Energy and Place Project:
Essential Questions:
- How does energy production and consumption impact place?
- How do your sense of place, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions relating to energy production and consumption?
Reflection:
Leading up to this assignment I delved into learning that was both focused on how I as an individual am connected to place< I did this by learning about the many types of place connection that people often feel such as spiritual, biological, and instrumental. I also was able to explore various forms and sources of creative nature writing and from them got an understanding about what the Grand Style can look like from different writers. After I viewed other authors works I was able to take part in exploring my own creative writing by keeping an inspirational nature writing journal for a series of weeks. The other thing aspect of the energy and place project was to understand our relationship to how we consume energy and how we impact and are impacted by the environment. I was able to study concepts such as a land ethic by Aldo Leopold and environmental racism. I was also able to look at controversial topics surrounding energy use and take part in a mock town hall debate about building a Uranium mine in Niarita Colorado.
As a person I have grown through taking place in this project. The most apparent way that I have grown is as a creative writer. This project has provided me with the opportunity to understand how much I love creative expression through writing. I realize that poetry is a medium where I feel I can best express my experience. The other thing that I loved about this project was the opportunity it gave me to reflect on something that I think about all of the time. This is my sense of belonging to place and the people around me. I was able to reflect on how the spiritual aspects of nature that I have been brought up on effect my environmental ethic. I loved reflecting on the idea of the Gaia hypothesis and feel that it is very central to my sense of place to the world in many ways. I also think that I have grown by doing this project as I have read other people's sense of place articles. Reading and reflecting on other students work has given me a perspective of how broad a sense of place can be.
The thing that I am most proud of in my sense of place essay is the poem “Kwa Kwai” that I wrote after my internship. I wrote this poem as a refection and as also as a reflection of gratitude. I am proud of this poem because my goal was to capture the sense of place that I experienced among the people, and Land of Hopi. After Marshall y mentor expressed how much this poem meant to him when I gave it to him I felt as if I achieved my goal of experiencing other people's place and perspective to a degree that I can accurately express my experience back to them and be validated as being someone who can see. One part of my poem that expresses gratitude and expresses an understanding of sense of place is the following.
“Soaring,
enthralled and enraptured with the freedom of eagles,
the prayers in our hearts melting into a rhythmic call
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.”
At the beginning of the project when I think about the questions concerning energy and place, I would have initially reflected on how our mass consumption of fossil fuels in industry and agriculture shape a hurried way of life where we are detached from our sense of place and so ultimately consume with the thinking that we are separate from the forces that we consume from. Now I think the same things but my understanding about the types of energy we use. I also look at sense of place as a broader thing than I did before. I now see this concept as an umbrella of relationships that we can have with our environments whether constructed by humans or nature. I have come to realize that we are in fact detached from the environment when we think we have no relationship with it. We have relationship with environments no matter what they look like Being introduced to the concept of environmental racism makes me reflect that our energy consumption is never in isolation. The way and the amount of energy that we consume often exploits people or lands in ways that the majority of prospering middle class American citizens do not need to think about.
Leading up to this assignment I delved into learning that was both focused on how I as an individual am connected to place< I did this by learning about the many types of place connection that people often feel such as spiritual, biological, and instrumental. I also was able to explore various forms and sources of creative nature writing and from them got an understanding about what the Grand Style can look like from different writers. After I viewed other authors works I was able to take part in exploring my own creative writing by keeping an inspirational nature writing journal for a series of weeks. The other thing aspect of the energy and place project was to understand our relationship to how we consume energy and how we impact and are impacted by the environment. I was able to study concepts such as a land ethic by Aldo Leopold and environmental racism. I was also able to look at controversial topics surrounding energy use and take part in a mock town hall debate about building a Uranium mine in Niarita Colorado.
As a person I have grown through taking place in this project. The most apparent way that I have grown is as a creative writer. This project has provided me with the opportunity to understand how much I love creative expression through writing. I realize that poetry is a medium where I feel I can best express my experience. The other thing that I loved about this project was the opportunity it gave me to reflect on something that I think about all of the time. This is my sense of belonging to place and the people around me. I was able to reflect on how the spiritual aspects of nature that I have been brought up on effect my environmental ethic. I loved reflecting on the idea of the Gaia hypothesis and feel that it is very central to my sense of place to the world in many ways. I also think that I have grown by doing this project as I have read other people's sense of place articles. Reading and reflecting on other students work has given me a perspective of how broad a sense of place can be.
The thing that I am most proud of in my sense of place essay is the poem “Kwa Kwai” that I wrote after my internship. I wrote this poem as a refection and as also as a reflection of gratitude. I am proud of this poem because my goal was to capture the sense of place that I experienced among the people, and Land of Hopi. After Marshall y mentor expressed how much this poem meant to him when I gave it to him I felt as if I achieved my goal of experiencing other people's place and perspective to a degree that I can accurately express my experience back to them and be validated as being someone who can see. One part of my poem that expresses gratitude and expresses an understanding of sense of place is the following.
“Soaring,
enthralled and enraptured with the freedom of eagles,
the prayers in our hearts melting into a rhythmic call
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.”
At the beginning of the project when I think about the questions concerning energy and place, I would have initially reflected on how our mass consumption of fossil fuels in industry and agriculture shape a hurried way of life where we are detached from our sense of place and so ultimately consume with the thinking that we are separate from the forces that we consume from. Now I think the same things but my understanding about the types of energy we use. I also look at sense of place as a broader thing than I did before. I now see this concept as an umbrella of relationships that we can have with our environments whether constructed by humans or nature. I have come to realize that we are in fact detached from the environment when we think we have no relationship with it. We have relationship with environments no matter what they look like Being introduced to the concept of environmental racism makes me reflect that our energy consumption is never in isolation. The way and the amount of energy that we consume often exploits people or lands in ways that the majority of prospering middle class American citizens do not need to think about.
Take Action Project Proposal:
Take Action Count Our Homeless Youth! I am going to Conduct a Vulnerability Count of the Unaccompanied Homeless Youth In Durango To raise Awareness of a hidden issue of oppression and neglect that Exists in Our community:
-It is estimated that annually 1.7 billion youth experience homelessness nationwide. What are the numbers here in durango? WE need to know and we to do Something About It!
Why: I believe that oppression inflicted Upon Young People is a hidden issue in our society and needs to change. I am a young person and want to alter my community to nurture and hold my peers and myself through rough times in their lives. It is important to mend hearts and dismantle systems so that tragedies and atrocities like school shootings, and the school to prison pipeline end.
Vision: A collective conscience that Durango will have in order to hold people through rough times instead of dropping them through the cracks.
Ability and competence within the community to know how to help people.
Dismantled oppressive systems like the school to prison pipeline and oppressive situations like foster homes, and police brutality.
Draft of Mission:
- I want to Branch my mission throughout the three focus areas of change as I move through steps and work with different partners. The first thing that I want to do is collaborate with peers and mentors in the system to conduct a vulnerability count of uncompounded homeless youth in durango. The next thing that I want to do is create a video and information that I can start drafting into presentations for the community to advocate to create support for homeless youth, this is an example of how i want to make a new parallel system. AS I go along and learn more I want to conduct and compile information that will rile people up to want to create good things as well as dismantle negative things that hold unaccompanied homeless youth in the situations that they are in. Finally the more I know I may formulate an action plan of my own to change oppressive systems.
- At the moment I have time and resources to conduct a vulnerability Index that will with Matt's Freshman humanities class. There is a scheduled training for students about how to conduct on wednesday the 6th. The current climate of durango and youth homelessness is a lack of awareness because it is a hidden issue. I wish to change this current climate with a presentation and a count. By showing durango the hidden suffering that it has my hope is to spark action and passion to create changes. Other people around me like my mom and Jen Lopez as well as Matt Dooley have more knowledge and far reaching influence into the adult world and policy. I on the other hand have the time and focus to spearhead a particular mission within the breadth of this issue and have the ability to voice it to the community that at a certain level people will listen too. Here i see myself as a person who can do the advertising and the motivation.
- We will complete a week long Vulnerability index of Unaccompanied Homeless Youth in Durango, and will complete a Presentation or multiple afterward to share with the community at a grand scale my senior year at a smaller scale to Animas before school ends.
My Audience: My targets are first and Foremost decision makers and people who have power in the community because though them I see change coming most swiftly. Although a harsh reality It seems that people who can work behind the scenes and have the most power can shift the reality of our town. I want to target people with the ability to make policies or movements that will support homeless youth such as the police, city council and county commissioners. The other people I want to target are people with enough passion and drive to start projects like homeless youth houses. I also realize that I will come across new target audiences and new ways to approach them as I progress with this project.
- I will move people through the spectrum by using rhetoric about what is wrong, but never pointing it as an individual's fault or present groups, but rather pose things as an issue that puts us all in a hard place. I will then share what things are needed and ask for them. I will also remain honest about what things are issues. Different groups will be motivated differently and I will adapt my presentations accordingly.
Tactics: My tactic is to approach things as collaboratively as possible. I want to approach things slowly and gain as much knowledge and support from people in power as I can so that when I voice change it will be directed in the right places at the right time with a lot of power. Right now my steps are as follows:
- Attend and organize lesson for count ( may 6th)
- preform count the following week.
- make a small presentation to give to Animas about homeless youth and how this connects to the environmental oppression.
Take Action Project Documentation:
Take Action Project Reflection: The purpose of an unaccompanied homeless youth count is to understand the number of unaccompanied homeless youth in our community as well as the needs and the situations that these youth find themselves in. The desire to understand these things comes from the fact that Durango is letting many young people that are struggling alone, fall through the cracks. My mom works at La Plata services and of the truancy referrals they receive 45% are homeless and unaccompanied. Despite this high statistic there are no services to unaccompanied homeless youth including the striking lack of a youth shelter and the turn away of youth from the existing shelter if they have no parent or guardian with them. We want to understand the situations of my peers in Durango who are experiencing homelessness so we can lead and prompt the community in creating the appropriate all encompassing services.
This project is focused on people but connects profoundly with my sense of place. When I think about my sense of place in Durango I reflect on my relativity middle class life in a town that is concerned about exercise, diet trends, and surface level environmental thought into food production and clean energy. Although these things are a reality they are far from "the" reality of Durango. like any community there is always a population that is under served and slips dangerously beneath the radar. Homeless youth is such a population that is hidden from privileged eyes. The implications of this become very profound to me when I reflect on my sense of place. I live in the same place as my peers that are experiencing homelessness. Yet I can either choose to live in a way that cuts out the full reality of my place or one that looks at the inequality of it. Once I was walking down the river trail early in the morning in the fall when the first claws of winter really grip you. A pair of men who appeared homeless smoking off to the side of the trail mockingly asked me if I were gold. I quickly snapped back that yes I was and what about them? The response that i got was something along the lines of "no, this isn't anything yet." When I reflect on this experience I think about sense of place and environmental privilege. The people that are oppressed in society endure multiple ways of being an outcast including not being provided with communal environmental resources. In the world that we have created it is not much of a reality to live of the land especially with a family so oppression around place is a big deal.
My Personal Take a ways from beginning this project are on many levels. One of the things that I take a way from thinking about hard and complex human realities is; what else should I do with my life? Each person has a role to play and to me when I think about the vast grandeur of the universe I am filled with desire to love the human experience and better it in the ways I can. What else is important in the big picture other then loving each other, understanding our harmful constructions and deconstructing them into the beauty and the potential that the human race has. I do not believe that any person is worthless, however I believe that their are worthless and harmful systems that must be taken down so that we can all shine individually as Ken Robinson expresses. Let us dis enthrall ourselves with loneliness and separation.
This project is focused on people but connects profoundly with my sense of place. When I think about my sense of place in Durango I reflect on my relativity middle class life in a town that is concerned about exercise, diet trends, and surface level environmental thought into food production and clean energy. Although these things are a reality they are far from "the" reality of Durango. like any community there is always a population that is under served and slips dangerously beneath the radar. Homeless youth is such a population that is hidden from privileged eyes. The implications of this become very profound to me when I reflect on my sense of place. I live in the same place as my peers that are experiencing homelessness. Yet I can either choose to live in a way that cuts out the full reality of my place or one that looks at the inequality of it. Once I was walking down the river trail early in the morning in the fall when the first claws of winter really grip you. A pair of men who appeared homeless smoking off to the side of the trail mockingly asked me if I were gold. I quickly snapped back that yes I was and what about them? The response that i got was something along the lines of "no, this isn't anything yet." When I reflect on this experience I think about sense of place and environmental privilege. The people that are oppressed in society endure multiple ways of being an outcast including not being provided with communal environmental resources. In the world that we have created it is not much of a reality to live of the land especially with a family so oppression around place is a big deal.
My Personal Take a ways from beginning this project are on many levels. One of the things that I take a way from thinking about hard and complex human realities is; what else should I do with my life? Each person has a role to play and to me when I think about the vast grandeur of the universe I am filled with desire to love the human experience and better it in the ways I can. What else is important in the big picture other then loving each other, understanding our harmful constructions and deconstructing them into the beauty and the potential that the human race has. I do not believe that any person is worthless, however I believe that their are worthless and harmful systems that must be taken down so that we can all shine individually as Ken Robinson expresses. Let us dis enthrall ourselves with loneliness and separation.
Sense Of Place essay:
Breath in the Wonder: A collection of poems and vignettes
Abstract: My sense of place is a collection of poems and vignettes that bring together my experiences in nature and with people that I hold dear. My intention and theme in my sense of place is to convey the sense of wonderment that I feel from these experiences as well as share the teachings that I have obtained in life from place.
Rabbit stew: The day was a silent one.The barren pines towered into the immense sky dotted with wispy clouds moving by. Their massive trunks creaking and groaning bowing slightly, their high barren branches whispering and wavering, whoosh and swoosh their needles would say. Carrying the news, sound and anticipation of a breeze moving into a gust. Here under pine forest my mother and I walked, treading on the crunch of fallen needles past our red brown barn and deeper into the shelter of bow and limb.
We were walking with purpose, though perhaps neither of us knew it. Meandering drawn by the call of instinct we strolled deeper. I do not remember this account in a context of exactly what happened but rather as a memory of flesh; for it has stuck with me long and profound through my short years. The pine needles that ladened the ground began to take form in my dynamic mind and soon my mother and I were collecting them in bunches. For we were hungry for rabbit stew. We needed to eat and so we needed to hunt. This was our purpose of the day, to kill to eat. And to know intimately what that means. For death and life are intimate matters. We needed to snuff the red beating heart of another creature out, so that our red beating hearts could continue.
We prowl, spring, catch and butcher the needle rabbit. We peer deep into his eyes and as they close, watch the tendrils of his soul rise up like smoke into the branches that he fell from. We then kneel, bend and kindle a flame into the breath of existence from the wood around us. More combustion and heat to nourish our demanding bodies. We fill our iron pot with the clear fresh water of a spring storm and line it with stone people to extract needed minerals and the knowledge that comes with them. The molecules of our rabbit’s body release their bonds in our earthen brew preparing to realign into the muscle that will ripple from our bones. As a child I now stand with my mother the feeling of gratitude becoming ever more solid in my mind. Now nourished, we will be able to pour this energy back into the cycles it belongs to.
Years later my mother and I are running together through similar forested hills, this time deeper greener needles and shorter denser trees, no wind and a babbling brook instead, but a similar principle. Again with a purpose we move. Earlier in the day on a hike, our family and a larger company found the remnants of a tourchered owl. Soul and all still stuck in writhing screams of eternal capture to the links of a sickly barbed wire fence that it unknowingly flew into. My mom and I return to the scene of murder with the simple tool of a knife to release the ensnarement of a soul. We now cut and twist the sinews muscle and matted feather clinging to hard steel, until the weightless bird comes undone into our arms. We turn and run him up onto a rock outcropping bathed in a warm golden glow of the setting sun. Lay him near a bush in the drawing twilight amidst the times of transition, re- spiraling the sickly coils of diseased metal into oblivion and releasing great owl wings aloft on dusk air. As we run home, this lessons return to my mind. Kill to eat.
Mud Lake: Things change, that is the nature of this world, they shift and alter, dancing in eternal cadence with the drums of existence. There are many things that we can do in our lives, and many ways that we can go about doing them. I think that too often we find ourselves obsessing so hard about losing things, that when we open our sheathed cocooned boxes of protection, we find the thing we have been trying to shelter has been shaken away from all of our frantic rattling. And so I return to mud Lake, memories of spirits and childhood wonder dance on the edges of my eyes, I peer into the clear waters and the sparkling ice and catch a fleeting glimpse of my reflection, taunting me whole again to skate with the stars and run with the sun. For the lake is only muddy when you choose to stir it so.
Race- My small body brims and bubbles with all the focused mayhem and ecstatic passion of knowing the world is offering me to become a part of it.
Offering all its infinite energy and power with the outstretched fingers of friendship.
My old Navy blue pillowcase jersey falls off my skinny shoulders and the earth beats.
Boom, boom, boom
beneath the treads of my shoes,
up my feet and vibrates through the atoms of my body.
The scent of fresh wind cutting down the valley from snowy mountains and hot bodies tingle in my nostrils,
turning my stomach to rear like a wild stallion.
Bang!
We shoot from the line, legs churning upon rocky hard packed ground.
We peel around the reeded shore of the lake and into the silent woods.
The innocent joy of being a beginner brims at the edges of my soul threatening to pour over.
For there are no pre destined outcomes for me today.
Simply the winding trail,
my pumping arms,
and the beads of sweat pouring from the pores of my skin as I reach toward myself.
Once around,
my lungs burn with the pain of daring to live.
Twice around,
my legs reach up,
let the hill consume me,
crest the last rise
and then
pour
fly,
with scorching joy down the hill.
Silent,
the reed grasses flutter in the wind.
I am now at the end of the earthen track.
I drum,
pound up the hill
and throw my trembling body across the shadow of the great gnarled pine that stands as a sentry marking the finish line.
In that moment experiencing the bliss of complete release,
the feeling of living melting into cellular memory.
Skate-
I am here again on the shores of my beloved lake.
Yet this time in the deep enrapture of winter.
Here under the curving arc of the milky way
spinning its brilliance against the adamantine night
fabricated boundaries of energy melt into the oblivion.
The whispers of the Aurora tingle in my mind
and the veil between worlds grows thin,
tempting me to abandon reason.
When the maelstroms blasts from the mountaintop,
peppering us in icy shrapnell,
there is no choice other than to skate.
Gliding,
racing,
legs dart side to die.
My dads music resounds against the crystalline Ice and we play as children again.
Free, Free.
under the moon.
Colorado Trail: As the rays of sunlight break from the sinking shadows of night and the dying embers of the golden moon wane in a new hue that sets the windswept peaks ablaze, bodies and souls reach into something beyond the void. The runners bend into the hill, legs swaying and arms pumping they crest the ridge line and the fiery dawn illuminates their tingling bodies. Their breath steams in the cold air and they shiver in the ecstasy of the inbetween. Raw and real they teeter. I balance, leaning into cloud and rock and sun wheeling above me. My eyes burn with tears. My soul resounds with the knowledge that my mother latter delivers to me in words of another tongue “Pin Pe Obi, Look to the mountaintop.” My skin trembles and melts as the immensity of this mountain filled world delivers to me wings and I am no longer climbing but rather floating. Floating with the graced whispers of my ancestors embedded in the beating mantle of the earth descending down through millennia of bedrock and pouring up infinitely to twinkle with the stars that we were born of. Like shadows we drift in the twilight, released from our bondage's we float across the earth and enter our dreams. When I step off the trail I begin to know once again who I am, for the rivulets of time and their agents of dust, and light, storm and rain have worn from me any stories that do not serve the truth which lies beneath my lathered skin.
Kwa Kwai:
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai. Resounds against the secret fertility of the sands, and seeps through the souls of our feet, Pours through the molecules of our bodies and trumpets through the clear resonant skies above our heads.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
because We always thank our workers.
Thank you Thank you.
I hear this over and over again until it runs thick through my blood and gushes from the pores in my skin, and gratitude is re wrought in stuff of substance.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
The sun beats in all its splendor and radiance from the blue expanse that wheels above us and sterile stuffed worries begin to crumble.
blow like dust and dead leaves,
flaking from the pulsing red raw muscle that fills my chest.
Here I stand,
the scent of fake white facades and the noise of roaring insanity melt into the scents of bronzed skin, and earthen trust,
the sounds of Ancient whispers from the silent mesas that echo around me.
The blood that flows through my body tingles,
for it remembers that I am not the only thing that it belongs to.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
For backs and arms were meant to bend and build,
and they can,
with magnificence.
Intricately intertwined our feet shuffle and stumble,
brace as we lift the immensity of thick rich wood, soon to become a shelter of unmatched worth.
We bow in humility beneath the weight and the power of these logs.
They say that many hands make light work, even yet many hearts make for lighter.
Let the mountains conquer us.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
As our shovels Kiss open the first folds of flesh of the earth in search of the roots of foundation, stories and memories stir,
then trickle and flow from parched human lips
and fall like lances into the soft soils of what matters.
Like ants we scurry in the vast primal eternity, now time and perspective are delivered,
a breath of life in the bleakness of worry.
I implore you to listen with me, for the age of peace is the age when we drop our phones and guns, pick up hoes and shovels and peer deep into the eyes of each other.
Drink from one another the stories that make us who we are until our barren fields of loneliness are quenched in the pouring rains of forgiveness.
For although you may doubt me,
the human race is a great one,
let there be thunderbolts and rainbows among us.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
Listen to the stones for they will tell you how they want to break.
I arch my ears,
let the voices of emotion guide my hands,
beckon for me to reach into my soul and pull my blessing and sorrows from the wells.
My chisel dances along the stone,
barely a naviance to this Ancient art until I am carving my blessings into the bricks of a home and my sorrows flake away into the sands,
returning to the mystery of creation.
In a circle I blow until I catch a rugged glimpse of a brick and the raw sense of loving myself.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
The learning spirals,
now an ocean of faces and voices,
places and peoples.
Around and around I spin.
Each place has a meaning.
Every person has a story.
In time we will grow.
In space we will know.
Snip and cut from me the branches that will not harber my growth,
pull from me the bramble that will entangle my legs.
Remove from us the noxious medicines and poisonous pills,
and let us die in the dignity of identity,
let us fade in the purity of who we are,
let us grow not as a product of oppression,
but as the bearers of names instead.
For when the rains sprinkle down from the stars let us put out our buckets and open our mouths.
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
They sway,
legs and backs and arms arched,
half in this world and half not,
because maybe thats what it takes to fly.
Poised and dancing,
the sun,
an obelisk of vermillion brilliance,
Scorching through the waters of life that lay suspended between heaven and earth,
sends volts of energy pulsing into open mouths.
A sense of place captures me,
as I descend with Andrew into lands as Ancient as memory we arise through the dusk tainted with magic.
The sound of our foot steps echo across the chiseled steps that his Father ran,
that his great great grandfather ran,
that generations and generations of people together have ran.
undulating past the eagle clans beginnings
Tip toeing erstwhile Ancient Springs where coiled water serpents dwell
Through terraced gardens,
around earthen ceremonial tracks and back up,
looping, running.
Into the arms of the mystery and the homes of our families.
Soaring,
enthralled and enraptured with the freedom of eagles,
the prayers in our hearts melting into a rhythmic call
Kwak Kwai. Kwak Kwai.
A take away: From Navajo creation we are told that we are born of three winds, the wind of our mother, the wind of our father and a wind that was delivered from one of the sacred mountains becoming the wind standing within. I am not of Navajo birth but these wisdoms resonant with me never the less.
For you, I and everyone else for that matter, was born into this world to breath. To exist in all our essential purity like the Snow capped peak, the hungry cougar, the sweet cliff rose and the whining mosquito. Here to Live and breath, love and be loved. These are the reasons why the billions of minute microscopic particles have left the blue seas or the ancient bones of a dinosaur to cajole in the fashion they have, for this blink of an eye, to design the firing synapses that ask why and to pulsate with the mystery that we call spirit. The wind that stands within my soul is one that is meant to dance and move with emotion. To feel the blistering rush of cold mountain air and the snow flurries that engulf me in a raging tide of emotion, fill my daring lungs until they are about to burst and tear me into the storm swept sky’s where abounding freedom lies. The winds that whisper through my hair have asked me to stand on the edge, have asked me to look deep, and deeper still into cracks of the mystery. They have asked me to look and feel in ways that are not always comfortable, to wonder in my bones about the stories that we tell.
Nature, a vast concept to think of, even more of one to feel, this throbbing, beating, pulsating, mass of matter spinning from minute fleeting intricate wavers and boring out into infinity that we cannot fathom. A part of a whole that is what we are. For things are made of pieces for a reason. Like a river we are, stagnation is death and movement is life. Spiraling we bump and toss, sometimes aligning in the right fashion to create and then again to destroy. Rupture and repair, live, breathe, love, and die. If I ask of you one thing I will ask you this, do not live in the fear of your unknown. Rather dare to understand, for you will find that Nature is not a mold but rather a work of art.
Native American Studies Project:
Native American Studies Project Reflection:
From the studies that I have delved into this year, I have learned a fair amount about how the ideologies of America’s indigenous tribes impact their contemporary identity. Historical experiences of Native peoples on turtle Island go far back into history and reach to roots that are both complex and diverse. Native American contemporary ideologies are affected by an era of being the only peoples on this continent as well as another era of oppression and displacement. Every culture and their identity is tied deeply into the experiences of generations before them both good and bad. Grief, and trauma as well as empowerment and strength are multigenerational aspects of collective cultural psyches and experiences. The effects of the American Indian holocaust leave many contemporary ideologies of native peoples deeply wounded. One of the reasons for such wounded ideologies is the reality that native ideologies are not recognized nor validated in mainstream white contexts. One thing thing that I would claim about contemporary Native American Ideologies is that even though they are affected by an era of oppression, they often hold a value that people are not viewed as products of oppression. I say that the reason for this is that when people's stories are told as only a tragedy that causes people to continually live as only this tragedy. This stops change and empowerment.
When multiple sources and perspectives are understood in our examination of history we are able to positively change social, political and social realities. When we examine multiple stories and versions of our history two central learnings can be gained. The first is that all people in all settings have something valuable. No one is worthless. The other thing that I think multiple sources do, is ask us to recognize the things that people say that need to be validated and the things that people say that are made to harm and corrupt. I think that when picking apart all collective knowledge of people we enable ourselves a high level of metacognition. What I mean by this is that we can understand the ideologies in the past that have lead to the dark parts of humanities and the ideologies that have lead to our enlightenment. Through multiple sources we can become empowered members of a society that have the ability to first listen with open hearts and ears and second act with discernment and strength.
History and creative expression intersect to convey human experience in all mediums of art. For this project I was inspired by the novel flight where sherman Alexie tells a story of a young teen struggling in the modern day with cultural trauma and multi generational oppression. This book is an amazing example of how creative expression allows for people to relate to experiences. In his creative writing Sherman Alexie allowed me to connect deeper to issues that I would not be able to connect with as easily through factual accounts. However being able to identify with Zits in Flight through the things that I do have in common with him gave me insight and compassion into painful experiences that are way over my head.
From the studies that I have delved into this year, I have learned a fair amount about how the ideologies of America’s indigenous tribes impact their contemporary identity. Historical experiences of Native peoples on turtle Island go far back into history and reach to roots that are both complex and diverse. Native American contemporary ideologies are affected by an era of being the only peoples on this continent as well as another era of oppression and displacement. Every culture and their identity is tied deeply into the experiences of generations before them both good and bad. Grief, and trauma as well as empowerment and strength are multigenerational aspects of collective cultural psyches and experiences. The effects of the American Indian holocaust leave many contemporary ideologies of native peoples deeply wounded. One of the reasons for such wounded ideologies is the reality that native ideologies are not recognized nor validated in mainstream white contexts. One thing thing that I would claim about contemporary Native American Ideologies is that even though they are affected by an era of oppression, they often hold a value that people are not viewed as products of oppression. I say that the reason for this is that when people's stories are told as only a tragedy that causes people to continually live as only this tragedy. This stops change and empowerment.
When multiple sources and perspectives are understood in our examination of history we are able to positively change social, political and social realities. When we examine multiple stories and versions of our history two central learnings can be gained. The first is that all people in all settings have something valuable. No one is worthless. The other thing that I think multiple sources do, is ask us to recognize the things that people say that need to be validated and the things that people say that are made to harm and corrupt. I think that when picking apart all collective knowledge of people we enable ourselves a high level of metacognition. What I mean by this is that we can understand the ideologies in the past that have lead to the dark parts of humanities and the ideologies that have lead to our enlightenment. Through multiple sources we can become empowered members of a society that have the ability to first listen with open hearts and ears and second act with discernment and strength.
History and creative expression intersect to convey human experience in all mediums of art. For this project I was inspired by the novel flight where sherman Alexie tells a story of a young teen struggling in the modern day with cultural trauma and multi generational oppression. This book is an amazing example of how creative expression allows for people to relate to experiences. In his creative writing Sherman Alexie allowed me to connect deeper to issues that I would not be able to connect with as easily through factual accounts. However being able to identify with Zits in Flight through the things that I do have in common with him gave me insight and compassion into painful experiences that are way over my head.
Forgiveness in Flight: Explorations of Healing a Collective Trauma Culture in Sherman Alexie's Flight.
Sherman Alexie‘s Flight gives the reader a profound lens into the nature of trauma, violence, oppression, and privilege. In his typical narrative brilliance, Alexie explores the reality of multi generational trauma, violence as a disease, oppression, and privilege as wounds in the modern world. He asks us to strive toward a true understanding of what collective and individual healing in the modern world looks like in relation to our violent and oppressive past. Alexie focuses on the context of the American Indian Holocaust but provides insights for all such pain. He incorporates the healing of these wounds into the elemental human needs for relationship, forgiveness, empowerment, and identity. He explores these themes through the time-traveling, body-inhabiting journey of our protagonist. Zits is a fifteen year old boy--half-Spokane Indian, half Irish--acne blasted, orphaned, lonely and ashamed. Alexie’s truth and humor reverberate through your bones, hooking you into an experience that is vividly unique and inspiringly universal.
Flight opens as our protagonist explains that him, and everyone else calls him Zits, because of his acne scarred face. He says that his real name is not important, and goes on to explain in vivid imagery the abuse, neglect, and shame that he has experienced in foster homes after the abandonment of his father and the death of his mother. Through our protagonists experience Alexie paints an intricate metaphor of how self perpetuated and multi generational oppression work. He shows us how the effects of multi generational abuse cause Zits to hate himself along with the battery he experiences from people and systems every day. Alexie reveals that the pain of losing identity is an astronomical wound of cultural genocide.
Flight first sheds light on the nature of violence. he explores the idea that we cannot look at an act of violence as an isolated event if we seek to understand it.We must rather view it as a disease that is toxic and stems from many people. Our story begins to “take off”, when Zits meets a 17-year-old white boy in jail named Justice. Justice is a “pretty boy…who’s read all the books,” (Alexie 26) and gives Zits the attention and respect that he sorely needs. In the beginning of the book, Alexie uses the event of Zits shooting a bank full of people after being brainwashed by Justice as a context to explain how disenfranchised grief “ Grief that persons experience when a loss cannot be openly honored.” (Johnson 227) creates violence. ALexie reveals the fact that because the nature of disenfranchised grief, it is not often viewed with compassion or in a greater context, we then miss the opportunity to quell the disease of violence and heal people. Instead people and cultures are isolated and stereotyped; left to battle with “their” violence.Violence is something that can not be overcome by one person, especially if it does not belong to only that person. When Zits shoots a bank full of people after being brainwashed; he is launched into a cosmic time swirl to understand his grief, shame, rage and trauma in their full context of history. He then comes back to the same scene armed with validation, compassion, and understanding then choosing to end the cycle of violence. Through this journey, Alexie shows us that compassion and context are key if we wish to stop violence. Zits’ experience explains how a person and his or her violence are often viewed as an isolated event instead of a result of silenced grief and oppression.
As Justice continues to brainwash Zits, he asks him if he believes in the ghost dance. Which was a historical event before wounded knee when the sioux tribe were dancing; believing that through ceremony they could banish white oppressors from their lands. Justice prompts Zits with the idea , of performing a ghost dance to resurrect his mother and father at the cost of killing all white people. By asking Zits to create a modern ghost dance war as revenge for the atrocities of wounded Knee and the American Indian holocaust Justice asks Zits to bear all of the pain of an entire genocide. He also asks him to act on all this pain that is not simply his and direct it toward people that he initially has no desire to harm. In other words, Zits is asked to be the scapegoat for the violence of an oppressive society by upholding that society’s needed stereotypes of the “delinquent youth” and the “savage Indian.” In the following quote we see that Zits responds to Justice’s offer as the normal child he is; not as the stereotypes that he needs to embody in order to be a scapegoat for the neglect and abuse that dominant society is responsible for inflicting on young people of color. “ I want to tell Justice that the only Indian I want to bring back is my father and the only white people I want to disappear are my evil foster families”(Alexie 31).
In the story we experience Justice glorifying the idea of a genocide through the idea of the ghost dance. Alexie reveals that being removed from violence is a form of privilege. People that are removed from violence have the privilege of glorifying it. Once the glorification of violence is ingrained in culture it perpetuates it. People with such privilege can then hand the disease of violence to people that have experienced violent trauma making them the bearers of such violence. Once an oppressed group is burdened with violence, they are then diseased to perpetuate it in circles.
Justice gives Zits two guns, a real one and a paintball and they practice shooting people. Alexie gives us insights into how our culture portrays violence to youth through media in this quote. “I’ve always heard and read that guns are cold metal. But not this one. It feels warm and comfortable, like a leather recliner sitting in front of a sixty-inch HDTV” (Alexie 30). Here Alexie shows us that violence is perpetuated in our society because it feels fake and comfortable. We are removed. If we keep shooting the people on the TV it will be easier to pull the trigger in real life.
The character of Justice is an archetype for people and systems that use oppressed people as vehicles to commit crimes . This idea is also shown in a later event in the book where there is a 911 type bombing. Alexie illustrates the complexity of how racism and stereotypes are upheld when ill meaning people channel built up silence and hatred of an entire oppressed group, such as Osama Bin Laden and Justice did with their respective followers. Alexie reveals a truth about the Nature of revenge through Justices name. The Idea that Justice is coercing Zits to commit an act of “justice,” begs us to wonder what our society believes bringing justice to someone is. Is violent revenge really a true form of justice?
After Zits commits mass murder in a bank, he quantum leaps into the bodies and minds of many people. These people include an FBI agent, an old man who was an “Indian tracker,” for the seventh cavalry, a mute Sioux child at the battle of Little Bighorn and a adulterous pilot whose best friend turned out to be a suicide terrorist. He arrives at his final destination in the the body of and a torn apart drunk. This man is his father. Here is where the pinnacle of perspective around cultural trauma and the power of forgiveness is reached. Zits observes the pain that his father experienced from his grandfather that made his father turn away from him.in this exerpt. ““Say it my,” my grandfather says. “Say what?” my father asks. “say you ain’t worth shit.” my father wants to resist to rebel, but he knows the punishment will end only if he submits. “ I ain’t worth shit,” my father says...I ain’t worth shit my father screams… And now my father, whipped and bloodied by his memory, stops pacing in the hospital hallway. Somewhere in this floor my mother is giving birth to me. But my father cannot be a participat. He can not be a witness. He can not be a father. And so he runs” (Flight 155-156).
Professor Jan Johnson at Northern Arizona University explores Flight and the Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian as metaphors for “The Soul Wound” of cultural trauma. She sights experts on cultural trauma in her critical essay “Healing The Soul Wound In` Flight and The Absolutely true Diary of a Part Time Indian;” “In “The American Indian Holocaust: healing historical unresolved grief:” Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart and Lemyra DeBruyn Identify high rates of suicide, homicide, accidental deaths, domestic abuse, child abuse, and alcoholism, as “the product of a legacy of chronic trauma and unresolved grief across generations; racism and oppression, including internalized oppression are continuous forces which exuberate these destructive behaviors”” (Johnson 227). Through Johnson's connection we see how acurate and how brilliant Alexie is in painting a true narrative of an experience of cultural trauma. Alexie also reverses the disenfranchisement of grief with Flight by creating a voice and a pair of ears for a cultural trauma discussion. From viewing the pain that was inflicted upon his father Michael, is able to gain a perspective of what happened to him and ultimately find forgiveness.
Zits’ perspectives give us a context to understand healing. Zits shows us that the job of healing is that of many people victim perpetrator and bystander. As he is launched into a world where he experiences the minds and the souls of so many people in so many different times he gains the perspective of all stories. He also gains a perspective on how all of these stories work together to create each other and him. Through his almost omniscient view, he can sometimes control the thoughts and actions of people and some times is a silent observer, yet other times his will can battle against that of the body he is in. From these differences he gets to experience all roles, he is a perpetrator, a bystander and a victim. He is able to see how we are all of these roles in our life. In Otis Hampton’s book review of flight “ The Out of Body Adventures of an Outcast.” an insight into perspective is conveyed. “Entering other peoples’ bodies completely changes his perspective. While inhabiting a body with his own spirit, Zits feels curiosity and empathy for the person whose life he temporarily jumps into. Sometimes he is inside a white person’s body and sometimes he’s in a Native American’s body. He has to find a way to make peace with both.” “ THe Out of Body Adventures of an Outcast.” This quote reveals that no person is good or bad neither do they act alone.
Zits’ true name is hidden from us until the end of the book,a metaphor for his journey through transforming the oppression that keeps him shame-ridden and lost. In the beginning of the book, Zits identifies with his acne and the shame that comes with it; he identifies as only a product of his oppression. In his humorous mockery Zits shares, “The skin doctor says that I have six months to live. I’m exaggerating. I don’t have a skin doctor and you can't actually die of zits. But you can die of shame, and trust me, my zit shame is killing me. I’m dying of about ninety nine kinds of shame. I’m ashamed of being 15 years old. And being tall. And skinny. And ugly” (Alexie 4). In the end of the book, after his travel through time that gives him an understanding of how and where his pain and our collective pain come from, he shares his true name with us. However, he only does so after recognizing the true nature of violence, empowerment, and forgiveness. He can also only do so with help and love from other people. We cannot heal alone.
In the following excerpt Alexie demystifies the idea that people who are suffering from trauma just need to get over things and move along. “I rub that stuff all over my face. “There, thats good,” she says. “We do this twice a day, and your face should start clearing up in a week or two. A few months from now and you will be brand- new. That gets me right in the soul. Right there, I start to cry. Really. I just weep and wail…. “Michael.” I say. “my real name is Michael. Please call me Michael.” (Alexie 180.) Alexie shows us that people need to be validated in both their beauty and their hardship. When Michael shares his true name with his final loving foster mother after she shows him how to use some new acne cream he is recognized by an other and by himself as someone with a chance, someone with beauty, and someone with a future.
The reclaiming of MIchael's name is a profound insight into the nature of healing from cultural trauma. , Alexie shows the power of saying no to being painted as only a tragedy story, and explores the possibilities of undoing ism’s and oppression. He also comments on the strength of forgiveness, by showing that forgiveness in its true nature can save us from being consumed into someone we don’t want to be. In other words Michael finds his empowerment by saying; my name is not Zit’s its Michael, my name is not abused its Michael, my name is not murder it’s Michael. my name is not drunk its michael my name is not shame its Micheal. In the reclaiming of a name, Alexie is expressing that it is a fallacy to say that people remain unbroken or intact after experiencing some things, but he share that it is possible to for people to piece themselves back together.
After his journey through understanding our collective experience our protagonist returns to his body in the bank, realizing that he is in fact real and wonders about the truth of what happened to him. He wonders a lot and then decides to leave and report himself to Officer Dave, a kind police Man who eventually takes him to live with his brother permanently. In the conclusion of .Flight and throughout its entirety it becomes clear that the process of healing from the wounds of trauma, violence, oppression, and privilege is long complex and requires a recognition of how all of our actions are connected and do not exist in a vacuum; they require, validation, compassion and the strength of claiming self through forgiveness. Ultimately Flight acknowledges that we are all worth something, and can heal together into our individual and collective brilliance.
Works Cited: Hampton,
Otis. "Book Review: Sherman Alexie's Flight - Otis Hampton."Youthcomm. Youth Communication, n.d. Web. 06 May 2015.
"The Out-of-Body Adventures of an Outcast OTIS HAMPTON." N.p., n.d. Web.
Alexie, Sherman. Flight: A Novel. New York: Black Cat, 2007. Print.
Sherman Alexie‘s Flight gives the reader a profound lens into the nature of trauma, violence, oppression, and privilege. In his typical narrative brilliance, Alexie explores the reality of multi generational trauma, violence as a disease, oppression, and privilege as wounds in the modern world. He asks us to strive toward a true understanding of what collective and individual healing in the modern world looks like in relation to our violent and oppressive past. Alexie focuses on the context of the American Indian Holocaust but provides insights for all such pain. He incorporates the healing of these wounds into the elemental human needs for relationship, forgiveness, empowerment, and identity. He explores these themes through the time-traveling, body-inhabiting journey of our protagonist. Zits is a fifteen year old boy--half-Spokane Indian, half Irish--acne blasted, orphaned, lonely and ashamed. Alexie’s truth and humor reverberate through your bones, hooking you into an experience that is vividly unique and inspiringly universal.
Flight opens as our protagonist explains that him, and everyone else calls him Zits, because of his acne scarred face. He says that his real name is not important, and goes on to explain in vivid imagery the abuse, neglect, and shame that he has experienced in foster homes after the abandonment of his father and the death of his mother. Through our protagonists experience Alexie paints an intricate metaphor of how self perpetuated and multi generational oppression work. He shows us how the effects of multi generational abuse cause Zits to hate himself along with the battery he experiences from people and systems every day. Alexie reveals that the pain of losing identity is an astronomical wound of cultural genocide.
Flight first sheds light on the nature of violence. he explores the idea that we cannot look at an act of violence as an isolated event if we seek to understand it.We must rather view it as a disease that is toxic and stems from many people. Our story begins to “take off”, when Zits meets a 17-year-old white boy in jail named Justice. Justice is a “pretty boy…who’s read all the books,” (Alexie 26) and gives Zits the attention and respect that he sorely needs. In the beginning of the book, Alexie uses the event of Zits shooting a bank full of people after being brainwashed by Justice as a context to explain how disenfranchised grief “ Grief that persons experience when a loss cannot be openly honored.” (Johnson 227) creates violence. ALexie reveals the fact that because the nature of disenfranchised grief, it is not often viewed with compassion or in a greater context, we then miss the opportunity to quell the disease of violence and heal people. Instead people and cultures are isolated and stereotyped; left to battle with “their” violence.Violence is something that can not be overcome by one person, especially if it does not belong to only that person. When Zits shoots a bank full of people after being brainwashed; he is launched into a cosmic time swirl to understand his grief, shame, rage and trauma in their full context of history. He then comes back to the same scene armed with validation, compassion, and understanding then choosing to end the cycle of violence. Through this journey, Alexie shows us that compassion and context are key if we wish to stop violence. Zits’ experience explains how a person and his or her violence are often viewed as an isolated event instead of a result of silenced grief and oppression.
As Justice continues to brainwash Zits, he asks him if he believes in the ghost dance. Which was a historical event before wounded knee when the sioux tribe were dancing; believing that through ceremony they could banish white oppressors from their lands. Justice prompts Zits with the idea , of performing a ghost dance to resurrect his mother and father at the cost of killing all white people. By asking Zits to create a modern ghost dance war as revenge for the atrocities of wounded Knee and the American Indian holocaust Justice asks Zits to bear all of the pain of an entire genocide. He also asks him to act on all this pain that is not simply his and direct it toward people that he initially has no desire to harm. In other words, Zits is asked to be the scapegoat for the violence of an oppressive society by upholding that society’s needed stereotypes of the “delinquent youth” and the “savage Indian.” In the following quote we see that Zits responds to Justice’s offer as the normal child he is; not as the stereotypes that he needs to embody in order to be a scapegoat for the neglect and abuse that dominant society is responsible for inflicting on young people of color. “ I want to tell Justice that the only Indian I want to bring back is my father and the only white people I want to disappear are my evil foster families”(Alexie 31).
In the story we experience Justice glorifying the idea of a genocide through the idea of the ghost dance. Alexie reveals that being removed from violence is a form of privilege. People that are removed from violence have the privilege of glorifying it. Once the glorification of violence is ingrained in culture it perpetuates it. People with such privilege can then hand the disease of violence to people that have experienced violent trauma making them the bearers of such violence. Once an oppressed group is burdened with violence, they are then diseased to perpetuate it in circles.
Justice gives Zits two guns, a real one and a paintball and they practice shooting people. Alexie gives us insights into how our culture portrays violence to youth through media in this quote. “I’ve always heard and read that guns are cold metal. But not this one. It feels warm and comfortable, like a leather recliner sitting in front of a sixty-inch HDTV” (Alexie 30). Here Alexie shows us that violence is perpetuated in our society because it feels fake and comfortable. We are removed. If we keep shooting the people on the TV it will be easier to pull the trigger in real life.
The character of Justice is an archetype for people and systems that use oppressed people as vehicles to commit crimes . This idea is also shown in a later event in the book where there is a 911 type bombing. Alexie illustrates the complexity of how racism and stereotypes are upheld when ill meaning people channel built up silence and hatred of an entire oppressed group, such as Osama Bin Laden and Justice did with their respective followers. Alexie reveals a truth about the Nature of revenge through Justices name. The Idea that Justice is coercing Zits to commit an act of “justice,” begs us to wonder what our society believes bringing justice to someone is. Is violent revenge really a true form of justice?
After Zits commits mass murder in a bank, he quantum leaps into the bodies and minds of many people. These people include an FBI agent, an old man who was an “Indian tracker,” for the seventh cavalry, a mute Sioux child at the battle of Little Bighorn and a adulterous pilot whose best friend turned out to be a suicide terrorist. He arrives at his final destination in the the body of and a torn apart drunk. This man is his father. Here is where the pinnacle of perspective around cultural trauma and the power of forgiveness is reached. Zits observes the pain that his father experienced from his grandfather that made his father turn away from him.in this exerpt. ““Say it my,” my grandfather says. “Say what?” my father asks. “say you ain’t worth shit.” my father wants to resist to rebel, but he knows the punishment will end only if he submits. “ I ain’t worth shit,” my father says...I ain’t worth shit my father screams… And now my father, whipped and bloodied by his memory, stops pacing in the hospital hallway. Somewhere in this floor my mother is giving birth to me. But my father cannot be a participat. He can not be a witness. He can not be a father. And so he runs” (Flight 155-156).
Professor Jan Johnson at Northern Arizona University explores Flight and the Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian as metaphors for “The Soul Wound” of cultural trauma. She sights experts on cultural trauma in her critical essay “Healing The Soul Wound In` Flight and The Absolutely true Diary of a Part Time Indian;” “In “The American Indian Holocaust: healing historical unresolved grief:” Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart and Lemyra DeBruyn Identify high rates of suicide, homicide, accidental deaths, domestic abuse, child abuse, and alcoholism, as “the product of a legacy of chronic trauma and unresolved grief across generations; racism and oppression, including internalized oppression are continuous forces which exuberate these destructive behaviors”” (Johnson 227). Through Johnson's connection we see how acurate and how brilliant Alexie is in painting a true narrative of an experience of cultural trauma. Alexie also reverses the disenfranchisement of grief with Flight by creating a voice and a pair of ears for a cultural trauma discussion. From viewing the pain that was inflicted upon his father Michael, is able to gain a perspective of what happened to him and ultimately find forgiveness.
Zits’ perspectives give us a context to understand healing. Zits shows us that the job of healing is that of many people victim perpetrator and bystander. As he is launched into a world where he experiences the minds and the souls of so many people in so many different times he gains the perspective of all stories. He also gains a perspective on how all of these stories work together to create each other and him. Through his almost omniscient view, he can sometimes control the thoughts and actions of people and some times is a silent observer, yet other times his will can battle against that of the body he is in. From these differences he gets to experience all roles, he is a perpetrator, a bystander and a victim. He is able to see how we are all of these roles in our life. In Otis Hampton’s book review of flight “ The Out of Body Adventures of an Outcast.” an insight into perspective is conveyed. “Entering other peoples’ bodies completely changes his perspective. While inhabiting a body with his own spirit, Zits feels curiosity and empathy for the person whose life he temporarily jumps into. Sometimes he is inside a white person’s body and sometimes he’s in a Native American’s body. He has to find a way to make peace with both.” “ THe Out of Body Adventures of an Outcast.” This quote reveals that no person is good or bad neither do they act alone.
Zits’ true name is hidden from us until the end of the book,a metaphor for his journey through transforming the oppression that keeps him shame-ridden and lost. In the beginning of the book, Zits identifies with his acne and the shame that comes with it; he identifies as only a product of his oppression. In his humorous mockery Zits shares, “The skin doctor says that I have six months to live. I’m exaggerating. I don’t have a skin doctor and you can't actually die of zits. But you can die of shame, and trust me, my zit shame is killing me. I’m dying of about ninety nine kinds of shame. I’m ashamed of being 15 years old. And being tall. And skinny. And ugly” (Alexie 4). In the end of the book, after his travel through time that gives him an understanding of how and where his pain and our collective pain come from, he shares his true name with us. However, he only does so after recognizing the true nature of violence, empowerment, and forgiveness. He can also only do so with help and love from other people. We cannot heal alone.
In the following excerpt Alexie demystifies the idea that people who are suffering from trauma just need to get over things and move along. “I rub that stuff all over my face. “There, thats good,” she says. “We do this twice a day, and your face should start clearing up in a week or two. A few months from now and you will be brand- new. That gets me right in the soul. Right there, I start to cry. Really. I just weep and wail…. “Michael.” I say. “my real name is Michael. Please call me Michael.” (Alexie 180.) Alexie shows us that people need to be validated in both their beauty and their hardship. When Michael shares his true name with his final loving foster mother after she shows him how to use some new acne cream he is recognized by an other and by himself as someone with a chance, someone with beauty, and someone with a future.
The reclaiming of MIchael's name is a profound insight into the nature of healing from cultural trauma. , Alexie shows the power of saying no to being painted as only a tragedy story, and explores the possibilities of undoing ism’s and oppression. He also comments on the strength of forgiveness, by showing that forgiveness in its true nature can save us from being consumed into someone we don’t want to be. In other words Michael finds his empowerment by saying; my name is not Zit’s its Michael, my name is not abused its Michael, my name is not murder it’s Michael. my name is not drunk its michael my name is not shame its Micheal. In the reclaiming of a name, Alexie is expressing that it is a fallacy to say that people remain unbroken or intact after experiencing some things, but he share that it is possible to for people to piece themselves back together.
After his journey through understanding our collective experience our protagonist returns to his body in the bank, realizing that he is in fact real and wonders about the truth of what happened to him. He wonders a lot and then decides to leave and report himself to Officer Dave, a kind police Man who eventually takes him to live with his brother permanently. In the conclusion of .Flight and throughout its entirety it becomes clear that the process of healing from the wounds of trauma, violence, oppression, and privilege is long complex and requires a recognition of how all of our actions are connected and do not exist in a vacuum; they require, validation, compassion and the strength of claiming self through forgiveness. Ultimately Flight acknowledges that we are all worth something, and can heal together into our individual and collective brilliance.
Works Cited: Hampton,
Otis. "Book Review: Sherman Alexie's Flight - Otis Hampton."Youthcomm. Youth Communication, n.d. Web. 06 May 2015.
"The Out-of-Body Adventures of an Outcast OTIS HAMPTON." N.p., n.d. Web.
Alexie, Sherman. Flight: A Novel. New York: Black Cat, 2007. Print.
Rhetoric Project
Rhetoric Project Reflection:The rhetoric project was a culmination of bringing not only many things that we learned about our country this semester but also the way that we engaged with them and understood them at an ideological level. During the rhetoric project we had to had to craft our own piece of rhetorical discourse to persuade our audience on a cretin issue or topic in the united states. We were allowed to present our piece in any rhetorical for including a speech, ted talk, rap or poem. I chose to do a speech about how privatized prisons benefit from and perpetuate the school to prison pipeline. I chose to include a lot of logos to back up the intensity of what I was saying. my project achieved the art of rhetoric in more then one way. First of my project discovered facts as many people told me that it was eye opening. It secondly shaped knowledge and demanded that people think about the systems that we are engaged in and whether or not they support that. Finally my project built community because it shared the importance of a community that values each other. I have proof of this because the new county sheriff Sean smith told me that he wanted to implement positive peer involvement in schools and was inspired by my rhetoric. I connected to this project in two major ways the fist was through the experience of being a student I was interested in to what degree schools and the experiences of youth that our society sets up for success and passion. I also felt very Interested about the how the idea of the military industrial complex and when I came across the idea of a prison industrial complex I was even more interested because it talked about the oppression of our own citizens, which I think is an important thing to be aware of, we can not help others until we help ourselves. When i learned about the school to prison pipeline I was absolutely floored because I go to school It felt relevant to me and also knowing the stories that my mom tells me from La Plata youth services I decided that this was a very important issue. It was challenging for me to narrow down my topic. This is because I saw all of the interconnection of the things that I was learning. I tackled this by choosing what I felt most passionate about, which was the school to prison pipeline and connected this to the privatization of prisons. I have learned that rhetoric is a beautiful thing. i have learned that it can be twisted and abused but I have learned that when ti has integrity and truth even though there can be many, it is both effective and truly shapes a positive community. I learned this because when I wrote in my speech to say that private prisons lobbied for things that i was not sure they lobbied for. my mom told me to change the wording to explain how private prisons simply benefit from the school to prison pipeline and implied that it was not OK that they allowed themselves to benefit from it. This change in wording or rhetoric allowed me to persuade but re mane truthful. This was a [powerful lesson for me because when the sheriff talked to me congratulating me for what I shared I was so grateful that it was true and ligament.
Seminars:
Nicholas Turco
Civil Disobedience and Non-Violent
Direct Action: Seminar Synthesis
When Martin Luther King States, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” I see the strength and beauty in the opinion that Doctor King and Thoreau share on the role that individuals and civilians as a whole should play in society. I think that the power of Civil Disobedience and non violent direct action is a potent tool to bring to light the oppressive systems that society does not discuss because of the manipulation of those in power to uphold these systems and laws, like segregation. I think that these tactics of change are powerful because they demand discussion and illuminate illusions. I would agree with Dr. King and Thoreau that it is the role of individuals and groups to express their demands to a power structure that is not working for them through means that are not part of the system because I think it is important to realize that things aren't changing within the system because it is already warped and in a state of stagnation. An example of this is in Thoreau’s opinion of the voting system being a statement rather than an action of change. However I think that it is key to approach non violent direct action and Civil disobedience as Martin Luther King did, that is in a way that understood the dominate power structure and worked in a way that appealed to building upon it or bettering it rather then destroying and replacing it. I believe this because I think that the rhetoric of love and inclusion instead of war and opposition that Dr. King wheeled was very successful in accomplishing the goals of the civil rights movement. I do agree that people should hold the responsibility to change their government when it is ridden with unjust laws and systems. In this I think that it is the responsibility of the individual to create inspiration for a group to create change, however I do not think that it is possible to do it on your own, we can connect this back to the point that how nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience or also individualism must be intelligent and planned in a way that will not isolate an individual but instead promote inspiration.
As I have stated I think that when used appropriately non violent direct action and civil disobedience can be catalysis to framing arguments in an empowered way that as shown through history can make enormous changes. I think that these methods are effective when a large group of people are framed behind a common cause that understand the systems and laws that are oppressing them very well. I think that another important piece in looking at the success of non violent direct action and civil disobedience is through examples of the power that these methods hold. I think that the situation in Jefferson is a testimony to this power, because the Legislation is trying to shut out the teaching of how to employ techniques of civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action. However the danger that I see in non violent direct action and civil disobedience is the chance of corruption or violence that can spring from intense beliefs and emotions if manipulated by harmful rhetoric. I say this because the actions of non violent direct action and civil disobedience are rooted in change and in times of change people can become fearful and harmful as well as grasp for power in a violent and harmful way. This is why I think that the rhetoric and intentions of leaders of powerful movements must have high morals and open listening ears to insure that the course of their action is rooted in the desire and health of the whole. I again think that this is one of the reasons that martin Luther king was so successful.
I think that the Occupy Wall Street Movement was an example of where Civil Disobedience and non violent Direct action are very alive and present put are portrayed as being unsuccessful and false in attempts to squash it. I maybe say this only because it was at a closer time to me then the civil rights movement and so I was subject to rhetoric that discounted it as an action of change to install justice but I also think that occupy wall street in many ways was a just cause with intelligent leadership and goals toward discussion but however I think that It was dismantled because of where the power in rhetoric is held. As Will said in the seminar the media coverage of occupy wall street was funded by corporations that did not want a change in the economic system that the occupiers did, therefore I think that it is fair to say that there was a lack of voice for the occupiers. In Thoreau’s statement “I say, break the law. Let your life become a counter friction to stop the machine,” Is the basis of the advice that he would give the occupiers. I this statement Thoreau convey the ideology that if people act fully on what they believe in a unified manner then the systems that oppresses them are clogged and cannot function. For example if all of the lower and middle class population stopped working and supporting the economy it would either crash or undergo a reform of justice.
When the question is asked can individual change the government this is what I think. I think that through action of self riotousness and disconnection we can make a statement but in the end that statement I isolated and does not have much power because individuals can be cast out, forgotten and ridiculed. I think that the sad reality hits us that we cannot hold to our ideals unless we truly want to be different from the system. But I think the hope is the reality that the only way that we can change systems that we think are unjust is together. Every person needs to decide to live a different way, including people with power. So I think that the individuals job is to connect to others to understand what is hurting others and then to inspire a community that is willing to work together to be different
One thing that was very powerful to me in the seminar was when I addressed Noah with the question of whether or not he thought that violent action was appropriate for Native Americans in some situations to protect themselves from invasion and lack of sovereignty. One thing that struck me in Noah’s answer was when he described that the non violence part of direct action was key for oppressed people when enacting change because of the situation of oppression that they are already in. This situation of oppression is one that confines people to be perfect in their actions because they are already stereotyped and assumed to take violent or “savage action” in the case of native Americans. In this there is justification then in the eyes of the white oppressors to destroy people who demonstrate anger in the “wrong” way, creating a net that is almost imposable to get out of. In conclusion the non violent part is actually a form of protection and a key piece to change. I also felt through asking this question I experienced my white privilege because I was asking someone to speak for their entire people and I was never in the situation in that seminar to do the same, nor probably never will be.
When Martin Luther King States, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” I see the strength and beauty in the opinion that Doctor King and Thoreau share on the role that individuals and civilians as a whole should play in society. I think that the power of Civil Disobedience and non violent direct action is a potent tool to bring to light the oppressive systems that society does not discuss because of the manipulation of those in power to uphold these systems and laws, like segregation. I think that these tactics of change are powerful because they demand discussion and illuminate illusions. I would agree with Dr. King and Thoreau that it is the role of individuals and groups to express their demands to a power structure that is not working for them through means that are not part of the system because I think it is important to realize that things aren't changing within the system because it is already warped and in a state of stagnation. An example of this is in Thoreau’s opinion of the voting system being a statement rather than an action of change. However I think that it is key to approach non violent direct action and Civil disobedience as Martin Luther King did, that is in a way that understood the dominate power structure and worked in a way that appealed to building upon it or bettering it rather then destroying and replacing it. I believe this because I think that the rhetoric of love and inclusion instead of war and opposition that Dr. King wheeled was very successful in accomplishing the goals of the civil rights movement. I do agree that people should hold the responsibility to change their government when it is ridden with unjust laws and systems. In this I think that it is the responsibility of the individual to create inspiration for a group to create change, however I do not think that it is possible to do it on your own, we can connect this back to the point that how nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience or also individualism must be intelligent and planned in a way that will not isolate an individual but instead promote inspiration.
As I have stated I think that when used appropriately non violent direct action and civil disobedience can be catalysis to framing arguments in an empowered way that as shown through history can make enormous changes. I think that these methods are effective when a large group of people are framed behind a common cause that understand the systems and laws that are oppressing them very well. I think that another important piece in looking at the success of non violent direct action and civil disobedience is through examples of the power that these methods hold. I think that the situation in Jefferson is a testimony to this power, because the Legislation is trying to shut out the teaching of how to employ techniques of civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action. However the danger that I see in non violent direct action and civil disobedience is the chance of corruption or violence that can spring from intense beliefs and emotions if manipulated by harmful rhetoric. I say this because the actions of non violent direct action and civil disobedience are rooted in change and in times of change people can become fearful and harmful as well as grasp for power in a violent and harmful way. This is why I think that the rhetoric and intentions of leaders of powerful movements must have high morals and open listening ears to insure that the course of their action is rooted in the desire and health of the whole. I again think that this is one of the reasons that martin Luther king was so successful.
I think that the Occupy Wall Street Movement was an example of where Civil Disobedience and non violent Direct action are very alive and present put are portrayed as being unsuccessful and false in attempts to squash it. I maybe say this only because it was at a closer time to me then the civil rights movement and so I was subject to rhetoric that discounted it as an action of change to install justice but I also think that occupy wall street in many ways was a just cause with intelligent leadership and goals toward discussion but however I think that It was dismantled because of where the power in rhetoric is held. As Will said in the seminar the media coverage of occupy wall street was funded by corporations that did not want a change in the economic system that the occupiers did, therefore I think that it is fair to say that there was a lack of voice for the occupiers. In Thoreau’s statement “I say, break the law. Let your life become a counter friction to stop the machine,” Is the basis of the advice that he would give the occupiers. I this statement Thoreau convey the ideology that if people act fully on what they believe in a unified manner then the systems that oppresses them are clogged and cannot function. For example if all of the lower and middle class population stopped working and supporting the economy it would either crash or undergo a reform of justice.
When the question is asked can individual change the government this is what I think. I think that through action of self riotousness and disconnection we can make a statement but in the end that statement I isolated and does not have much power because individuals can be cast out, forgotten and ridiculed. I think that the sad reality hits us that we cannot hold to our ideals unless we truly want to be different from the system. But I think the hope is the reality that the only way that we can change systems that we think are unjust is together. Every person needs to decide to live a different way, including people with power. So I think that the individuals job is to connect to others to understand what is hurting others and then to inspire a community that is willing to work together to be different
One thing that was very powerful to me in the seminar was when I addressed Noah with the question of whether or not he thought that violent action was appropriate for Native Americans in some situations to protect themselves from invasion and lack of sovereignty. One thing that struck me in Noah’s answer was when he described that the non violence part of direct action was key for oppressed people when enacting change because of the situation of oppression that they are already in. This situation of oppression is one that confines people to be perfect in their actions because they are already stereotyped and assumed to take violent or “savage action” in the case of native Americans. In this there is justification then in the eyes of the white oppressors to destroy people who demonstrate anger in the “wrong” way, creating a net that is almost imposable to get out of. In conclusion the non violent part is actually a form of protection and a key piece to change. I also felt through asking this question I experienced my white privilege because I was asking someone to speak for their entire people and I was never in the situation in that seminar to do the same, nor probably never will be.
Crash Seminar Reflection: When the question of racism is
brought up in today’s society many heads turn in the opposite direction, many
eyes lower and many ears become preoccupied. The forces of oppression and the
systems that they are perpetuated by have created a veil that damns healing. I
believe that the first step in ending the corrosive powers of racism is to
“Crash,” so to speak, into each other; to be brave enough to dive into the
experiences of others and validate them, to realize that they make up who we
are just as much as our own experiences. Once we recognize it is not “their”
problem but “our” problem we are on the right path.
Racism is an oppressive system that
is rooted in our history and is in violent motion in our present. In today’s
fast passed society it is easy to claim that racism and others forms of
oppression are nonexistent. However after watching the movie Crash and
participating in the seminar, the reality of white privilege grows ever more
opaque in my mind. In today’s society the truth is that racism is not part of a
bygone area but in fact continues to rip apart relations, dehumanize
individuals, obliterate culture, and condemn humanity. In the present day more
than ever, people and institutions in power can hid behind the guise of what
has gotten better to excuse problems as not theirs. A major aspect of white
privilege is to not need to know or understand the suffering and oppression
that goes on for people on a daily basis. An example of this is the Michael
Brown shooting. For people of color police brutality is not a new phenomenon. But
for the white community it takes a murder to be reminded of the horrors that
are still impinging on our society. The movie crash highlights the way that
people are forced out to live stereotypes and shows why people do and believe
the things they do.
One thing that we disused in the seminar that was highlighted in the movie crash is the dynamic of internalized racism. Racism is ingrained and self-perpetuating. The system is upheld because it factors all people into carrying it out. An example of this in the movie is when the black couple driving home is harassed by the malicious cop. After the women is molested and the couple arrive home bottled up anger and shame are released violently and destructively at each other. In this scene the woman angrily teases her husband using stereotypes of the “submissive slave,” while they both very well new that if they were to retaliate even in the case of sexual assault they could have lost their lives. Here is a prime example of what Dan and Cameron were talking about in the seminar, explaining that manipulating anger is another tool in the system of racism. Throughout crash this theme is continued, including when Ludicrous try’s to steal the car of the man who works in the studio. In this part of the movie oppression, has hurt both men to the point where they are playing out their own stereotypes and perpetuating the racism. Ludicrous is painfully aware of his oppression and the reality of how hard it is to create his own image that he decides it is fruitless and ends up playing out the stereotype of “the black criminal.” The studio man has such strong values of succeeding in spite of the racism yet, in the face of all the oppression he erupts into the polar opposite nature of his character.” When Ludicrous opens the car door to find that he is pointing a gun at another black person these oppressions are racked and reorganized to recognize truths.
Another reality of racism is that it is far more insidious and subtle then people think. This is shown when the cop who sees injustice in his partner seeks to overcome his own racism. When he picks up the brother of the criminal investigator and shoots him latter because he had preconceived fears of him carrying a gun, it is apparent that racism is insidious and blinding even to the point of controlling people’s intentions. Here through subconscious action the system of racism was reconstructed to create death of an innocent person. This story is a parallel into reality with the murder of Michael brown.
When the question is asked about how to stop racism, I believe that the first steps are in the title of the movie Crash. I believe that to dive into each other’s experiences and lives is the key to transforming a cycle of ignorance and hatred into a cycle of understanding and compassion. In his Ted talk Bryan explains that looking at the dark parts of humanity and understanding that it is an us and not a them is a powerful step in preventing the condemning of our fellow human beings. This is portrayed in the movie in the way all of the characters learn about themselves and each other from crashing; from the cop saving the woman he molested to the middle eastern man not killing the girl because of the racist gun sales person not telling his daughter about the blanks, to the white wife of the Di falling down the stairs and realizing her issues are trivial, and the list goes on. It is from this that I believe connection and compassion will catapult us into a more just future.
One thing that we disused in the seminar that was highlighted in the movie crash is the dynamic of internalized racism. Racism is ingrained and self-perpetuating. The system is upheld because it factors all people into carrying it out. An example of this in the movie is when the black couple driving home is harassed by the malicious cop. After the women is molested and the couple arrive home bottled up anger and shame are released violently and destructively at each other. In this scene the woman angrily teases her husband using stereotypes of the “submissive slave,” while they both very well new that if they were to retaliate even in the case of sexual assault they could have lost their lives. Here is a prime example of what Dan and Cameron were talking about in the seminar, explaining that manipulating anger is another tool in the system of racism. Throughout crash this theme is continued, including when Ludicrous try’s to steal the car of the man who works in the studio. In this part of the movie oppression, has hurt both men to the point where they are playing out their own stereotypes and perpetuating the racism. Ludicrous is painfully aware of his oppression and the reality of how hard it is to create his own image that he decides it is fruitless and ends up playing out the stereotype of “the black criminal.” The studio man has such strong values of succeeding in spite of the racism yet, in the face of all the oppression he erupts into the polar opposite nature of his character.” When Ludicrous opens the car door to find that he is pointing a gun at another black person these oppressions are racked and reorganized to recognize truths.
Another reality of racism is that it is far more insidious and subtle then people think. This is shown when the cop who sees injustice in his partner seeks to overcome his own racism. When he picks up the brother of the criminal investigator and shoots him latter because he had preconceived fears of him carrying a gun, it is apparent that racism is insidious and blinding even to the point of controlling people’s intentions. Here through subconscious action the system of racism was reconstructed to create death of an innocent person. This story is a parallel into reality with the murder of Michael brown.
When the question is asked about how to stop racism, I believe that the first steps are in the title of the movie Crash. I believe that to dive into each other’s experiences and lives is the key to transforming a cycle of ignorance and hatred into a cycle of understanding and compassion. In his Ted talk Bryan explains that looking at the dark parts of humanity and understanding that it is an us and not a them is a powerful step in preventing the condemning of our fellow human beings. This is portrayed in the movie in the way all of the characters learn about themselves and each other from crashing; from the cop saving the woman he molested to the middle eastern man not killing the girl because of the racist gun sales person not telling his daughter about the blanks, to the white wife of the Di falling down the stairs and realizing her issues are trivial, and the list goes on. It is from this that I believe connection and compassion will catapult us into a more just future.
Wounded Knee Inquiry
During the Wounded Knee Inquiry project we explored the perspective of a holy wood dramatization of the massacre of wounded Knee and the events leading up to it, we compared this to the perspective of a myriad of primary source documents.
Film Analysis
The movie Bury my heart at wounded Knee takes the creative liberty to dramatize well known people in history to paint a deeper and more intimate picture of the history of the Massacre at Wounded Knee and the period of the Allotment Act and general assimilation. This dramatization paints a picture that uses characters as vehicles to connect us to empathy and overarching experiences of these events.
One of the characters that this film uses as a vehicle to achieve a deeper connection with this history and emphasize the ideological battles of the time is the character of Ohiyesa or Charles Eastman. In creating the premise that Ohiyesa was an instrumental player and close partner to Senator Dawes in mapping out the Sioux Agencies for the Allotment Act, the filmmakers brought to life the struggle, intensity and complexity of assimilation in the character of Ohiyesa. This situation shows that to assimilate deep into mainstream white culture was the best way for Ohiyesa to survive. The way that his character had to make choices around his identity and the way that he was manipulated to construct things that hindered his people shows that assimilation was successful because it ripped people apart and created self perpetuated racism and in turn ripped a culture apart. It also brings to light that his case of gaining some privileges and benefits was in contrast to the general reality of what assimilation created for most people and so proves that acts of assimilation like the Allotment Act did not have an intention of giving Natives a better way of life as claimed. It also shows that he only has these privileges because he was helping construct a bad situation for his own people. In other words we see that the direct effect of the Allotment Act was a crippling act that erased a culture and was in reality in accordance with the ideology of genocide whether cultural or direct.
Another deeper understanding that the character of Ohiyesa illustrates is an aspect of cultural trauma referred to as “survivors guilt” by Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart. Survivors guilt is a deep feeling of shame and depression that comes from surviving or witnessing a genocide or traumatic event where people are killed; distinguished with feelings like it was somehow your fault or that you should not still be alive after your people and loved ones had died. In Bury My Heart at Wounded knee Ohiyesa goes through a similar set of feelings regretting his choice on the train saying “I should Have Jumped,” instead of participated in the allotment act. Even though his actions did not cause Wounded Knee by any means we can observe the vast amount of pain that come from his witnessing as a doctor and a Sioux. In one of Ohiyesa’s actual accounts of the massacre of Wounded Knee he shares the horror of the experience of trying to save people. “ For although the army surgeons were more then ready to help as soon as their own men had been cared for, the tortured indians would scarcely let a man in uniform to touch them...in spite of all the efforts, we lost the greater part of them…” This excerpt shows that the actual experience of Ohiyesa was filled with trauma for him and his people, as well as shows the complexity of the event and shows how wounded Knee was not over when the shooting stopped. This Quote also shows how the movies characterture can is valid in the sense that it conveys such trauma well.
Another character in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the Character of Senator Dawes. Through the dramatization of this man, the ideology of assimilation is painted in a very clear light. From the point when Senator Dawes speaks so passionately about the survival of indians to the harm he creates in the Allotment act we can observe the problem of thinking that people are not people and that people are superior to others. Senator Dawes shows us the effect of the ideology of superiority because in the film he passionately believes that he is doing the sioux a great good by civilizing them and showing the way of “people.” However from this benevolent intention he creates harm because he is under a fabrication of who or in his eyes what he thinks the Sioux are. Senator Dawes encapsulates the deeper danger of the saying “ Kill the Indian Save the Man,” because he shows us that people with all intentions can be manipulated to believe it.
The last three people in history whose characterization give us a deeper understanding into these events are the Two Sioux Chiefs sitting Bull and Red Cloud as well as Mrs. goodale love of Ohiyesa. The hard positions that Red Cloud and sitting Bull are put in and the way that much of their power grace and leadership was defaced because of the impossible situations they were put in by acts of paper and threats of military action to save their people was an important illustration. The struggles that these two men went through in the attempt to hold power in order to help their people show the way that people were oppressed defaced and manipulated with serious things such as starvation. This connects back the same experience that Ohiyesa had of doing things to survive. In other words peoples actions are never clean or perfect in situations of oppression and often end up creating some sort of harm because of the nature of oppression. The question that we are left with is what kind of survival was it? The character of Mrs. Goodale shows the complexity of the entire history and brings the fact that not all people were good or bad depending on their race. Her character adds the reality of these complexities and struggles that everyone had during these times.
The film Bury my Heart at wounded knee and its liberties of characterizing people in history adds a degree of personal understanding, and empathy to events that we must understand at such a deep level if we are to prevent them from happening in the future and in the present.
The movie Bury my heart at wounded Knee takes the creative liberty to dramatize well known people in history to paint a deeper and more intimate picture of the history of the Massacre at Wounded Knee and the period of the Allotment Act and general assimilation. This dramatization paints a picture that uses characters as vehicles to connect us to empathy and overarching experiences of these events.
One of the characters that this film uses as a vehicle to achieve a deeper connection with this history and emphasize the ideological battles of the time is the character of Ohiyesa or Charles Eastman. In creating the premise that Ohiyesa was an instrumental player and close partner to Senator Dawes in mapping out the Sioux Agencies for the Allotment Act, the filmmakers brought to life the struggle, intensity and complexity of assimilation in the character of Ohiyesa. This situation shows that to assimilate deep into mainstream white culture was the best way for Ohiyesa to survive. The way that his character had to make choices around his identity and the way that he was manipulated to construct things that hindered his people shows that assimilation was successful because it ripped people apart and created self perpetuated racism and in turn ripped a culture apart. It also brings to light that his case of gaining some privileges and benefits was in contrast to the general reality of what assimilation created for most people and so proves that acts of assimilation like the Allotment Act did not have an intention of giving Natives a better way of life as claimed. It also shows that he only has these privileges because he was helping construct a bad situation for his own people. In other words we see that the direct effect of the Allotment Act was a crippling act that erased a culture and was in reality in accordance with the ideology of genocide whether cultural or direct.
Another deeper understanding that the character of Ohiyesa illustrates is an aspect of cultural trauma referred to as “survivors guilt” by Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart. Survivors guilt is a deep feeling of shame and depression that comes from surviving or witnessing a genocide or traumatic event where people are killed; distinguished with feelings like it was somehow your fault or that you should not still be alive after your people and loved ones had died. In Bury My Heart at Wounded knee Ohiyesa goes through a similar set of feelings regretting his choice on the train saying “I should Have Jumped,” instead of participated in the allotment act. Even though his actions did not cause Wounded Knee by any means we can observe the vast amount of pain that come from his witnessing as a doctor and a Sioux. In one of Ohiyesa’s actual accounts of the massacre of Wounded Knee he shares the horror of the experience of trying to save people. “ For although the army surgeons were more then ready to help as soon as their own men had been cared for, the tortured indians would scarcely let a man in uniform to touch them...in spite of all the efforts, we lost the greater part of them…” This excerpt shows that the actual experience of Ohiyesa was filled with trauma for him and his people, as well as shows the complexity of the event and shows how wounded Knee was not over when the shooting stopped. This Quote also shows how the movies characterture can is valid in the sense that it conveys such trauma well.
Another character in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the Character of Senator Dawes. Through the dramatization of this man, the ideology of assimilation is painted in a very clear light. From the point when Senator Dawes speaks so passionately about the survival of indians to the harm he creates in the Allotment act we can observe the problem of thinking that people are not people and that people are superior to others. Senator Dawes shows us the effect of the ideology of superiority because in the film he passionately believes that he is doing the sioux a great good by civilizing them and showing the way of “people.” However from this benevolent intention he creates harm because he is under a fabrication of who or in his eyes what he thinks the Sioux are. Senator Dawes encapsulates the deeper danger of the saying “ Kill the Indian Save the Man,” because he shows us that people with all intentions can be manipulated to believe it.
The last three people in history whose characterization give us a deeper understanding into these events are the Two Sioux Chiefs sitting Bull and Red Cloud as well as Mrs. goodale love of Ohiyesa. The hard positions that Red Cloud and sitting Bull are put in and the way that much of their power grace and leadership was defaced because of the impossible situations they were put in by acts of paper and threats of military action to save their people was an important illustration. The struggles that these two men went through in the attempt to hold power in order to help their people show the way that people were oppressed defaced and manipulated with serious things such as starvation. This connects back the same experience that Ohiyesa had of doing things to survive. In other words peoples actions are never clean or perfect in situations of oppression and often end up creating some sort of harm because of the nature of oppression. The question that we are left with is what kind of survival was it? The character of Mrs. Goodale shows the complexity of the entire history and brings the fact that not all people were good or bad depending on their race. Her character adds the reality of these complexities and struggles that everyone had during these times.
The film Bury my Heart at wounded knee and its liberties of characterizing people in history adds a degree of personal understanding, and empathy to events that we must understand at such a deep level if we are to prevent them from happening in the future and in the present.
Textbook Passage
In the Winter of 1890 on December 29th, after a long period of turmoil, assimilation, land grabs, and tension between the Sioux Nation and United States government and settlers, 300 Sioux men women and children were slaughtered by the seventh Cavalry at wounded Knee Creek, on the south Dakota Pine ridge reservation. The prelude and tension that built up to this genocide and the trauma and destruction that ensued after are both complicated haunting and full of human experience.
Before the Massacre, Interactions between the United states government, pioneers pushing westward, and the Sioux Nation were strained and convoluted. This area marked a time when boarding schools and treaties over land, were shaping an experience for many Native people, this assimilation and a cultural oppression from white pressure was a pivotal moment in many tribes history. Acts such as the allotment act of 1887 represent the policy and the effect that the United States government had towards and on tribes. The Allotment Act in summary divided up the traditional land of Tribes and assigned parcels of acreage to Individualizes and families, in the attempt of “Individualizing,” “civilizing” assimilating and colonizing Native people. Much of the land that remained from changing ownership from communal to individual was sold to settlers Through the allotment act 48 million acres were divided to Native Americans, while a remaining 90 million acres of fertile tribal land was not distributed and was sold to white settlers. The reality of many of these conditions and treaties were harsh on Native people. Chief Red Cloud describes the state of his people in a speech noting on the insufficient equipment for farming and food production as well as animals in compensation for ponies that were taken from his band. He describes the starvation and the fear that plagued his people, after vast herds of game were killed and their ability to hunt was taken away. General Miles on his account of the “Sioux Outbreak,” of 1890 as it was called, refers to the government's lack of fulfillment in treaties that determined livelihood for the sioux and claims that the solution to their “Indian problem,” was for congress to change such conditions. During the time there was much genocidal rhetoric and ideology embedded in acts of assimilation leading cultural genocide to actual.
Another layer of this turmoil was the split nature of the Sioux Nation and the Ghost Dance War. Many Sioux people chose to be much more assimilated than others and worked for the government on Reservations as enforcers called by many people “false chiefs,”or “friendlies,” creating a certain level of discord among people. The Nature of the Ghost dance war was a religious phenomena, it originated from a prophecy from Wovoka, informing that if people danced, danced this certain dance it would rise the dead indians, bring back the buffalo and rid the whites of the land. This prophecy was abroad among many tribes but coupled with the strength, and animosity of the Sioux tensions with the military and government were high, there was much rumor of an uprising and troops from the Ninth Cavalry were brought onto the Pine Ridge Reservation as reinforcements to the Seventh Cavalry, People were in a state of fear when they heard of the soldiers coming some bands ran away into the “Badlands,” One of these bands included big foots among with some members of Sitting Bull's band. Troops continued to posion themselves on strategic positions around the reservation. A large boarding school had locked its students in as leverage to encourage the “good,” behavior of their fathers.On the morning of December 29, 1980 Bigfoots band was rounded up near a church. Men and women and children were separated then the men were surrounded and their weapons taken. In some accounts a deaf men did not give his rifle to an officer and shot it killing an the officer. Soldiers then began shooting from all around mowing down men and women and children, as well as their own comrades. People streamed in three different directions and were pursued murdered in wounded knee creek Gully trying to hide. Some accounts say that children hiding in houses were told that they could come out because it was safe and then were shot as well.
The aftermath of the massacre is long lasting. People from both white and Native tried and did save as many survivors as possible, however many people would not let any person in uniform touch them, and from that massacre a deep cultural trauma ensues.
In the Winter of 1890 on December 29th, after a long period of turmoil, assimilation, land grabs, and tension between the Sioux Nation and United States government and settlers, 300 Sioux men women and children were slaughtered by the seventh Cavalry at wounded Knee Creek, on the south Dakota Pine ridge reservation. The prelude and tension that built up to this genocide and the trauma and destruction that ensued after are both complicated haunting and full of human experience.
Before the Massacre, Interactions between the United states government, pioneers pushing westward, and the Sioux Nation were strained and convoluted. This area marked a time when boarding schools and treaties over land, were shaping an experience for many Native people, this assimilation and a cultural oppression from white pressure was a pivotal moment in many tribes history. Acts such as the allotment act of 1887 represent the policy and the effect that the United States government had towards and on tribes. The Allotment Act in summary divided up the traditional land of Tribes and assigned parcels of acreage to Individualizes and families, in the attempt of “Individualizing,” “civilizing” assimilating and colonizing Native people. Much of the land that remained from changing ownership from communal to individual was sold to settlers Through the allotment act 48 million acres were divided to Native Americans, while a remaining 90 million acres of fertile tribal land was not distributed and was sold to white settlers. The reality of many of these conditions and treaties were harsh on Native people. Chief Red Cloud describes the state of his people in a speech noting on the insufficient equipment for farming and food production as well as animals in compensation for ponies that were taken from his band. He describes the starvation and the fear that plagued his people, after vast herds of game were killed and their ability to hunt was taken away. General Miles on his account of the “Sioux Outbreak,” of 1890 as it was called, refers to the government's lack of fulfillment in treaties that determined livelihood for the sioux and claims that the solution to their “Indian problem,” was for congress to change such conditions. During the time there was much genocidal rhetoric and ideology embedded in acts of assimilation leading cultural genocide to actual.
Another layer of this turmoil was the split nature of the Sioux Nation and the Ghost Dance War. Many Sioux people chose to be much more assimilated than others and worked for the government on Reservations as enforcers called by many people “false chiefs,”or “friendlies,” creating a certain level of discord among people. The Nature of the Ghost dance war was a religious phenomena, it originated from a prophecy from Wovoka, informing that if people danced, danced this certain dance it would rise the dead indians, bring back the buffalo and rid the whites of the land. This prophecy was abroad among many tribes but coupled with the strength, and animosity of the Sioux tensions with the military and government were high, there was much rumor of an uprising and troops from the Ninth Cavalry were brought onto the Pine Ridge Reservation as reinforcements to the Seventh Cavalry, People were in a state of fear when they heard of the soldiers coming some bands ran away into the “Badlands,” One of these bands included big foots among with some members of Sitting Bull's band. Troops continued to posion themselves on strategic positions around the reservation. A large boarding school had locked its students in as leverage to encourage the “good,” behavior of their fathers.On the morning of December 29, 1980 Bigfoots band was rounded up near a church. Men and women and children were separated then the men were surrounded and their weapons taken. In some accounts a deaf men did not give his rifle to an officer and shot it killing an the officer. Soldiers then began shooting from all around mowing down men and women and children, as well as their own comrades. People streamed in three different directions and were pursued murdered in wounded knee creek Gully trying to hide. Some accounts say that children hiding in houses were told that they could come out because it was safe and then were shot as well.
The aftermath of the massacre is long lasting. People from both white and Native tried and did save as many survivors as possible, however many people would not let any person in uniform touch them, and from that massacre a deep cultural trauma ensues.
Reflection:
1.My engagement with this project was both deep, hard, important and enlightening. Something that I truly learned during this process, is the complexity of the human experience. Racism and oppression are complex, the reason and the way that they take form in society and individuals are complex. The way that people tell stories and the way that they interpret them are also complex and piece together. This project was intense because it brought me close to the emotion and the individuals of this story, reading all of these accounts made the detachment melt away and a certain degree of horror take shape, Compassion hurts, its not their story it's our story. I gained the insight that the rhetoric that we toss around creates the environment and the reality that can perpetuate into tolerance and acceptance or genocide and hate, wounded Knee was not an isolated event. I can also say that I don’t know learning this much makes me understand how much I don’t understand. The process of writing a textbook passage made me realize that textbook passages do not do history justice, because the way that I write this history is different than any of my class members.
2. I show bias in my passage when I preach my opinions in a factual form on racist genocidal language. I also convey my bias by using words like. Massacre, assimilation, land grabs, Cultural trauma, oppression, and genocide. I show my bias by painting the governments policies and
treaties as divisive.
3. This experience has illustrated to me that compassion is important in studying history. If we are going to understand our present with discernment and heart so we must our history. I also think that the study of history and our interpretation of it is subjective and must be observed that way. I have deepened my understanding of the importance of multiple sources.
1.My engagement with this project was both deep, hard, important and enlightening. Something that I truly learned during this process, is the complexity of the human experience. Racism and oppression are complex, the reason and the way that they take form in society and individuals are complex. The way that people tell stories and the way that they interpret them are also complex and piece together. This project was intense because it brought me close to the emotion and the individuals of this story, reading all of these accounts made the detachment melt away and a certain degree of horror take shape, Compassion hurts, its not their story it's our story. I gained the insight that the rhetoric that we toss around creates the environment and the reality that can perpetuate into tolerance and acceptance or genocide and hate, wounded Knee was not an isolated event. I can also say that I don’t know learning this much makes me understand how much I don’t understand. The process of writing a textbook passage made me realize that textbook passages do not do history justice, because the way that I write this history is different than any of my class members.
2. I show bias in my passage when I preach my opinions in a factual form on racist genocidal language. I also convey my bias by using words like. Massacre, assimilation, land grabs, Cultural trauma, oppression, and genocide. I show my bias by painting the governments policies and
treaties as divisive.
3. This experience has illustrated to me that compassion is important in studying history. If we are going to understand our present with discernment and heart so we must our history. I also think that the study of history and our interpretation of it is subjective and must be observed that way. I have deepened my understanding of the importance of multiple sources.