#31: (Snap Draft) Self-Determination and Our Communities: Reflections on Gender Forgiveness (excerpt)

(Thank you to the 3MPod for providing me the opportunity to discuss gender forgiveness and self-determination at a Fall 2008 forum.)

1. Where Does Self-Determination Begin?

During a recent lunch with a couple of my girlfriends, we discussed the correlation between self-determination as Nations and the healing needed in our communities due to the havoc brought about by colonization. The topic of violence arose in this conversation and so, inevitably, we discussed male violence against females. I shared my belief that this healing involves what the Plains Tribes and Nations call “touching the enemy,” that is, successfully confronting of colonization’s role in the undermining of healthy peace-making and peace-keeping systems within our respective Tribes and communities.

Violence is an ongoing topic in my circle of friends so it was not unusual that this subject came up again at a different lunch a week later that I had with other girlfriends. But at that luncheon, we focused on female brutality against females. One of my friends showed us a photo of a young woman who had been beaten-up by another female. Seeing that photo, and knowing who were the participants in the incident made me nauseous. My feelings of frustration and sorrow were perhaps intensified because this particular conversation came on the heels of my speaking with several individuals, including females, who had recently been involved in separate fights of their own.

Enough!

Many Native intellectuals working in self-determination tend to look at nation (re)building (because self-determination and sovereignty are, essentially, about nation (re)building) by utilizing models that primarily address large-scale political and legal arenas. Although these are important models and activities—and, of course, this political and legal work needs to be accomplished—a fair criticism of these frameworks is that they pay little attention to family and other smaller interpersonal systems in the communities.

The colonizer has an investment not only in our assimilation, but also in our own internal colonization which we can visualize as checklist of learned behaviors such as:

• the chronic poisoning of our bodies and minds;
• the continual lashing-out at each other; and
• the attempted euthanasia of our spirits.

And while we all understand that the mainstream is responsible for the activities of genocide and colonization that they mask by using terms as Manifest Destiny and civilization and progress and inevitability and U.S. citizenship, we also understand that they are not responsible for the healing necessary and the solutions needed at the community level so as to achieve self-determination.

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4. We Can Stop the Famine and Drought

Back in the 80s, when I worked and volunteered in alcohol and drug rehabilitation and other crisis care involving depression, attempted suicide, sexual abuse, HIV, and incarceration, a group of us meet on a regular basis to explore not only how to resist burn-out (which leads to, among other things, hostility to and placing blame upon the very people that find themselves in need of healing) but also what it meant to walk with a patient or client toward healing and then to watch that individual return back to an environment of dysfunction. I am not describing sites of ordinary suffering, conflict. and drama that is par for the course of being a pitiful human. Instead, with regards to self-determination, I am describing returning to an environment that has been twisted and mutated by the unbound bundle of colonization—a family or community struggling with the legacies which that opened bundle brought. The existence of an environment that has been taught to thrive on its punctures to an individual’s soul or heart or creativity or joy. The presence of an individual in the community who, because of the legacy of genocide and colonization, derives pleasure from inhaling the pain he or she causes to other Natives.

I recently have been reflecting about what I learned during that period of time because a famed scholar and activist in American Indian Studies, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, during a recent visit to Kansas, asked us to consider these same basic issues about our home environments. And these issues are actually asking us to thoroughly, patiently, and thoughtfully examine personal relationships—not just romantic relationships, but all familial and social relationships we did have, do have, and could have. And behind every social justice issue and political cause, including self-determination, there are relationships. Relationships are the barometer of the quality of our lives as Indigenous Nations and Tribal Peoples.

Now, as women, we know more than a little about life. We know that the environments that continue to struggle and grapple with the legacies of genocide and colonization/assimilation can also bring back what is needed to build and maintain strong Tribal communities—to work past simply surviving and move into a Tribal-oriented cycle of thriving. The greatest contribution to the work of self-determination is contributing to the flourishing of healthy personal and social relationships. These relationships are the clear, fresh water for our people. A shortage of resilient, healthy relationships undermines our communities, and will prevent us from realizing self-determination and liberation.

The Pawnees have stories about when our ancestors were at a time when the buffalo were scarce, and our people were dying. In one account, a young person is told what sacrifices to make and what protocols to follow in order to bring the buffalo back to my ancestors. Our respective Tribes have, I am confident, similar stories. When I think about these histories and stories today, I reflect upon their messages to us. So this narrative about the buffalo is not just a history but it is also a prophecy. I do believe that, for our People and for all so-called Plains Tribes, the buffalo will return when our lands are liberated.

Yet this narrative tells me more. It is instructive because it reminds me that not only are there times when the buffalo seem to diminish from our sight, but that other things, other relatives, will seem to disappear from our lives, too. And that as a Tribe or Nation, we will suffer as a result. So it is not startling to realize that we struggle as a People when we are at a time that is experiencing, for example, a deficiency of healthy, personal and social relationships—a deficiency that is the reality for many of us and our communities. These relationships are diverse and include the “brain drain” that many of us are familiar with. This is a situation which colonization has brought to us. Brain drain is when our people utilize their skills, talents, and education to benefit the mainstream (or their lives in the mainstream or relocation) instead of using their gifts to rebuild and benefit our communities and Tribes. Healthy relationships also disappear when we engage in “outsourcing” our thinking (leaving it to the mainstream, to the assimilated, to the bureaucrats to supposedly solve our problems; by doing so, it is guaranteed that Tribes and Nations will become “the problem.”).

Healthy relationships dwindle when we engage in constant violence and betrayal of each other.

We can foster social and personal relationships that are resilient and pro-Tribal. Like the story of the buffalo reminds us, making the needed sacrifices and following necessary protocols of healing will bring back the flourishing of such healthy relationships to our People; doing so is an example of decolonization. This emphasis on building and maintaining our relationships, practicing radical relatedness, is a humble approach to ensuring the foundations for successful nation (re)building, self-determination, and liberation. And it will work.

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6. Where Self-Determination Begins: Let’s Just Do It

Self-determination will require much from our generation and the generations after us. This multi-generational struggle for liberation involves the coordination of our Nations and Tribes; congresses, conferences, and summits; the formation of a Tribal-oriented political party; the creation and support of an authentic pedagogy of liberation; the development of a decolonized think-tank, etc.

In more ordinary ways, it also will involve work in our communities, in the homes and educational sites of our future leaders and representatives. This means truthfully assessing our personal and social relationships. Sustainable forms of community development and nation (re)building begins with genuine relationships. If, after an honest assessment of and discussion within our community, it happens that our social areas are deficient in these healthy interactions, and have fallen prey to the suffering that arises from systemic violence and brutality against each other, our question then becomes:

How do we begin to move away from Red Rage, lateral racism, assimilation, and anti-Indianism and move toward fostering pro-Tribal resilient communities?

Like so many solutions, the answer is easy, beautiful and elegant in its simplicity. To achieve self-determination, to liberate our lands, we begin by bringing back the good relationships to those areas that are deficient in this resource. Working with others, especially healers, we can combat the violence and brutality that may be present in our communities through engaging in gender-forgiveness, And I believe that this process does not begin with female-to-male or male-to-female forgiveness, but rather begins with female-to-female and male-to-male forgiveness.

I cannot speak to the men on this specific issue, now or in the future. That is for other individuals to do.

And I am clearly not an expert on this topic when I am with women; there are Native women much greater than me who can better address this subject of healing and who will instruct us in its implications and responsibilities. In this essay, I write humbly, aware of my shortcomings, and with only a sense of knowing that we women can support each other as we learn and remember our Tribal-oriented obligations to carry-out the behaviors that promote the best of the social structures in our homes, friendships, working relationships, mentoring, collegial activity, in all of our personal and social relationships needed by our communities.

It is my sense that we can repel behaviors that are based upon refusal to be supportive or encouraging of pro-Native activities and individuals, we can resist behaviors that are based upon ongoing greediness and envy and unnecessary suspicion and the paralysis and dints to the spirit that are caused by over-analysis, we can encourage thoughts and words and activities that help each other responsibly realize gifts and talents. We can assist each other’s ability to have true insight and to be equipped with an arsenal of tools to use in our own struggles and battles that diminish us as females. If we do not know how to do this, then we can find people in our Tribes and other individuals who can offer us patient mentoring and instruction, who can remind us of the philosophies within our respective Tribes that will assist us in this endeavor, and who can assist us with our daily lapses. The mainstream has a popular international event called “Take Back the Night.” Likewise, we can refuse to fight over the scraps tossed to us by the legacy of colonization and so refuse to fight each other anymore; our tribes can help us “take back” our respective social kinship systems that strengthened our Nations and from which too many of us have been disconnected. To do so responsibly and generously is an act of decolonization. Gender-forgiveness can be one of the starting points for these endeavors at home and other social circles—all of which benefits the struggle for the liberation of our Tribes and Nations as we move toward self-determination.

As women, too, many of us arrive at a point in our lives where we begin to identify and mentor those in the younger generations who can at some point assume the responsibility of pro-Native leadership. Such leadership is not synonymous with material wealth or social privilege or rank or title we might possess because of birth or chance or luck or knowing the “right” connections or having been success in negotiating “the system.” Rather leadership is carrying out the role of being a true representative of the People—of working for not just one’s family but rather of seeking liberation for the entire Nation or Tribe, and working with others to do so. We strive to seek to encourage all people as they find their pathways, while knowing that there are those among us who possess the fire or the vision for self-determination. So, as we become older, age is there to remind us of our special obligation or responsibility to the next generations to ensure that they receive the appropriate mentoring, training, etc. for the work ahead. The foundation for community growth, tribal leadership, intelligent activism, and self-determination and liberation begins with the nurturing of personal and social relationships that are healthy, resilient, and which contribute to the community.

When we stumble, which we do (and always to the delight and outrage and self-righteousness of others! Colonized or not, this is a tendency which human beings seem to have no matter what; trust me, its presence is never cause for the end of one’s world), our Tribal philosophies can instruct us in doing more than judiciously apologizing. These philosophies are rich in enlightening us on learning from our missteps and transgressions (and those of others), including when it ought to be the community’s business and when it ought not to be. And no matter the scenario, the philosophical, cultural, and educational resources of our Tribes can help us to practice Tribal-oriented atonement that is just and equitable, and genuine and lasting.

These same resources can assist us in our relationship to certain activities that seem to consistently lead to fighting, betrayal, and violence. For example, traditional stories and their contemporary offspring can help us examine such behaviors thoughtfully and honestly, and can help us respond in positive ways. These stories also tell us about abuse of power and authority, and ways to respond to injustices that harm the community. It may help to know that our respective Tribal philosophies and cultures will help us determine when to stay in a certain situation, and when it is time to move to another.

So while we might have a philosophy or code of conduct to assist us in gender forgiveness, we also have practical resources to assist us in reviving and maintaining our relationships. Perhaps one of the most important are the peacemaking and peacekeeping systems that several tribes have maintained or are reviving. These systems, along with working with authentic healers, can assist us if we are having difficulties in moving away from resentment and revenge toward, instead, reconciliation. In addition, there are numerous Tribal-oriented places of healing that provide resources for us to utilize when we find ourselves in certain types of need. Supporting such systems and centers, and the individuals who are a good part of it, are examples of bringing back and maintaining positive personal and social relationships.

Remember that the colonized and their handlers want us to be “Good Little Indians,” which means to stay silent and obey all authority. Remember that asking questions and confronting the facts are pro-Native activities. And so it is our decision to move away from violence and to instead move, in these simple ways, toward community development and support, liberation, and self-determination and nation (re)building.

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Self-Determination and Our Communities: Reflections on the Role of Gender Forgiveness and Relationships by http://lastwoman.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/gender_forgiveness is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.