Category: Anishinaabe

Blue Eyes Flashing and other words

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I’ve been continuing to face an ongoing struggle with writer’s block. I strongly suspect a sort of fear of writing, a fear of what I might learn if I go to deep, but I have no choice. There are words that I need to share and they’ll be there inside me until I let them out. So, I am continuing to work on letting them out. Today I’m going back through old journals and finding bits and pieces to revise and share more publicly. The first piece has no title yet, but maybe I’ll call it Boots. It was written on 7-6-2000 on the shores of Lake Superior while on a walk around the big lake to protect the waters.

I am standing here

on a precipice

looking out

afraid to fly

wanting so badly to walk away

to not

defend

my people

or

my place

but my boots

will not walk backward

like the staff

my being is feathered

and I will

fly

Another story that I found came from a few years earlier. It is called Blue Eyes Flashing and is dedicated to my great aunt Sr. Christine Mondloch. Sr. Christine was born in 1898. She served as a School Sister of Notre Dame, teaching school for many years before retiring. She lived out her final years in Elm Grove, Wisconsin in a tiny blue room in her convent. She was an inspiration to me. She found such joy and meaning in the simplest life.

Blue Eyes Flashing

(a revision of the 3-4-96 version dedicated to Sr. Christine Mondloch who walked on 2-24-96)

Blue eyes flashing

From behind the clouds

Not recognizing a brother

Only crying out

In fear

Imagining your smile

Wishing for you the great beyond

Remembering the cardboard cutouts 

Stored away in my parent’s basement

And wondering how the demons

Caught your spirit, stole your soul

All my life you gave me cardboard boxes,

Toothpick flags, and empty suitcases

All your treasures in the world

I think of you of your autobiography

98 years written on one page

I remember the tiny blue room

Charity called your home

I walk the halls and feel your footsteps

In time with mine

Changing One Thing

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So, I’ve been trying to get back to my blog after several months away, but it seems I’m facing a mild case of writer’s block. Nothing is coming to mind. It’s just empty. There are no topics to write about there. What to do? Well, since it seems the key component to becoming a successful writer is writing, I just used the wonders of the internet and sought out a writing prompt. The one that drew me today was this. “If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change and why?”

This is actually something I’ve had the chance to ponder quite a bit over the past thirty years or so as someone who’s worked in social and environmental justice. I’ve had the good fortune to work with a lot of good people along the way. I’m thankful to say that I’ve found a few good mentors too or maybe they’ve found me or in any case we’ve found each other. There’s something those mentors hold in common. They know interconnectedness. They understand what happens to one impacts us all.

Historically, many, maybe once all, cultures understood that we are connected both to our fellow humans and to everyone and everything else, animate and inanimate, but just in really very recent years (only a few generations) we’ve forgotten and we’re getting sick. We are part of the body of the world. We can’t just care solely for the hand or the foot without the other parts of the body suffering. It makes no sense to hate a part of the body for its actions or its disease. Instead, when we recognize that we are all a connected body we heal each other.

That’s what I would seek, just for us to recognize our interconnectedness, with each other a people and with world that we inhabit and to begin to live that way again.

Now, I am wondering– What would you change?

Care for the Water, Care for the Women

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I was back at the state capitol today. Sometimes I wonder if I should maybe just avoid that building. It seems every time I go there something makes me cry.

Today, I was there to join with hundreds of other to remember and honor all the missing and murdered Indigeneous women. As of 2016, the National Crime Information Center reported 5,712 cases of missing Native American women and girls. I am terrified to considered how much the numbers have grown since then. Indigenous women and girls are ten times as likely to be murdered as all other ethnicities. More than half of Native women and girls experience sexual violence. According to the Center for Disease Control murder is the third leading cause of death among Indigenous women.

Today, we sat and listened to the stories of survivors and to stories of the families and friends of those who didn’t survive. I found myself in tears and thinking about some of the little girls I got to know during my time in Minnesota. In particular, I found myself thinking about two little girls who are now both just coming to that stage of life of entering womanhood. I remember that time being confusing and hard enough with body changes, the discovery of sexuality, and noticing the cute guy at school. These girls live in a different world and I could only cry as I can’t protect them on my own.

Why is it this way we wonder? Well, all I can come down to is that it’s about power. These little girls, these women are too powerful. If they are allowed to keep their power, the forces of evil would be crushed. Rape is a tool to control and break down not only the individual, but the whole community. If the women are controlled with the force of violence and fear, the children are controlled. If the women and the children are controlled, the men are broken. Nothing works anymore. The community struggles to merely survive when the women are no longer safe.

Who profits when the community struggles? Big oil, mining companies, all the corporations who make money off of Indigenous people’s lands and waters. That’s why we see the numbers of women disappearing and being murdered going up when the mining companies and oil pipelines come in. It’s control. It’s breaking down the community and tearing out the heart.

So, what do we do? Listen to the women and the girls. Honor them and respect them. Don’t allow for this injustice to continue. Remember that these women, they are the keepers of the water. Respect the water and you will respect the women. The two are not separate. Care for the water. Care for the women. I can’t protect those little girls on my own, but together we can. Each action, every day keep remembering. Care for the water. Care for the women. Respect the water. Respect the women.

What Happened Next? Looking at the History of Underrepresented Peoples

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I was watching a documentary on PBS last night about the life of Helen Keller. It was an interesting show that focused primarily on her adult years rather than the childhood picture that so many of us were introduced to as children. It made me wonder about how often we cheat ourselves by contenting ourselves with stories of history that are meant for children and that usually are missing major pieces that really make the story. I wonder how often we cheat the children in our lives by minimizing their education with these simple stories like that of the little deaf and blind girl and fail to tell them of the woman who was a prominent socialist, a skilled writer, an actor, public speaker, ambassador for US, and so much more?

Clearly, stories designed for children whether written or video or some other form are often less complex than those created for adults. But, how do we take that first story and make into a series? When we look at something like “The Miracle Worker” it seems like the story ends with the miracle of Helen learning to communicate, but in reality that’s only the beginning. We do much the same thing when we talk about many other figures in history, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups. Rosa Parks is a great example. We largely get the story that this individual woman was tired, sat down, and refused to give up her seat on the bus. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but it’s incomplete. Mrs. Parks was a trained community activist who had a history in the Civil Rights Movement. She was part of a much larger strategy to integrate the busses in Montgomery. She also remained active working for social justice through the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement, as a staff person to US Representative John Conyers, and working to support political prisoners in the US among other issues until her death in 2005.

People like Ms. Keller and Mrs. Parks are so much more than what we often give them credit for. By failing to recognize the breadth of their contributions and those of others like them we fail to fully support and encourage the next generations of those who share pieces of their realities, whether those be young women, people with disabilities, people of color, Indigenous peoples, or others. Reading the children’s books and watching kids movies about these historical figures is great, by all means do it! Don’t forget the next step though. Dig a little deeper. Ask “what happened next?”

Save A Walleye, An Ongoing Lie

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It was in 1974 that two brothers went fishing. Mike and Fred Tribble, two Anishanabe men from the La Court Oreille reservation in Wisconsin had called the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to inform them of the fishing trip and then went out on Chief Lake, crossed the imaginary reservation line, cut a hole in the ice, and speared a fish off the reservation.

This small action would lead to more than decade in the courts resulting in the historic Voigt decision which acknowledged the Chippewa’s (name used for Anishanabe in legal records) right to 1) harvest fish, game, and plants off-reservation on public lands (and on private lands if proven necessary to provide a modest living); 2) use both traditional and modern methods in the hunting and gathering; and 3) barter or sell the harvest.

The decision took the hood off a long simmering Klan-like hatred in the Northwoods. The boat landings were filled with protesters like those in the photo above. Still, despite threats to their lives the Anishanabe stood strong and fished. Over four years, a Witness for Nonviolence made of allies from around the state grew to stand a peaceful guard along the landings.

Over time, the protestors drew their Klan hood back over their being and things quieted. Many who weren’t Anishanabe started to believe that the struggle was over, that it had become safe again. That wasn’t the reality. Whether the protests are small and quiet, not magnified by the media or loud and in the light of the cameras, they are there and they are threatening.

Just yesterday I learned of a family who were out spearfishing and attacked by white men. The men threw things and harassed the family with racial slurs and threats and one of the white men pulled down his pants exposing himself to the children who were fishing with their father and other family. This is nothing new. Some fishers can tell stories of being shot at every year. Yet they continue because they are Anishanabe and they must be who they are.

When will we learn? The Anishanabe have hunted, fished, and gathered here since the great spirit guided them to this place. Their harvest is miniscule in comparison to that of those who sports fish and the tribes work hard to care for the environment and replenish the fishing stock. This isn’t an issue about fish. This is Wisconsin’s version of the Klan and it is simply wrong and needs to stop.

Want to really save a walleye? Support Native spear fishers and keep the racist freaks off the water.