year ago, having recently filed a motion to dismiss the charges based on prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional rights violations.

NDBACK Campaign mounted an upside down flag in downtown Rapid City with LANDBACK painted across– a sign of distress and a symbol of resistance to the so-called Fourth of July and the American settler colonial project. One of those climbers is Martin Aranaydo (Tohono O’odham)

“Return Indigenous Lands to Indigenous hands. That’s it. Until we get it we ain’t gonna stop. Being up here today, looking down at this inverted flag, I’m reminded of what this flag means to me. This flag represents the military. They murdered our ancestors and tried to commit genocide against us. They did not succeed.

“This flag represents the people that took children away from their parents– babies away from their parents. Forced them into boarding schools. This flag represents a country that abused those children, beat them, assaulted them sexually, mentally, physically. This flag represents the many horrors that our grandparents, and great grandparents had to endure. This flag represents the murders of those children they secretly buried them without markers and thought they could get away with it. The number on the banner that is orange (1505), it represents the number of relatives that we have found so far. We hope we will find more relatives who can finally lay to rest peacefully.” – Martin Aranaydo, Climber.

#LANDBACK#4thofYouLie

May be an image of outdoors

Today, a team of climbers with NDN’s LANDBACK Campaign did a banner drop in downtown Rapid City of an upside-side American flag with LANDBACK painted across– a sign of distress and a symbol of resistance to the so-called Fourth of July and the American settler colonial project. One of those climbers is Krystal Two Bulls, LANDBACK Campaign Director. “We are calling out all of the false narratives that exist on this day, July 4th. Calling attention to the white supremacy that exists in the Rapid City Police Department, through the systems that exist here in this city, but also worldwide. We want to make sure that we are calling out that all of this land is Indigenous Land and that we are up here today to stand and to continue to demand LANDBACK. We have tried many other ways to negotiate, have conversation, and to do all of these things to reclaim our land. It’s a fight for justice, a fight for liberation, a fight for all things good. We’ve only ever been met with violence, attacks, brutality, and criminalization. So we’re here to demand and say that we’re not stopping until we get our land back. And we will not stop. And we’re going to continue to fight to protect our lands, to protect everything that we hold sacred.” – Krystal Two Bulls, Director of LANDBACK Campaign

Follow NDN’s livestream for continued coverage: https://www.facebook.com/ndncol/videos/397600628339257/#LANDBACK#4thofYouLie

May be an image of 2 people, people standing and outdoors

National holidays, Indigenous leadership and buried children

I’ve been writing about the event that was going to be held at the Iowa State Capitol “stop whitewashing genocide and slavery”. I urged people I know to attend. Support the BIPOC struggle in Iowa – LANDBACK Friends Organizers asked for a show of support. I was disappointed to see only a few people I know.

The same calls to remove monuments to white supremacy was held last year. Monuments to White Supremacy July 4, 2020 – LANDBACK Friends

Canada Day, July 1, and July 4 in the land called the United States, celebrate one view of the history of these two countries. Celebrations of white colonialism and the reign of capitalism. My Native friends refer to these as KKKCanada Day or Cancel Canada Day, and “The 4th of he lies”.

The remains of hundreds of children on the grounds of residential schools in Canada was a focus of the event here in Des Moines, and in Canada described below. The number will be in the thousands.

In Canada, monuments have been vandalized or destroyed and churches defaced. Four burned to the ground.

The search for remains in the United States has not yet begun. What does this mean for religious organizations involved with these schools here?

While There Had Been Anti-Canada Day Marches In The Past, This Year’s Especially Large Turnout Was Spurred In Part By The Discovery Of Over 1,100 Bodies At Former Residential Schools Over The Past Few Months.

On July 1, several thousand Indigenous people and settler and immigrant allies answered the call of organizations like Idle No More to protest the celebration of Canada Day and the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples. Cancel Canada Day actions took place across the land occupied by the Canadian state, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the east, to Victoria, B.C., including a march of thousands to parliament in Ottawa.

Uniting under the slogan “No Pride in Genocide,” these rallies put forward a panoply of demands. At the forefront was that Canada Day be replaced with a day to honor those whose lives have been lost to the Canadian state, whether Indigenous, Black, POC, women, or LGBTQ+. This was accompanied by demands for the end of settler encroachment and return of Indigenous land, Indigenous sovereignty, a real response to the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women, the end of police brutalization of Indigenous people, that the church take responsibility and offer compensation for the residential schools, and the end of celebration of the settler-colonial state.

At the same time, settler-colonial symbols have been vandalized and destroyed, including a statue of Captain James Cook in Victoria and statues of Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II in Manitoba. In addition, many churches have been defaced, and four in BC have been burned to the ground. All this reflects Indigenous consciousness—the awareness that we live under the boot of a settler-colonial state that demands our elimination, and that this fundamental reality needs to change.

However, changing this reality is impossible under capitalism. Indigenous oppression, expropriation, and elimination are carried out in order to remove us as an obstacle to capitalist expansion and exploitation of the land. While victories can be won in the short term, this oppression cannot end while capitalism remains in place. As a result, we must do all we can to unite the class struggle of the non-Indigenous working class with the decolonial struggles of Indigenous peoples, if we are to eliminate the capitalist system that oppresses and exploits both.

THOUSANDS MARCH IN CANCEL CANADA DAY ACTIONS By Taytyn Badger, Left Voice, July 4, 2021

Following is a graphic I’ve been working on, indicating the central role of capitalism.

capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power.

in the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices.

Des Moines Black Liberation

A caravan of Trump supporters tried to disrupt the ceremonies. Some of the flags were pulled off as they passed by. I was astonished at the quick reaction of some in our crowd. They have seen this thing before. There was an immediate increase in tension. After the caravan left, Iowa State Patrol cars closed off the street.

Trump supporters

Judy Plank

My friend and fellow Quaker, Judy Plank, has given me permission to share some of her stories.

I’ve written about the background of my grandchildren whose mother’s came from Dakota and Lakota nations in my book. Even as a child I was attracted to what I supposed was the life and culture of the tribes that had thrived in our area before the white colonists arrived. I thought our lives were so boring and unimaginative compared to the lives they lived.

That aside, my experiences with those inlaws and my deep deep love for my grandchildren has drawn me even further into knowledge to the near irrepairable damage done to their lives and culture. I love all my grandchildren with all my heart.

I had a chance meeting at our Le Mars Dairy Queen the fall before the pandemic, with a young native man with a logo on his T-shirt that I was attracted to. He was there with his two children, as their mother was working there. I got into a conversation with him, and he shared that he had attended the Flandreau Indian School, where decades before my grandson’s mother had lived and his other grandmother had been a cook. This young man seemed to have had a very good experience there (the school is still in operation, I believe). From that short conversation, I don’t know how connected he was with his culture and what the school was now teaching, if anything, to continue or revive their culture. He was living in Le Mars, where native people are really scarce.

It’s a miracle that any part of the various native cultures still survive given the relentless violence to wipe it out completely. Yet, reviving some of that culture and reverence for the earth that gives us life as these people traditionally practiced, may well be what saves us from destroying ourselves. I attended a talking circle some years ago facilitated by a man I greatly respect from the Yankton nation, who lived in Sioux City. He referred to all people, creatures and things as our relatives. I try to consistently remember to treat all as relatives in my own life. He’s currently in the process of moving to Sioux Falls, but I communicate with him via Facebook.
I’m very happy that finally a native is in charge of the Dept. of Interior. I hope that will change the culture of that department for the better. Other than that, I don’t have much to offer about how to repair the damage done. It will take generations, I fear, before the wrong can be wiped clean.

As I see it, the reason the past boarding schools era is still relevant is the repercussions still today of that trauma of taking children from their families and unthinkable disruption to the culture, language, and family life for the tribal people is still affecting the people to this day. We can be unaware of the entire episode, but they still live with that trauma. What we can do now, is recognize the hurt, listen and learn from the learned history of the tribes as to how to treat the land we live on, and to return as best we can land and lives of these people. How that can best be done, I’m not sure, but many ways must be tried to repair the damage.

 I was horrified to read about the treatment in Pipestone. I was just in Pipestone this past Friday. My grandson and I visited my daughter’s grave in the Catholic cemetery there while we were in Pipestone. The Catholic cemetery overlooks the National Monument to the east. Nick and I spent time driving through the other two cemeteries next to the Catholic one. I found an area that had a couple rows of maybe 50 or so unmarked stones that really interested me. I still wonder if those were graves, and if so, who was buried there. If I had the energy, I’d try to find out the answer, especially after reading this story about the Pipestone school,

LANDBACK and Quakers. A case study

The idea of “landback” — returning land to the stewardship of Indigenous peoples — has existed in different forms since colonial governments seized it in the first place. “Any time an Indigenous person or nation has pushed back against the oppressive state, they are exercising some form of landback,” says Nickita Longman, a community organizer from George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The movement goes beyond the transfer of deeds to include respecting Indigenous rights, preserving languages and traditions, and ensuring food sovereignty, housing, and clean air and water. Above all, it is a rallying cry for dismantling white supremacy and the harms of capitalism. Although these goals are herculean, the landback movement has seen recent successes, including the removal of dams along the Klamath River in Oregon following a long campaign by the Yurok Tribe and other activists, and the return of 1,200 acres in Big Sur, California, to the formerly landless Esselen Tribe.

Returning the Land. Four Indigenous leaders share insights about the growing landback movement and what it means for the planet, by Claire Elise Thompson, Grist, February 25, 2020

There are several reasons I’ve been praying, studying, and writing about LANDBACK. Most importantly my Native friends have told me the best way to support them is by doing so. Those who work for justice often hear we need to follow the leadership of the communities impacted by injustice. It is often not clear how to go about doing that.

I’ve been a bit apprehensive about trying to get Friends involved with LANDBACK because many Friends have trouble dealing with the history of Quakers’ involvement with the forced assimilation of Native children. Many white Friends have trouble dealing with Quakers’ history related to enslavement. Many white Friends are uncomfortable with their white privileges today.

So I was very grateful to receive a response to something I’d written about LANDBACK from my friend and fellow Quaker, Marshall Massey, which you can read here: Marshall Massey on LANDBACK – LANDBACK Friends

I wrote the following case study, hoping to give an example of the implementation of the ideas related to LANDBACK.

This is a link to the PDF version of the LANDBACK case study, Wet’suwet’en and Quakers.

Some Quaker history regarding residential schools

Friends were brought in by President Grant in the hope of mitigating the evils of an appallingly evil system. The meetings that became involved — some Hicksite, some Orthodox, but none Wilburite — were required to obey the law (including the laws requiring forcible enrollment) — but, within those limits, did indeed mitigate the suffering as best they could, doing things like making sure that tribes got the supplies that Congress voted for them. (Prior to Grant’s “Quaker policy”, the agents assigned to the tribes would take the supplies for themselves instead and sell them off to white buyers.) Some individual Friends appointed to this work were strongly prejudiced regarding the supposed inferiority and savagery of the native; others were remarkably enlightened. As with every part of the human drama, it was never simple, but the meetings that took up this project genuinely struggled to do their best.

Great Plains Yearly Meeting — our neighbor yearly meeting to the west and southwest — still maintains a presence with the Osage nation, which is the last truly lively relic of that Quaker policy. I have visited their meeting at Hominy, Oklahoma, the center of that effort. There are native American members there who are fourth-to-sixth generation descendants of the original native American members of the meeting. The pastor at the time I visited, David E. Nagle, is Anglo by birth, but an adopted member of the tribe; he participates in the tribal dances (and there are photos of him doing so on FB), and he took a prominent role in the work of creating a dictionary of the tribe’s language and reviving the use of the language among its children.

Great Plains Yearly Meeting itself is a bridge-builder. It is fully affiliated with FUM, but various of its individual meetings maintain affiliations with EFI or FGC. I know of no other Friends yearly meeting that is so dedicated to maintaining *all* those connections and making them meaningful. David Nagle himself is an associate member of Ohio Yearly Meeting, our sister Conservative meeting.

–Marshall Massey

There is much that our past can show, if everyone will stop turning away from the truth

Following are stories from Madonna Thunder Hawk and Chase Iron Eyes (both from the Lakota People’s Law Project) about the Native boarding schools in the lands called Canada and the United States. And a petition calling for the Biden administration and congressional committees to form and empower a Truth and Reconciliation Commission today.

As we wrote to you several weeks ago, there’s a lot of justified anger and trauma in Indian Country right now. For many of us, the reality of what happened in these horrific church-run and state-sanctioned facilities is not something we want to relive. That said, because I was there, I want to share with you some of what my experience looked like.

By the time I went to boarding school in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, things weren’t as horrifying as they’d once been. I spent a period of these years in the U.S. government and parochial boarding school systems on and off the Cheyenne River reservation. It may not surprise you to learn that I was always on the verge of getting kicked out. They said I was “too mouthy!”

My parents’ generation had it much harder. In their day, boarding schools were military in style and very strict. In the late 1920s and early ‘30s, my mother attended Pipestone Elementary. It was a U.S. government school, but many like it were parochial, mainly Catholic. She and her classmates were made to wear uniforms and march wherever they went. Neither crying nor laughing was allowed. No one talked, and many tried to escape, but they would always be found and brought back against their will. Then the administrators would shave their heads bald, march them into the auditorium, string them up, and flog them. All the other kids were made to watch as a lesson in what happens when you run away. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that many children died from illness under these harsh conditions.

This is the intergenerational trauma that I and so many of my contemporaries still live with today. It informs our current fight to keep our young ones from being stolen away into white foster “care.” It’s why we, as an organization, back Secretary Haaland’s investigation, and why we hope even more will be done to empower a true reckoning here in the U.S. — through an audit of our own school properties and teaching real history in the schools of today. There is much that our past can show, if everyone will stop turning away from the truth.

Wopila tanka — thank you for your understanding and allyship at this hard moment.
Madonna Thunder Hawk
Cheyenne River Organizer
The Lakota People’s Law Project
Chase attends a prayer circle in D.C. and offers his thoughts on the tragic discoveries of more graves at Indian boarding schools over the past weeks
Sign the petition here: America cannot hide from the ramifications of its own history (lakotalaw.org)

After the continued findings of mass graves of Indigenous children at boarding schools, it’s long past past time to confront the genocide of Indigenous People on Turtle Island. Tell the Biden administration and congressional committees to form and empower a Truth and Healing Commission today.

Petition Text:

The tragic discoveries of mass graves full of Indigenous children at boarding school campuses shocked Americans and Canadians alike — but this news did not surprise any Indigenous person on Turtle Island. The history of boarding and residential schools are a well-known horror in these communities. Generations have suffered and continue to suffer the fallout of this criminal legacy.

Therefore I ask today that the United States government take immediate corrective action to address its own genocidal history. I call upon the Biden administration, the House Subcommittee of the Indigenous People of the United States and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to immediately spearhead the formation of a Truth and Healing Commission empowered to confront the scope of this tragedy head-on.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s creation of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative is a wonderful start, and we applaud Secretary Haaland for taking action on behalf of her Indigenous relatives. But we need a true reckoning, and any agency must be empowered to find the hard answers.

The proposed Commission — or Secretary Haaland’s Initiative — must be given the authority to conduct a full audit of all Indian boarding schools within the U.S. and any relevant associated properties. We demand that government agencies, churches, property owners, and faith-based organizations prioritize cooperation with these efforts to help ensure they are comprehensive and fully effective.

Until America confronts its own history and continued use of colonial tools of oppression, these discoveries will continue to be made. Communities will continue to grieve and America will continue to skirt responsibility for its violent history — and current practices — of colonialism and resulting genocides.

America was founded on documents which granted legal immunity and bestowed moral imperatives to conquer and “civilize” the Original People of Turtle Island. These documents, issued as papal bulls from the Vatican and known as the Doctrine of Discovery, authorized and encouraged the violent origins of America. By 1860, with the opening of the first Indian boarding school, America was simply updating ancient methods of colonization to continue acting with impunity and violent arrogance. The latest evidence discovered of genocide, murder, and violence underlines the horror resultant from the Doctrine, which is still being used as a tool of disenfranchisement and oppression in today’s court systems.

America cannot hide from the ramifications of its own history. With the closure of our last Indian Boarding school in 1978, Americans must understand that this is living history, not some historical footnote. People and communities are still suffering. Let this tragic discovery in Canada be the wake up call that America needs. Please use your authority as members of the executive and legislative branches to begin blazing a new kind of trail. Form a Truth and Healing Commission — and vest it with the authority to begin addressing this nation’s long history of violence and oppression toward Native communities.

Sign the petition here: America cannot hide from the ramifications of its own history