Thanksgiving, again

It comes around every year. Our annual thanks-giving day. And, as I’ve written here before—last year and the year before that—each  year, I find it troubling. That’s true again this year, with my dis-ease heightened by my recent immersion in the story of Sand Creek—also a topic of earlier posts here, and of an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times and an article in the current issue of Smithsonian.

For those of you who haven’t been following this blog over the course of my recurrent musings about Thanksgiving, here’s a short synopsis. When we were living in Massachusetts several years ago, we attended the counter-thanksgiving ceremony at Plymouth, MA, which was organized by descendants of the native peoples who lived in that area when the Pilgrims arrived. Their take on that first fall harvest feast and what it portended for the future was—predictably—very different from the schoolroom stories I learned. If the European settlers at that the feast could have looked into the future, they may have seen the glorious future of a great nation. From the Indians’ perspective, though, that feast was followed by the devastation of their way of life, the loss of their land, language, and culture—and the predictable consequences: poverty, disempowerment, and dysfunction in their fragmented and diminished communities. And still, despite all this, they survive.

At some level, I had known this, but I hadn’t given it much thought, joining in the annual tradition of an autumn celebration dedicated to giving thanks and imagining that we celebrated the bounty of the harvest, the cooperation of communities that might instead have been hostile, and the launch of a new nation. Giving thanks is good, I thought—why not have a day dedicated to that activity? I never thought much about the fact that by choosing this day and wrapping the event in this legend, we were commemorating genocide.

I suspect this is not unlike the experience of many people.

The first really serious challenge to this complacency was the counter-thanksgiving ceremony at Plymouth. Then came the deeply experiential workshop we attended at the Quaker meetinghouse last year, which I also described here, when the brutal reality of the white march across the continent became crystal clear to me. And then came my education about Sand Creek.

Over the course of the past few weeks, following in the wake of our bus trip to Sand Creek, I’ve spent time with the Sand Creek story in a range of venues. I’ve been reading a book about Sand Creek, A Misplaced Massacre, which is written from a critical perspective that shines revealing light on the complex governmental machinations and personal ambition that fueled Sand Creek and other anti-Indian actions of the late 1800s. I’ve also attended a spate of events that addressed this massacre. This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the Sand Creek massacre on November 29 and 30, 1864, so the Boulder History Museum has sponsored a series of commemorative events. The first was a museum forum featuring an interview with former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who sponsored the legislation that led to the designation of the Sand Creek Massacre Historical Site. Then came a video of the play “Rocks, Karma, Arrows, Part II,” which examines Boulder’s legacy of racism and exclusion (with particular focus on the Indians), followed by a documentary about that play that included some really smart talking heads offering pithy analyses of these historical events. And the last was a “history on the screen” event that featured a talk by the man in charge of the Sand Creek Massacre site, followed by a screening of “Little Big Man,” the 1975 movie starring Dustin Hoffman as a white man raised by Indians who witnesses the growing efforts to eradicate and dispossess the Plains Indians--including Sand Creek.

Each of these events has added a layer of nuance to the story and to my grasp of the chasm between the legend I learned as a child of the origin and growth of this country and the reality of the genocide that is this nation’s origin-al sin. One of the messages I took away this time, a point made on at least two of these occasions, was this: History is open-ended. History continues. This story is still being written, but now, by us. The implicit challenge: what will we write? How do we change the terrible trajectory of this tale so that the experiences of the indigenous peoples of this continent don’t continue to be silenced.

After attending the Plymouth, MA counter-thanksgiving ceremony, we made a commitment that we wouldn’t do Thanksgiving again without honoring this legacy—a commitment I reiterated here two years ago. (Blogging about it on a regular basis seems to be one of the ways I do this.) This year, a perfect opportunity arose. When we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner by a friend, we asked to include a piece that would honor the true meaning of the day, and she willingly agreed. So yesterday, we began the afternoon gathering of friends with a ceremony that recounted the real history of the relationship between European colonizers and indigenous peoples and ended with reflections on commitments we all could make to moving history forward in a more honest way. We included music—some of it raw and painful (Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying”) and some chosen to create a calm space for meditation (pieces by American Indian musicians Calvin J. Standing Bear and James Torres). Afterward, we shared good, thoughtful, open conversation, a fine meal, and serious belly laughs over a word game turned silly by our delight in the camaraderie—and maybe by the release of tension after a difficult, starkly realistic opening to this complicated day.

As we were leaving, one friend thanked us for the ceremony and offered an observation, taken from her work elsewhere, on the contrast between the intensity of the days beginning and the lightheartedness of its end: “We can only work as deep as we can laugh.” 

We can't act as though this part of history didn't occur or doesn't matter. But honoring it needn't leave us morose and perpetually somber, which helps nothing at all. History is open-ended. It's still happening. Only now, we’re responsible for where it goes. We need to act, act as if it matters. Because it does. And then, we can laugh as deep as we work.    

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

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1968

     1968: Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future … Time, 1988

     1968: The year that made us who we are … Newsweek, 2007

Here it is, the start of a new year—a perfect time to talk about a different year: 1968! It isn’t just an arbitrary choice of a year. It came up because my partner and I finally made it to the Boulder History Museum to see the exhibit, "1968," which ended yesterday. Sorry if you missed it. The pictures below (except the cover of Time magazine) were taken there.

Boulder History Museum

We’re both amateur historians anyhow, and we’re especially intrigued by this era and this amazing year. Anyone who experienced it can’t help but remember, and  it all happened during our "coming of age" years. So seeing it displayed in the museum was sort of nostalgic and sort of painful. Just like the year 1968: complicated, expansive, and difficult.

As I was writing this, I found myself reflecting on the meaning of 1968. That took me on a rather long cultural / historical jaunt that you may or may not want to join me for. If you do, you’ll find that part a few paragraphs down (“1968 … Reminiscing”). If you don’t, the next few paragraphs are about the Boulder History Museum exhibit—which is its own good story.

Visiting the museum exhibit about this remarkable year was … well, remarkable. The walls were full of memorabilia from that time—informational signs were posted alongside album covers and posters, newspaper articles and classic photographs. (Interestingly some of the iconic photos weren’t there: Martin Luther King’s aides leaning over him and pointing in the direction of his assassin; Bobby Kennedy lying on the floor of a Los Angeles hotel kitchen; the “police riot” outside the Democratic Party convention in Chicago). The mix was what you'd expect. But I had forgotten some things, or forgotten that they happened in that year (how many thing can happen in one year?). It was strangely poignant viewing it all in one space and time, from the perspective of over 40 years.

In addition to the materials I anticipated, there was quite a lot of information about Boulder in 1968 (and the years right around that). This city was home to a lot of activism, as were most university towns around the nation. Boulder had its share of sit-ins and occupations, its share of roadblocks and protests, and its share of the “counter culture” buzz. This isn’t surprising, of course. Boulder already had a liberal reputation in the 1960s. Still, it was fun to see how this pivotal year played out right here.

          

            Allen Ginsburg calms an anti-war crowd
         in downtown Boulder

Boulder anti-war protesters block US 36

So, here at the start of 2012, I find myself wondering: if people did a museum exhibit about "2011," what would they include? Roadblocks again, but this time in the halls of Congress. Space trips, but this time saying goodbye to the fleet of shuttles that were born of the space program (which was launched by President John F. Kennedy  in the early 1960s, with the explicit goal of reaching the moon in that decade). Human rights movements, this time on behalf of the 99% of us against the richest 1%. Campus protests, complete with tear gas, but this time over financial inequality at the hands of the hyper-wealthy.

I wonder ... might history mark 2011 like this, Morrow's comment on 1968?

Nineteen sixty-eight was a perverse genius of a year: a masterpiece of shatterings. The year had heroic historical size, and everything … seemed momentous.

1968 … Reminiscing

I was in graduate school in 1968. I remember the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and of Bobby Kennedy. I remember the anti-war movement, the marches, the sit-ins, the teach-ins (which I participated in a bit), and the occupations of university buildings (which I didn’t). I remember astronauts orbiting the moon and the first pictures of the blue marble earth seen from space. I remember when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Especially, I remember the sense of promise and of danger. Youth were on the move, and that was good. The society was in upheaval, and that was scary. I was in graduate school, and I missed much of it.

But I was very aware of the mood of the times. Things were different; I was sure of that. We were different. We had a different vision, a better one. If the old guard would just get out of the way, we could change the world. It was the classic, idealistic, and self-affirming conviction of adolescents. But this time, we had an advantage:  we were the baby-boom generation. Our sheer numbers gave us huge visibility. It was easy to believe that what we wanted would finally prevail.

It is true that this generation was extremely visible and vocal. Boomers were also extremely active. They swelled the ranks of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, the modern environmental movement, and the movements for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, disability rights, Chicano/Hispanic/Latino rights, and elders rights. Most who didn’t participate in these things in 1968 knew about them. Of course, lots of folks didn't pay attention. Others knew, but were preoccupied with their own lives. Many of these people, too, were sure that their generation was special, was uniquely idealistic and daring.

But 1968 was not only about political activism. It was also a cultural whirlpool, drenched in ambivalence. Dreams of a better future stood side by side with longing for a safer, stable, known past. 

        

               The rock musical "Hair" promised
              "the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"

"The Graduate," where we heard
"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio..."

The rock musical “Hair,” whose soundtrack was released that year, promised “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”—the voice of youth imagining a new and far better age, if only because we would inhabit it. 

That same year, on the soundtrack for the movie "The Graduate," Paul Simon lyrics pleaded, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you”—the voice of those yearning for the certainty, the stability of some vaguely defined past moment, past hero.

In 1988, the cover of Time magazine recalled the iconic year. A sense of simultaneous terror and promise weaves through the cover article by Lance Morrow:

1968: Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future

Nineteen sixty-eight had the vibrations of earthquake about it. America shuddered. History cracked open… 

Nineteen sixty-eight was more than a densely compacted parade of events … [It was] to some extent a war between the past and the future, and even, for an entire society, a violent struggle to grow up.”

For years, I assigned that Time article in my Psychology of Adolescence course. Not because it talked about adolescence (although it did), but because it talked about a national reckoning, that “violent struggle to grow up.” 1968 seemed to mirror the invigorating, scary, idealistic, painful process of adolescence. The nation was seeking its identity, trying to define who it would be, what it would believe.

1968 was the coming of age of the nation. And I was there, just coming of age myself. I imagine that 40 years from now, history will have something to say about 2011. But it’s hard to imagine that it will match Morrow’s description of 1968:

One is sometimes incredulous now at 1968, not only at the astonishing sequence of events but at the intensity, the energy in the air... Revolutionary bombast [and an] elegy for something in America that had got lost, some sense of national innocence and virtue.

And the music. What message will people glean from the music of 2011?