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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Thanksgiving: Turkeys, treaties, and truth

I’m writing from a coffee shop in Hollywood, Maryland. (Really. Or maybe this is across the town line into California, MD. Really.) My partner and I are midway in a “road trip,” bookended by two professional gigs. It’s a couple of days after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a deeply meaningful holiday in this country. Depending on your perspective, it may be the most wonderful of holidays or the most fraught. It may be “loaded” with warm memories of family gatherings and lovely fall days (or with fantasies of those things). Or it may be loaded with uncomfortable memories and uncomfortable interactions. For me, it’s loaded with complicated feelings and troubling historical and political meanings.

I recall hearing someone say that Thanksgiving is the most wonderful holiday because it’s not tied to any particular religious beliefs. It’s inclusive, they said, it’s celebrated by all of us, collectively. Here’s where the complications start. “All of us” presumes that we see ourselves as Americans (because no other nation is celebrating our Thanksgiving) … er, rather, as a United States-ians (because other countries in the Americas don’t celebrate Thanksgiving with us). So it’s not totally inclusive, but it’s at least inclusive of those of us who identify as US-ian. Well, unless we’re the original inhabitants of the land we now claim as US-ians. If you are among those people whose ancestors were actually here prior to the European invasion, this “holiday” may be a day of mourning.

Last time, I wrote about the then-upcoming “Sweet Land - Choices of Dignity” concert/event, which was performed by Sound Circle, Resonance, and others last week to celebrate the end of the election and the promise of four more years of (generally) progressive leadership. That, and to challenge us to make choices of dignity, to claim our own responsibility for the direction of our communities, large and small. During that performance (which I hope many of you heard), Sound Circle did a rendition of the old patriotic favorite, “America.” Kirsten Wilson, the “vision holder” for OneAction, One Boulder, had reframed the familiar song in minor but profound ways. (Recall that the project One Action, One Boulder undertook was to encourage conversations about and reflection on racism in our own communities). With Thanksgiving approaching, this change in particular caught my attention: The usual lyrics:

“Oh beautiful, for Pilgrims’ dreams

That see beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears.

… became …

Oh beautiful, for Pilgrims’ … [pause]

for Indians … [pause]

for genocide …

Some years ago, when we were living in Massachusetts, my partner and I spent two Thanksgiving days in Plymouth, MA, land of the “Pilgrims’ pride.” We spent those days participating in the counter-Thanksgiving conducted by local descendents of the Indian tribes who lived in this area in the 1600s. The tribes who were there when the Pilgrims moved in, claimed the land, killed rebellious Indians, displayed the head of one recalcitrant chief on a post in the center of town, and left it there for years as a reminder. We both had qualms about the meaning of Thanksgiving before, but after this experience, the holiday could mean only one thing: a celebration of genocide. In Caesar’s words, we (and “we” has to include us, as beneficiaries of this genocide) came, we saw, we conquered. And then we moved across the continent, seeing, conquering, claiming land that was not ours, eliminating the uncooperative native peoples along the way and assimilating the rest to our “superior” way of life.

Among the “One Action, One Boulder” events I attended during the year was a performance of “Rocks,Karma, Arrows,” a performance piece that sketched the history of the relationship between Boulder-area tribes and the settlers arriving in Colorado. I carried a number of messages away from that event, but the one that keeps coming to mind is this: “We are walking on stolen land.” A treaty with the United States gave the land where Boulder sits—in fact, the land all along the front range and well into the mountains—to the Northern Arapahoe in perpetuity. That means forever. That treaty was never renegotiated. But it was violated over and over by the “settlers” and their armies … by our government. That means that every day, I walk on, hold (illegal) claim to property on, enjoy the beauty of, and damage at will land that is not mine.

I mention this partly because of the obvious link to the Thanksgiving story. On this day dedicated to giving thanks, we celebrate a legendary event that amounted to the launching party for a campaign of continent-wide genocide. And I benefit from that every day. No, I wasn’t personally there. I didn’t kill any Indians or personally push them from their land. But I am responsible for recognizing that I benefit from that campaign. And when I allow myself to realize that, celebrating it feels so painfully inappropriate.

The other reason I mention this is that I just had an up-close-and-personal reminder of how easily I judge other people’s failure to acknowledge the privilege they gain from the oppression of others—even as I so easily forget my own. This past week, we were on a college campus in the South. The hotel where we stayed is built and decorated to evoke the old South—southern hospitality, southern elegance. But as we walked around, I couldn’t help but be reminded of southern plantations—the “big house” with its columns, porches, and elegant furnishings. It’s a lovely scene—until you consider the whiffs of slavery and unquestioned racism, the people who lived in the slave quarters just down the hill from the big house. Later, we walked around campus, learning bits of history from our friend and guide. Many of the buildings were very old, pre-civil war structures—which means that they were most likely the handiwork of slaves. I couldn’t help but ask, silently, to myself, “Have you never thought about who built these buildings?”

I was aware that this (rather judgmental) response came partly from an earlier visit to a campus in the south where we were told that the buildings were indeed constructed by slaves. In that case, the stewards of that campus had embarked on a project to make amends for that egregious mistreatment of other human beings. But I saw none of that in the people we met on this college campus. In fact, my attempts to raise this issue—noting how uncomfortable the “southern charm” made me feel—evoked no response from people I met, except, perhaps, a slightly uncomfortable change of topic. I was feeling pretty righteous about this (“Don’t they see their responsibility to address this?”), when my partner reminded me that Kirsten Wilson and One Action, One Boulder spent an entire year trying to get folks to see the same dynamic of avoidance and denial in our own back yard. … “I am walking on land that belongs to someone else.”

We are all responsible for recognizing and acknowledging our own privilege, recognizing ways in which we have—literally and figuratively—stolen our well-being from others. The point is not that we should feel guilty about this, but that we are responsible for what we do about it. Simply celebrating “Thanksgiving” without reflecting on, talking about, questioning the meaning of the holiday now seems irresponsible to me.

And yet, two days ago, I sat down to “Thanksgiving” dinner among people with whom I did not have this conversation. Nothing in the day or in the conversation even hinted at the holiday’s origin. Indeed, these folks, like many other people I know, would likely argue that the point of Thanksgiving is really to bring family together. They might also say that the point of the day is to remind us to be grateful for our many blessings. Still, “Thanksgiving” as we know it is built on a legend. In retrospect, it’s clear that the legend made super-human heroes of people most US-ians have historically identified with—European “settlers.” And it made sub-human demons of the people who have historically been unlike most of us—indigenous people of color, American Indians.

If we want a thanksgiving holiday that celebrates community and gratitude, then let’s do that, instead of deluding ourselves into thinking that these things capture the real meaning of our current “Thanksgiving” holiday. For me personally, the “Sweet Land” concert was as fine a celebration of community as I can imagine. I left it feeling uplifted, connected to community, and challenged to make choices of dignity.

And in that spirit, my partner and I have agreed that we won’t spend future Thanksgiving days in celebration (or avoidance) of the holiday’s legendary origins. Instead, we’ll find ways to explore the historical meaning of the day and honor the people at whose expense we enjoy such great privilege. Here are some of the ideas we’ve discussed: We can make a donation to the Native American Rights Fund, which does great work on behalf of American Indians (including work on those violated treaties). We can spend time with friends watching and discussing the video version of “Rocks, Karma, Arrows.” We can join with friends in a common reading and then share a meal discussing what we’ve read. And we can make a commitment to speak up, whenever possible, when we hear the legend with its distortion of what actually happened in New England in the early 1620s … and beyond.



 

Music for a Sweet Land

OK, enough of the second-guessing, the recriminations, and the self-adulation. Enough of the analyses and the pundits, enough of the advice from every splinter of every constituency of every party. That’s not to say that there’s no wound-licking left to do, no crowing, no slicing and dicing. But in a broad sense, it seems like time to move forward. Time to apply the lessons of the campaign and election, mapping and morphing them into useful directions. It's time, as Hebrew scripture advises, to beat the swords into plowshares. And what better way to do that, I say, than with music.

And, lo and behold, with exquisite timing born of sheer luck (on my part) and wisdom (on the part of others), I get to hear two concerts this week that are destined to provide hours of healing, inspiring, motivating music. The first is a performance on Wednesday by Jackson Browne, who, in addition to making beautiful music, is also known as a human rights and environmental activist. My personal all-time favorite is “The Rebel Jesus.” I don’t expect him to perform it this time, given that it’s really a Christmas song. But it’s relevant no matter what the season, so I can always hope.

And then, on Saturday, a concert that anyone within travelling distance of Boulder really, seriously wants to attend. Sweet Land—Choices of Dignity is a free, everyone-invited performance “inspired by the challenges of the presidential election and reflecting on our lives, our history, and our shared future.” It’s sponsored by Resonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder and Sound Circle, a women’s a cappella ensemble (both of which I’ve written about before and both of which are directed by Sue Coffee) and by One Action, One Boulder, a year-long program to encourage conversations and action around issues of race, class, and inclusion. In addition to performances by these two choruses, the event will feature local musicians, spoken word, the 1000 Voices Project, and more. The performance will be at First United Methodist Church (also a sponsor) at 14th and Spruce in Boulder. It starts at 7:00, but doors open at 6:30, and you can count on a line.

This is sounding like a promotional ad, but it’s really not. For one thing, the event is free, so there’s nothing to “sell.” But more to the point, the reason I wanted to call your attention to it is that I’m so impressed by the very existence of this event—which itself has nothing to sell, other than community.  A bit of a back story: 

Sue Coffee is best known as an inspired conductor, and you’ll see why in this concert. She is also deeply committed to building community, and she’s quietly wise in how she uses music to do that. This is not the first time Sue has worked with others in the community to create a free concert with precisely that goal in mind. She did it after the 2004 election and after the 2008 election. 

To quote Sue (with permission),

“We did a concert after 2004 called Music for a Purple Country, and after 2008 called How Can I Keep From Singing. . . . the collective need in 2004 was to come together, the collective need/gesture in 2008 was to celebrate.”

And here we are again, at the end of a horrendously long and bitter campaign, trying to find our way out of the sludge of political posturing, pandering, and prevarication and into sunrise in America (to reprise the theme of my last two blogs). And here are these two gifted choruses led by this gifted woman, joined by other artists and co-sponsored by a grassroots program intended to build community. It's perfect.

In Sue's words,

“The collective gesture of this election is a sigh of relief and a readiness to look ahead. . . . The Choices of Dignity subtitle speaks to 1. regardless of the outcome of the election, still there is the question: what are your personal choices? and 2. [it also] refers to Obama's intent to focus the country on important questions about how to be together.”

The evening will bring these many artists together to wrap us, residents of this sweet land, in hope even as they challenge us to make “choices of dignity.” What better way to spend a Saturday evening than in the midst of this kind of community, building community?

So, come! You will be ever so glad you did.