Volume 1 - Issue 4
A Call for Solidarity with the Indigenous People of the Land on which We Live and Organize.
Omolola Odejimi
I have driven through this land countless times. I peer through my car windows at barren land; a few hawks dive towards the skyline and flecks of green cover desert brush that will soon dry into tumbleweed. Passing signs announce the homes of the Zuni, Apache, Hopi, Navajo, Ramah, Acoma Pueblo and Laguna Pueblo people. This is the route from Phoenix to Albuquerque.
I choose to summarize the 1981 memoir-essay “Our Homeland, A National Sacrifice Area” by renowned storyteller, author and Professor Simon J. Ortiz. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1941, he is a member of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, Eagle Clan.
Ortiz grew up in McCartys, a village named after an Irish water pump operator, in the Aacqu community. The people refer to themselves as Aacqumeh hanoh. The U.S. map renames this land the Acoma community in The Sky City, New Mexico, just west of Albuquerque. Originally a farming community, the name was never McCartys, but Deetseya-mah – The North Door.
Aacqu migrated to their valley of red and orange cliffs from Kaashkaturi. The Aacqu say their old home faced “northwestward” from their new home. To this day, elders constantly speak of a time when the land had springs gushing from the earth but in his youth, Ortiz only sees small wells pumped by windmills. The water can smell and taste bad, yet they still drink it.
In the 20th century this area was the uranium capital of the world and silvery streams flowed to the corn, pumpkin and bean fields planted by the Aacqu. The Aacqumeh hanoh were surrounded with natural flood-plain fields but also maintained irrigation systems in the nearby Rio de San Jose valley. When Ortiz’s mother was a child, the people drank out of the pouring rivers. When Ortiz was a boy it was only safe to wash clothes in those same rivers.
After surveying the people and the land, in 1540, the Spaniards reported the valley’s wealth to Mexican and Spanish superiors and plans for colonization ensued.
In the 20th century this region saw a logging and a carrot industry boom, followed by a box factory after the lumber industry ran out of trees. Colonizers built mineral and metal mines, water dams and train whistles could be heard throughout the night. The railroad industry became the biggest consumer of water in the region. Water supplied the trains’ engines and building railroads through the middle of farming communities was common practice. As the water diminished, the indigenous people could no longer practice their agricultural traditions and the people had no choice but to participate in the wage labor used to build and maintain railroads. By the 1950s all that was left in major mining towns like Grants, New Mexico, were railroad depots, banks, schools, jails, churches, and bars.
The people in Aacqu talk about the rain that existed before the colonizers came and all the plants, trees and fruit that grew in the waist high grass. Corn is regarded as a sacred item. Corn must be held to the highest esteem because it is a seed, food, gift, and symbol. When loss and waste occur, those too must be spoken of in the highest level of seriousness because no life should ever be destroyed.
In August of 1680 the people of the Pueblo region rose against the Spanish colonizers. The natives were joined by the:
mestizo and geniaro, ancestors of the Chicano people, and the Athapascan-speaking peoples whose descendants are the peoples of the Dineh (Navajo) and Apache nations, as well as descendants of Africans who had been brought to the new world as slaves. (p. 347)
Their commonalities were their impoverished lives and the Spanish colonizers’ suppression of native spiritual practices. The revolt slowed the seizure of indigenous land for the remainder of the Spanish occupation.
The U.S. government granted indigenous land to railroad companies, encouraging them to violently remove Native Americans from their land. There is a long tradition of the U.S. recognizing indigenous tribes as sovereign nations and signing treaties with them as though they were foreign governments, while encouraging U.S. commercial interests to violate these treaties and annex indigenous land. Tecumseh, Osceola, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are just a few of the freedom fighters who organized to resist this violation of sovereignty. The Cheyenne and Arapahoe people resisted as well. The U.S. powered forward with steam trains. Soon McCarty, himself with roots in the Irish labor class, would arrive and turn the Aacqumeh land into Acoma land. These 20th century colonizers were not thought of as thieves or killers but instead, businessmen and entrepreneurs.
The Mericano system caused dependency on business tycoons and the jobs they offered. More indigenous people moved to find work in industrialized towns. Children were pressured to attend federal boarding schools that would strip them of their culture and Native American people in the area began working as railroad hands throughout New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Traditional agricultural labor demands shrunk, and the Native people grew dependent on wage incomes.
In the 1920s, the Pueblo and Navajo land became famous for their tremendous gas, oil, and uranium deposits. The Los Alamos Laboratory, the future site of the first atomic bomb explosion, was built on Pueblo and Navajo land in 1943. The uranium mines were dangerous: on average, one miner per month would be killed and many more were maimed and crippled. Years later, many Navajo miners would find themselves with cancer. Most railroad workers were Natives, Indo-Hispanics, and Blacks. The uranium industry and the transportation of this metal on the railroads through New Mexico, were built by colonized labor.
People in the Americas are told that participating in the toxic industrialization of land, water and air will increase their standard of living and offer high income. In reality, the air we breathe, the soil that nurtures our food and the water we need to survive, and thus, our environment and lives, are sacrificed in the name of maximum profit for business owners and below average wages and deadly working conditions for those most exploited. The same destructive economic, social, and political systems that disrupt and pollute one group of people are the same systems harming all groups of people. The preservation of our land, water and air is not just a matter of survival for indigenous people but for all people in this nation.
This memoir-essay by Simon J. Ortiz calls for solidarity from those outside of the Native American community to name capitalism as the oppressor of ethnic and racial minorities and recognize that as long as these groups remain oppressed, we are all oppressed. The call continues for all people, not just indigenous people, to demand what is best for all life on earth.
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Combatting Covid-19 with Community
I think I felt invincible in some ways prior to the pandemic. I, like other Americans, had watched wars and epidemics devastate communities abroad. I understood oppression around race and class, but I still felt invincible from epidemics and other “big” destructive, warlike things. I don’t think I knew I held that feeling until NYC shut down, and I was in quarantine.
Trump’s lack of leadership and complete failure were not shocking to me. However, I was shocked by my fellow Americans, who still felt “invincible,” blatantly ignored science and continued to live their lives as if our lives were not under attack from a novel virus. An obsession with individual needs and wants has led to the death of over 137,000 people in just under four months. Sadly, I see a lot of that cultural obsession in radical and leftist spaces, too. People speak overwhelmingly for their own communities, and themselves, without any advocacy for other communities that might be experiencing similar struggles—I personally believe that we need to include Trump supporters, too, many of whom are poor and alienated. “Every man for themselves,” has led us to this point and has even fueled leftist movements. We also tend to blame individual failures, rather than look at societal structures. My comrade calls it, “the cult of individual responsibility.” We can only combat the Covid crisis by thinking communally.
I’ve been thinking about the current Black Lives Matter movement. Uprisings are important, and of course we need to defund the police. The institution is racist and classist. However, it’s time that the Movement evolves to respond to the pandemic and provide solutions to our dangerous obsession with personal responsibility. We can and should be demanding the creation of more networks and mutual aid that combats the pandemic. We should not be normalizing large gatherings. While no evidence suggests that any spike has been connected to protests, we have to consider that political organizations are now holding large trainings and gatherings, that people are getting to protests on public transit, likely stopping more frequently at cafes and restaurants, and that they are ultimately exposed to more people than we probably should be right now. While I understand the risk and generally support it, we need to be thinking of the thousands of people, many Black and Brown, who have died from Covid-19. We need normalize community response to community trauma—whether that trauma is systemic racism or a global pandemic. It’s time we focus more of our energy to Covid-19 by caring for our community and by protecting it from more pandemic death— a death that feels like drowning, a death that is preceded by weeks of suffering.
We are at a moment when police and prison abolition are being discussed in mainstream circles. If the abolitionists’ goal is to imagine a world that keeps us safe, free of policing and prisons, I’m curious about how abolitionists can use this opportunity to model what community and societal responsibility and safety-making look like, right now. The carceral state focuses so much on personal responsibility and personal consequence. If we seek to abolish that system, we can start by opting out of the cult of individual responsibility. I have some ideas imagining a country in which we keep each other safe from, and educated about, the novel coronavirus—without relying on the police or even the State. We can all do things individually that benefit our communities, rather than solely benefit ourselves.
We should all commit to leaving the house with extra, unused masks. When we see people without masks, we should then kindly communicate why it’s essential to wear a mask. We should not scold them. We should not talk down to them. Some data is helpful sometimes! I like this fact:
An experiment using high-speed video found that hundreds of droplets ranging from 20 to 500 micrometers were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the mouth was covered by a damp washcloth.
If we see crowded restaurants and bars in our community, perhaps we can reach out to their owners and propose other ways of supporting the community business, while encouraging them to close for indoor/dining patrons. Is there an online takeout promotion we can offer to help the business promote?
Continue to support mutual aid efforts. Start community grocery store runs. If less people are in stores, there’s more space and opportunity for social distance. It’s safer for essential workers.
I imagine a rotating schedule in a neighborhood of grocery store runs.
Continued effort to get groceries to our immunocompromised and elderly community members.
We need to think creatively about how to compassionately reach the “open up the economy/not wearing a mask” protestors. Yes, they often have racist ideas. Yes, they often behave in problematic ways. But, we have to think empathetically and critically about why they think they won’t get Covid-19. Making fun of them, calling them stupid, and mocking their signs is not going to make them do what is needed to keep us all safe. In fact, it emboldens them to do the opposite of what will keep us all safe.
I’m thinking of public education (that we’d create independently of the State) that is universally appealing like the “Truth,” anti-smoking campaign.
We need to pre-emptively educate people about the science of vaccines, as people are already claiming that they wouldn’t be willing to get a coronavirus vaccine. Hating “anti-vaxxers” and making fun of them does not make them vaccinate their children. We all live in the same society. Why do some members of our society make a choice that is harmful to them and their children? I would imagine the science is not that clear to them. Remember, a vaccine contains the same germs that cause a disease, but they’re typically killed. The vaccine then stimulates your immune system to produce antibodies, which gives you immunity to the disease. They have their risks, but they save so many lives. They are preventative medicines.
If you’re in a political/community organization, you have to be making Covid-19 related demands. Demand that all businesses distribute free masks (think condom distribution). If you’re focusing on defunding the police, include an immediate demand like, “Defund the police by [x tiny number] and use it to buy PPE.” At this point, I don't even think it’s bad to push for police precincts and government buildings to have boxes of PPE. Shift thinking away from theory, and toward making the lives of people materially better immediately.
If you live in areas with lots of “Covid deniers,” what outreach are you doing to them? Do you have relationships with community groups or non-profits that have resources to help?
If we approach the “Covid deniers” from a place of, “Hey I care about your well being. I do not want you or your family to get sick. It’s not political,” I think we can change a lot of fixed mentalities. De-politicizing Covid, means that we must become more empathetic. For example, over the years, I’ve nagged my dad to stop eating sugary foods because he’s diabetic. That does not work. Instead what does work, is saying, “Hey Dad, I really love you and want you to be around for a long time. Would you consider eating these fresh veggies instead of those cookies? I know it’s hard for you, but it’s important to me because I care about you.” Nagging does not work. Negative talk does not work. Empathy works.
What else can we do to think about Covid as a communal problem rather than one that holds individual blame? I am committed to creating public education, always carrying extra masks, and I am working on a curriculum around viruses and their spreads, which means I’ve committed to deepening my own knowledge. I’ve been in rural Indiana for a large part of summer and have had empathetic conversations with people here about Covid. I encourage you to do the same. If anyone has other ideas, and is seeking support, I am here to support you, too!
COLLECTIVE Recommendations
Winners Take All (2018) by Anand Giridharadas
Abby Horton: “For me, this book’s big takeaway is: the global elites are not going to change the world because they are the ones who have created the problems. “We cannot look to the arsonists to put out the fire.” This may seem obvious to some, but the narratives of “do-gooder” billionaires, Wall Street, and philanthropy are certainly still very pervasive and in the book these ideas are methodically stripped to what they really are. Giridharadas breaks down the self-created myths of the market’s “win-win” ethos, big philanthropy, non-profits, Davos (that one is fun), globalized industry, that all claim to “do good” and “make a difference.” Power and money need to go back to the people in order to make the systemic changes that benefit everyone.
He clearly lays out the idea that a company or individual “doing good” doesn’t hold up against harm they are inflicting during business hours — it just upholds the status quo. These grand donations or offering small solutions to large systemic problems are essentially ways to “displace” our anger (a nod to Dimitry Lukashov’s essay in Issue 2). Devin Thompson and I wrote about this in Issue 2 as well: Amazon will donate millions to BLM organizations while destroying communities and hoarding wealth. These corporations cannot just “do more good,” they need to do a whole lot less harm and be taxed aggressively. It’s not up to Jeff Bezos and his marketing team to decide who gets resources — their wealth must be redistributed to the people who get to decide where that money goes.
It’s a fun read because 1, this is one of my favorite topics, and 2, the book also addresses these sneaky narratives that have wedged their way into our culture, from things like TED Talks to “thought leaders” and paid speakers. They’ve contributed to the mythology that rich people are smart and know how to change our lives, instead of ourselves — the people who are living them 24/7. And while I would say Giridharadas isn’t calling for a revolution in this book, but major reform within the current system, I still think it’s a valuable read and discussion. He argues that we need to put resources back into the hands of the people, through our elected governments, to massively redistribute the wealth and power that has been hoarded at the top.”