If you haven’t heard of the Ward Churchill controversy, you’ll
probably want to spare precious minutes of your life and avoid this blog
altogether. If you’ve heard rumours, and are curious,well, it’s your life, and you’re an adult, so I can’t tell you what to do.
But, “Desperate Housewives” is on.
At first I was on Ward Churchill's side, when he first came under fire for that essay he wrote, calling the 9-11 victims in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, "little Eichmanns." Not that I agreed with that sweeping, insensitive, and some say disgustingly unfair characterization of the 9-11 victims, but I understood what his larger point was, and would defend his First Amendment rights to say it. As soon as Hamilton College in upstate New York found out that he wrote it, they canceled his speaking engagement there, and generally raised the alarm to other colleges across the country about this “left-wing potential terrorist guy” Churchill. That was in early 2005. Before that, no one had apparently even read the essay, or paid much attention to it, including his close colleagues at CU. If they had, evidently they thought it was nothing out of the ordinary for Churchill, who makes sweeping, outrageous statements about the White Race in general pretty much every day.
This might have remained just another lace-hanky waving kerfuffle in academia, had the Republicans not still been in charge in 2005, and the country had not been engaged in a controversial war, with a virtual corporate lockdown on the mainstream media and any expression of oppositional “unpatriotic” thought smacked down faster than Amy Goodman at the Republican convention. But, they were, and we were, and that is pretty much still the case. Anyhoo, our adulterous bastard of a Republican Governor at the time immediately condemned Churchill’s thoughts, words, teachings, and person. What he’s denied in the trial this past week is that he also got on the horn to CU’s President at the time and demanded she fire Churchill, or at least suspend him without pay, pending an investigation.
As they say in the fashion industry, all the rest is window dressing. When the Prez of CU refused to fire him, on grounds that he’d done nothing against University policy, and to do so would embroil them in a huge First Amendment Rights Civil Case (which is what it’s doing right now), apparently Owens (the adulterous, secretary-shagging bastard hypocrite) further threatened her, and so she resigned. Former Senator Hank Brown was brought in to do the dirty work, and look All-American doing it. And he did. But in the process, since they couldn’t LOOK like they were violating the First Amendment and just fire him for that, they dug up all sorts of other dirt on him, including lying about his ethnic background, his war service in Vietnam, other stuff on his resume, and a few counts of plagiarism. So that’s what Ward ended up getting fired for, the plagiarism. Which couldn’t be proven one way or another, but a committee got together (made up of mostly Republican Regents), closed the hearings to everyone even though they were supposed to be public, had people arrested when they dared to speak, and fired him, with a cowardly “motion.”
Now, let me say again that at first, just because I know him to be such an unapologetic gooberhead with the self-awareness of a donut, I was willing to believe these other allegations against him. They seemed plausible enough, especially from a guy who asserts all the damn time that he’s some always-changing percentage of Muscogee, Creek, and Cherokee. More on that later. But as radio host Mario Solis-Marich has said, we’re all adults here and we all know why he really got fired. Things were heating up way too much politically and he became a political liability for white-bread CU-Boulder. End of story.
So despite all my personal prejudices and peeves about the gooberhead, I now believe he has a valid case, which he should win, and get his job back. (as Ethnic studies professor at CU) As long as he’s forced to wear a sign around his neck on campus that says, “I am a Giant Gooberhead.” Hopefully this whole ordeal has taught him some humility and self-awareness, but after hearing part of his defense, I kinda doubt it. Plus, full disclosure, I do have to admit to some lizard-brain, black and white thinking here: that anything former Governor Jackass Owens was AGAINST, I am probably FOR.
But onto my peeves and prejudices. About this whole “Indian blood” thing, where Churchill was basically standing up and saying, “I am part Native American, and on this and many other subjects, you can say nothing to refute me! To do so would make you a racist!” What a bunch of crap. As a fellow part-German, part-Irish, part-Basque, part Native-American whose cultural and ethnic roots also go mainly to the Midwest and Western suburbia (aka, WHITE), I call bullshit. It’s one thing to make those assertions and proclamations and be able to back them up, because you were raised in that culture and still participate in the community. It’s quite another to make those assertions and proclamations, and then publicly scoff at anyone who questions you because, quite frankly, you don’t look like you actually belong to said ethnic group, and there’s no evidence that you were raised in that community. As my husband the psychotherapist put it so eloquently, (and I’m being really spiritually generous right now because he’s acting like a total baby tonight) is your fate tied to their fate? (the group you’re claiming allegiance to). Do you suffer from the same ills that that group suffers, as well derive personal benefit from tying yourself to that culture? In short, do you take the bad with the good? When you’re walking down the street, do people who don’t know you automatically make assumptions about you based on your skin color, build, mode of dress, hairstyle, - mostly negative assumptions based on racial stereotyping? If the answer is No to any of these, then I would say, shut the hell up.
Besides, most of the anthropology and otherwise professors I’ve had who actually WERE Native American, raised in the tribe, yada yada, took the
opposite attitude from our Mr. Churchill. Perhaps for no other reason than that their social lives at least, if not their actual lives, were still beholden to that tribe and that culture. In other words, people are watching you. Tribal people are different from us ‘mercans. They are always and forever, representing the tribe. This isn’t just an unfortunate side-effect of racial stereotyping or grouping, it’s taught by all the elders in every North American tribe that I know of. My Mohawk ancestors* apparently lived by this creed. The English, coming from a patriarchal culture as they did, thought that the bad-ass Mohawk warriors they were dealing face-to-face with were the ones in charge. But ohhhh, no! It was actually the clan mothers who told them, word-for-word, exactly what to say in all negotiations, and if they got one word wrong, hell’s bells but they would get a public spankin’.
*I'm not going to say "in my tribe" because I wasn't raised Mohawk, don't speak the language, and don't have any real ties to the community- although I do care about what happens to them, for example I've been following the whole dam on the St. Lawrence River controversy, I can't honestly say that if the Mohawk get Federally de-listed and screwed over again, I'm also screwed. Would I be outraged? yes. Would I go up there and chain myself to a tree or a bulldozer? Probably. But I also would do that if oil companies actually break into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, both for the indigenous tribes up there, the animals, and the Earth. But I think anyone with a conscience who felt strongly about it would do the same thing, regardless of "blood."
So, especially when you’re teaching, for gods’ sakes, your every word and deed represents the tribe. You may not like it, but tough shit kemosabe, there it is. You don’t go flying off with half-baked theories and opinions and say the first god-damned thing that comes to mind, like “those planes flying into the towers were chickens coming home to roost.” Shit, man. Even non-tribal people can understand that. What would your mother think? Or would your da’ smack you upside the head for that kinda static, who cares if you’re 55 years old you’re still my son, you little shit?
And furthermore, if you really are part Cherokee, for Christ's sake man, go to their website and get hooked up with the community. They have to be the most open, willing-to-share-their-culture-with-almost-anyone tribe on the face of the earth. You can take Cherokee lessons, participate in cultural gatherings, help support the Jr. High's basketball team... whatever. As long as you have one drop of Cherokee blood in you, as far as they're concerned, you're Indian, you're in the family, and guess what? Now you have to support the family and give back to your community. uh-oh. Not sounding so glamorous now, is it?
See, it goes both ways. One of my "real" Native American professors was the late, esteemed Alfonso Ortiz, from San Juan Pueblo. While he was at the University of Chicago, his professors convinced him to reveal the secrets of Tewa/Pueblo religion, and that it would help his people in the long run. So he did, and made it his thesis/dissertation, called it "The Tewa World" and sold a million copies. It's still widely regarded as a seminal, keystone work in understanding Native American worldview and religion. But San Juan Pueblo kicked his ass out after that. The thing about religious secrets is, they're supposed to be secret. You only know them if you're a Pueblo boy (the girls learn religion differently) who survived 9 months straight in a kiva being indoctrinated and trained by priests. It was very painful for Ortiz to be separated from his pueblo and his people, even in the luxurious surroundings of Santa Fe, but he knew he had made his bed and had to lie in it.
The other thing is, as an archaeologist, I was strenuously warned and cautioned about ever making assertions and proclamations and pronouncements of any kind, especially those I couldn’t immediately back up with cold, hard, fully documented and check-able, facts. Even if we’re 99.9% sure of something, we are taught to say, “We think, from all of the evidence gathered, that this is what this might be, or this is what might have happened.” The interpretive guides at various National Parks featuring Native American ruins apparently have free rein to make all kinds of assertions and pronounce on whatever the hell they want about said culture, but we, the actual archaeologists, are not allowed to. Or, if we do, we risk getting tarred, feathered, sneered at, backstabbed, and fired.
True story: on a post-fire crew at Mesa Verde, an interp took us on a tour of Kodak House, which is off-limits to most visitors, and started asserting, pontificating, and pronouncing on how “moriarities” (we think he meant moieties) of clans occupied the Pueblo. “The Winter clans ruled the kivas in the Winter, and the Summer clans were in charge in the Summer.” I literally turned to the crew-mate next to me, a seasoned archaeologist in the area, and asked, “What the fuck is he talking about?” not having understood this strange, assertive language. And still in my current desk-archy job, even though I’m 99.9% sure of a projectile point type and time period that it dates to based on a drawing, I’m not allowed to be an “armchair archaeologist” and second-guess the team that recorded it. I can make notes that say, “We at the SHPO disagree with the field assessment and instead recommend dating this projectile point, which is most probably Folsom and not Pueblo II, to the Paleolithic time period rather than the Pueblo II time period.”
I am not allowed to write, “what the hell were those idiots smokin’ out there? My 3 year old daughter could tell you that was a Folsom!!!”
But I digress.
Yes, America and Americans need to wake up and take responsibility for the misery we clearly caused, and are still causing, around the world, enough to drive people to do desperate, horrible things against us. Yes, sometimes the best way to get people’s attention is to make outrageous statements that exaggerate or draw seemingly outlandish conclusions. But Christ man, can’t you see that misery of this kind produces madness, and when that madness foments into violence, most often the people who had nothing to do with causing your misery are the symbolic targets? Except these were not symbolic people, they were real people, with real lives, and children, and mortgages and student loans to pay just like the rest of us bozos on the bus. Sure, not all of them were saints. They were not perfect, just like the rest of us are wholly imperfect, and yet still lovable, to someone. Maybe they drank too much, or left too big a carbon footprint, or cheated on their spouses, or were Raiders fans. That doesn’t make them “little Eichmanns.” Hitler’s accountant, Eichmann, knew exactly what he was doing, and who he was hurting, and he still did it. Most of the people who died in the towers, on the planes, and in the Pentagon that day were just going to work because they have bills to pay, and families to support, and maybe some of them enjoyed their work.
So please, let’s save the Third Reich Mastermind comparisons
for people who actually deserve it, like the Bushes and Cheneys and Rumsfelds and Rices of this world.
To be fair, I’ll post a link to the essay in question: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/WC091201.html
And here’s the part they inexplicably left off:
"There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on
September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military
targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .
Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were
civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic
corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty
engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has
always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse
to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word
"ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively
well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs
and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases
excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it
was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into
their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of
which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into
the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more
effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their
participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the
twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."
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http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0201-05.htm
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