We begin this season with a gripping conversation with Robert P Jones, founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute. Together, we continue to highlight the layers of American history, challenging familiar narratives and revealing Indigenous, Haudensoaunee, influences. Jones takes us on a personal journey into his own evolution as a scholar, sharing how being honest about his family's connection to the settler colonialism project has informed his work and opened it to a wider audience.
Our discussion delves into the interconnected histories of Indigenous and Black communities, the Doctrine of Discovery, and the 1619 project, peering into the complex relationships between colonists and Indigenous peoples. We shed light on the teachings of Native Americans to the founding fathers and Europeans about equity, fraternity, and liberty—a fresh perspective on American history—while discussing the narrative shift towards Indigenous People's Day instead of Columbus Day.
But it's not just about rewriting history; it's about understanding the power of truth-telling from various perspectives. We highlight communities in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Minnesota, who are using storytelling to bring alive their local histories and spotlight Jerome Little, the first African-American elected county commissioner in Tallahatchie County. The conversation also acknowledges the influence of writers like James Baldwin and Vine Deloria Jr. We would be remiss not to praise Robbie's New York Times bestselling book, 'Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future', which captures this ethos of understanding and rewriting history through personal narratives. Get ready to challenge what you think you know.
View the transcript and show notes at podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org. Learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery on our site DoctrineofDiscovery.org.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
The producers of this podcastwould like to acknowledge with
respect the Onondaga NationFirekeepers of the Hood Nishoni,
the Indigenous Peoples on whoseancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands.
Now introducing your hosts,phil Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back to the Mapping of the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast series.
This is the first of seasonthree.
My name is Phil Up Arnold.
I'm faculty in the religiondepartment at Syracuse
University, founding director ofthe Scano Great Law Peace
Center and the president ofIndigenous Values Initiative.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And I'm Sandy Bigtree , a citizen of the Mohawk Nation
at Akvasasni, and I'm on theacademic collaborative of the
Scano Great Law Peace Center andon the board of the Indigenous
Values Initiative.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Today, we are very privileged to have Robert P
Jones as our guest.
Robbie, as he likes to becalled, is the president and
founder of Public ReligionResearch Institute, or PRRI, in
Washington DC.
A leading scholar and commenteron religion and politics, jones
(01:26):
writes regularly on politics,culture and religion for the
Atlantic time and the religionnews service.
He is frequently featured inmajor national media such as
MSNBC, cnn, NPR, the New YorkTimes, the Washington Post and
others.
He holds a PhD in religion fromEmory University and an M Div
(01:49):
from Southwestern BaptistTheological Seminary.
He is the author of White TooLong the Legacy of White
Supremacy in AmericanChristianity, which won the 2021
American Book Award, and theend of White Christian America,
which won the 2019 GrawmireAward in Religion.
He writes a regular substacknewsletter at
(02:12):
robertpjonesubstackcom.
His new book, which will be thefeatured topic of the
conversation today, is theHidden Roots of White Supremacy
and the Path Toward a SharedAmerican Future.
Welcome, robbie, and thanks forcoming.
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I'm glad to be here, looking forward to the
conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'd like to start with that PhD in religion at
Emory.
We too at Syracuse Universitytrain religion graduate students
and PhDs in religion.
It's an uphill climb.
We have a very modest graduateprogram on, like Emory or
(02:55):
Chicago or the other big places.
One of the things that I thinkwe're known for is less sort of
the academic elements in thestudy of religion and more of an
engaged scholarship or, if not,an activist scholarship.
(03:18):
I think that has served uspretty well.
You're a unique person in theworld of religion.
You're someone who is a publicintellectual, an engaged scholar
.
That's not the usual path ofgraduate students.
I wonder if you could just talkbriefly To give our graduate
(03:43):
students some heart in thisdifficult time when religious
studies is really not valued thesame as some other areas of the
university.
We're still fighting for theimportance of the academic study
of religion, not the trainingof ministers or whomever in
(04:05):
religion, but the critical studyof religion in the academy.
I think you're someone, morethan others on this podcast,
that can speak to that.
I wanted to give you some timefor that.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah Well, thanks, it's been an interesting journey
, I think.
For me, as you know, mostgraduate programs sounds like
Syracuse.
One is not quite like.
So.
Most graduate programs teachyou to be fairly detached from
the scholarship.
You write in third person, youdon't write in first person.
(04:43):
If you ever use the word Iwrite in a piece, it gets
stricken from the record.
Emery wasn't so strict on that,but there was this sense of
objectivity, detachment ofcourse, objectivity and at least
the idea of putting yourpreconceived things to the side
(05:07):
and letting them at least be inconversation with maybe new
things that are.
You know that research revealsis important, although I'm not
one that thinks true objectivityis possible.
We all bring our things, ourpast, our prejudices, all of
that to the scholarship that we,not only to the scholarship
that we do, but even to thesubjects that we choose right.
(05:29):
That's always a challenge thatwe always have to kind of think
through.
But I would say that my ownwork has evolved a bit to be
more personal over time and soif you just look at the last
three books, I'll not take a lotof time here.
But I moved into writing tradebooks out of the kind of
(05:52):
academic university press worldinto writing for trade presses
because I wanted to write for amore general audience.
And what I found over time isthat to do that effectively I
needed to write in a moreengaging way, and the best way
to do that was to kind of behonest about my placement in the
story and what I had at stakeand what brought me to the
(06:13):
research.
And I think I've gradually donemore of that as I've written.
So the first trade book was abook called the End of White
Christian America and it wasreally about the changing
demographics in the country.
So a lot of demographic workthere.
I told a little bit of my ownstory there.
(06:33):
But then the next book, calledWhite Too Long the Legacy of
White Supremacy in AmericanChristianity, was really about a
third memoir and that was thefirst time that I really thought
, ok, I've got to be honestabout why I care about this
topic, what I think is at stakeboth personally and for the
country, and write it that way.
(06:55):
And so I had a lot of my ownfamily stories, including my own
family's connections to thewhole American project of
settler colonialism and how myEuropean, mostly British
Christian family fit into thatnarrative, and that was really a
sea change, I think, from mywriting and really I think
(07:16):
opened up a whole differentaudience for the writing that I
think sometimes academic writingdoesn't reach and I've kind of
continued that and in this bookI have.
A third of the book is aboutMississippi, which is my home
state, where I try to unpackthat history and try to also be
(07:37):
honest about having grown up inthere, gone to public schools,
had my college education atMississippi College, thinking
about what I was and wasn'ttaught in those settings and
what that means.
That's relevant, especiallywhat I was not taught about
(07:58):
American history.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, it certainly brings it to life, and you're
such a gifted writer.
I really enjoyed reading thesehorribly dark stories, if that
makes any sense.
But yeah, I can remembervividly third grade, first
introduction to history books.
I was just horrified becausethere was no place for me in any
(08:20):
of that history.
If we can't relate to it, Ithink we're missing a vast
percentage of our populationbeing engaged in this process.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Right.
And of course, prri is knownfor your well-known pollster in
religion politics.
But anyone who reads thesebooks White Too Long or the
Hidden Roots of White Supremacythey're going to also learn that
you're a master storyteller andyour own narrative is there,
(08:54):
but it doesn't interfere withthe larger history that you're
wanting to tell and examinecritically.
So I really do appreciate that.
But how do those things developin you, those two different
strands, the mathematician andthe storyteller?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, as you know, but your listeners probably
don't nobody's looked at my biothat carefully.
But my undergrad degrees incomputer science and math, and
so I came out of that, came atthe work, I think, through this
very left brain, linear thinkingkind of thing.
(09:38):
But I was also a math majorthat went to seminary.
So, and religion at its heart,it's narrative, it's stories.
It's narrative.
I mean you take the Christiantradition, I mean the first
thing in the Jewish tradition onwhich it's based, you have the
(10:00):
first book of the ChristianBible.
The first book of the Torah isa story.
It's a Genesis story, it's acreation myth.
So it begins there.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
At least one story, maybe two, maybe three.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And that's important too, right, because it preserves
the plurality of stories, right, and it builds out of what was
originally a narrative tradition.
That gets written down much,much later and you get all of
the ambiguity that you get withoral tradition things.
Then they get put into text andkind of frozen in the Christian
(10:39):
tradition.
But so I think I've always beenattracted to the stories and
history and it's just taken me awhile, I think, in my
professional life to kind ofpull them, you know, to pull
them together and to figure outhow to write in a way that you
know not only draws on the datathat PRI produces, but I also
even think about that.
(10:59):
And even in a paragraph thathas percent signs sprinkled
through it, it's telling a story, right, and you're using
numbers, but you really arestill trying to tell a story, to
make it really concrete.
When we get data back from a bignational survey and most of our
(11:20):
surveys will survey 5,000people they may have a hundred
different questions in them.
So that means that when we getback is actually a grid, a
database that has 5,000 rows,one row for each respondent in
the survey, by a hundred columnsfor every answer every 5,000
person gave.
So what?
(11:42):
Your job as a social scientistis to look at that grid of
numbers and to tell a story, allright.
To look through the patterns,to look at what you see as
recurrent patterns and whatmakes sense, and it's absolutely
a storytelling endeavor, asmuch as the hardcore quant folks
(12:04):
may wanna pretend.
No, we're just kind of puttingthe data from the thing on the
page, but you're alwaysselecting which lens do you
bring to it, which groups areyou looking at, what rises to
the four and the data guideswhat.
You can't just tell any storyfrom that data, but there's
certainly multiple stories youcould tell.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Wow, that's fantastic .
I really appreciated that onegraph I think it's at the very
end of the book pretty much Likewhat people think about the
they might not know the termdoctrine of discovery, but they
do know what you're talkingabout.
Right, you know that this is.
I can't remember exactly whatthe polling question is, but
(12:45):
it's like that America wasdestined to be a white Christian
nation, something like that,and that, to me, is a story.
I mean that graph right therethat sort of reveals some.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
I want you to know it was great restraint on my part.
I only have two charts in thisbook and they're both at the end
, but that's right.
And so we crafted that questionas a way of trying to
explicitly knowing the historyof the doctrine of discovery.
(13:21):
We crafted that question tryingto say, well, look, is it a
stretch to say that these 15thcentury documents still hold any
sway in American consciousness?
And so one way to find out isto ask about the core idea.
And that core idea was whetherAmerica was designated by God to
(13:46):
be a kind of promised land forEuropean Christians where they
could set an example for therest of the world.
That's the vision, that's thecore vision of the doctrine of
discovery.
And so when we asked about it,yeah, I was.
I kind of knew that it did justfrom watching American politics
.
But you can see at the data,it's about three in 10 Americans
(14:09):
that agree with that vision ofAmerica, and it's a majority of
white evangelical Protestantsthe group that I grew up being a
member of and it's a majorityof Republicans, self-identified
Republicans that agree with thatstatement.
So it tells you something aboutwhy it's still not just a kind
of dusty old historical fact,but something that's quite live
(14:35):
in determining the future of thecountry.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And that there's a strong presence right now in
trying to protect these originstories, of instance in this
country.
And, as you had talked about,the so-called Indian problem and
the Negro quote problem.
If people dig deeper they willcome to understand both are
connected to the white Christianproblem, which goes back to the
(15:03):
doctrines of discovery, andyour whole book kind of revolves
around that theme andaddressing all of that.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And so for so long those two problems have been
separate, those twoconstituencies really haven't
been talking with one another.
African-american people andindigenous or Native American
people really haven't broughttheir sources of oppression
(15:34):
together in some way.
That is revealing of thehistory of the United States.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So that's what I think is very important about
this You've been able to do that.
You begin this conversation andconnecting these two.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, can you talk?
More about that I mean it's youvery gently kind of deal with
1619 project and those kinds offolks that are doing some really
important work but who we havenot really been engaged with.
Just put it that way, personalterms and then move it into the
(16:14):
doctrine of discovery, whichkind of is a zoom out, I think a
little bit on the whole issue.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Yeah, Well, that's the way I think about it too.
I mean, I think about this askind of just widening the
aperture, if you're thinkingkind of like a photography
metaphor or painting on a biggercanvas or thinking kind of an
art.
I used to collect postagestamps and I remember when I
think of 1776, I think of aparticular postage stamp and I
(16:44):
think it's good because it'ssmall right.
So there's little postage stampand it's all the white guys in
Philadelphia and their colonialfinery with their kind of white
knee socks and their quill pens,kind of awkwardly posed around
a table signing the Declarationof Independence.
And I think the gift that the1619 project did was, at a kind
(17:07):
of broader cultural level.
It's like zoomed out, as yousaid, and kind of said no, no,
no, we got to come back bigger.
And they also gave us adifferent image.
I think that's importantBecause, again, we do think in
images and stories and thebigger image.
If you remember the New YorkTimes, the original thing that
it published was not the whiteguys at that table in
(17:27):
Philadelphia, but it was a vastocean, was the image, and it was
this kind of monochromatic,kind of ominous looking, dark
ocean, gray sky, and then theother image that gave us was a
single ship, right, and itwasn't the Mayflower, it was a
single ship bringing kidnappedAfricans who were destined for
(17:51):
enslavement in the Britishcolonies in 1619.
So that's a different, verydifferent vision, right, and I
think if I'm learning anythingand trying to do something
different in the book, it'sactually taking it even one step
further, because the thing thatkind of came crashing on my own
consciousness, and largely fromreading Indigenous scholars,
(18:14):
was the realization that well,man, by the time 1619 rolls
around, there's more than acentury of European Indigenous
contact that's unaccounted forin that picture.
So you really have to kind oftake it back even further to
really take it back to.
I argue that a good time totake it back to is 1493 in the
(18:38):
book, which is the year Columbusgoes back after his first
encounter here and it's also theyear that that papal bull,
intercatera, is issued.
That further gives the churchblessing on the whole settler
colonialism project, with thefull blessing of the church.
(19:00):
So I think that is a morefateful year.
And we've been talking aboutstories.
But I think the power then isthat whatever we have in the
frame, in our in the beginning,whatever follows that phrase.
The rest of the story has toaccount for right.
You can't tell the rest of thestory without accounting for
whatever's in that initial frame, and I think that's why we're
(19:22):
fighting over it today inAmerican culture, right, because
if the only thing that's inthat frame are those white guys
in that postage stamp, wellthat's a pretty simple story to
tell about European's place inAmerica, right.
But if it's a 1619 project thatocean, you know or if it's back
(19:45):
to, you know, the kind ofColumbus appeal to the Vatican,
you know, for a kind of moralmandate for colonization, that's
also a really different storythat we have to tell about
ourselves.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Well, added into this mix is the Haudenosaunee origin
story of first contact with theDutch, and that was 1613.
Yeah, right To Rampel.
And Wampelm is still veryprevalent in the Grand Council
of the Haudenosaunee Raiseschiefs.
It's a method of condolingpeople so they can attain the
(20:19):
right state of mind to speak andlead and listen and be aware of
the surrounding world.
But this two row Wampelm wasthe coming together of extremely
different cultures and it spokeof the parallel paths along the
river of life that the Dutchwould stay in their boat, the
Haudenosaunee would stay intheirs, not interfering with
(20:42):
each other, but they'd be ridingin this river of life together
and respect and mutualunderstanding and good faith.
And but with that you have tohave some idea of your
relationship with the naturalworld.
So Indigenous people alwaysunderstood that important
relationship with the naturalworld.
(21:03):
But the colonists came over andnever were able to comprehend
the depth of that understandingof partnership and living
together.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And that's the fundamental feature of the
Doctrine of Discovery is reallythis extractive economy.
Exactly Whether it's extractingslaves from Africa or later on
involved in the extraction ofdifferent gold and silver out of
Latin America, et cetera.
So I think that with that comesa different sort of
(21:36):
relationship to the world that Ithink right now we're seeing
come to a real crisis point.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Right and that has to be factored into these origin
stories of First Continent.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Do you need help catching up on today's topic or
do you want to learn more aboutthe resources mentioned?
If so, please check our websiteat
podcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorgfor more information and, if you
liked this episode, review iton Apple, spotify or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
You know the word that has stayed with me that
actually I actually went backand read Alexa Detokeville's
Democracy in America you knowwhen I was doing research for
this book because it had neverquite occurred to me until I was
doing the re like again, thesekind of things that just stay in
silos in your brain.
I mean, I read that book, youknow, 30 years ago I think for
(22:34):
the first time and it just Idon't think it was assigned that
the at the end of volume onehere's a whole chapter on
thinking about African Americansand Native Americans in America
like and what the future isbetween Europeans, africans and
(22:54):
Indigenous people in the countrywrestling with that.
And you know he has a word thatI ended up using in the book
that I think describes whatyou're talking about, that
extractive posture.
And I should say I feel likeyou do this so well in your new
(23:16):
book on the importance ofIndigenous values.
But the word that Detokevilleused that I ended up using in
the book was rapacious.
It's not a word that I had used, I don't think it was.
I mean it was in my book, Iknew what it meant but I don't
think I'd ever written it, youknow before and ever used it.
But I have found that that wordhas really stayed with me.
You know it essentially meanslike aggressively greedy is what
(23:41):
it essentially means you know,and just like insatiable,
insatiably greedy, that's thepiece of it, you know, and that
that is probably the best likeadjective that I think just
describes the just devouring,you know mentality of kind of
Europeans over land, resources,labor, you know it was, you know
(24:06):
, just this kind of insatiable,yeah, rapacious energy that has
not relented.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You mentioned the Delta and destroying, you know,
all the land down there toprepare it for crops and cotton,
and in the early, explorers andfarmers from Europe really had
no clue on how to sustain thosecrops.
Where in the Americas, you know, people were practicing
regenerative forms ofagriculture whereby you, you
(24:38):
grow multiple crops and producetop soil as you're growing these
crops to feed everybody, andthat had to be eye opening.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, well, in some of the energy of moving into
places like Mississippi wasprecisely because the tobacco
had exhausted the soils inVirginia and the Carolinas and
Georgia, and so you know thekind of European plantation
owners were looking for new landbecause they had essentially
(25:08):
destroyed the top soil, you know, in the lands that they had.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And would continue to mine that top soil as it washes
down the Mississippi River,right, so yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Right.
It directly goes back to theDoctrine of Discovery to think
you have the right to destroywater systems and till the soil
and determine what crops aregoing to grow in these new kind
of landscapes.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, I mean one of the things and I'll present it
as an irony, but one of thethings that we're trying to
present at the Scano Great LawPeace Center is that, you know,
among others, but primarily, theHood and the Shoney sat in
council with those foundingfathers on your stamp, you know,
in that frame and taught themabout Western democracy.
(25:56):
You know, and this kind ofhidden history for me and, I
think, for Sandy and all of ushere in the heartland of the
Hood and the Shoney, presents akind of hope.
You know that there are theserelationships that were
established.
You know, back in 1987, jointresolution of Congress
(26:20):
acknowledged the Iroquoiscontribution to Western
democracy and a coin was minted,you know, in 2010,
commemorating that.
And yet no one knows about that.
You know, I mean so.
You know these hidden historicalfeatures of our history and our
legacy of Western democracy isnot just those white guys in the
(26:42):
room right, there's all this.
There's the peacemaker,thousands of years ago here at
Onondaga Lake.
There's Genesitego, who is aOnondaga loyani or chief, as you
know, in common parlance.
You know was presenting to, youknow, benjamin Franklin and
(27:03):
others at the Independence Hall.
You know that this was themessage of the peacemaker, and
really the French, for example,didn't know anything about
equity, fraternity and liberty,you know, until they encountered
native people in the Americas,you know.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So that's another sort of irony here that we're
grappling with and the greatorators laid out to them when
they were taken to Europe.
They were saying you imagine tobe equal, but you're only equal
under the authority of yourmonarchs and your pope.
And I want to take you backagain to the Turo Wampum concept
.
The Haudenosaunee envisioned ashared American future with
(27:46):
Europeans coming in here, andthat was abiding by the tenants
of the Turo Wampum.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And so, yeah, I mean, it makes it maybe even more
tragic, the stories you'retelling, because, you know, as
Orin Lyons often says, you knowwe have to craft the mythology
or the myth history of ourorigins in the United States,
where the native people are thebad guys, you know the
(28:16):
indigenous people are the badguys, because you can't take
land or rob.
You know the good guys.
Yeah, I mean, you know whatwould it be, what would it mean
if we were to shift the mythnarrative, you know, and I mean
I think ICU is being involved inthat.
You know, now push it a littlebit further, because I know
(28:39):
you're involved with this too iswhat's the shift from Columbus
Day to Indigenous People's Dayall about?
I mean, I think it indicatessome kind of change, cultural
shift that's going on here, youknow, because if there's a face
of the doctor who has discovered, it's gotta be Columbus, you
know, and right there in theCapitol Building and you've
(29:00):
published these images as wellright there in the rotunda, you
know, really right there.
So what is that about?
You know, I mean it's acomplicated conversation.
But then the shift in the last,what will just say five less
than 10 years to IndigenousPeople's Day you know, I mean,
(29:21):
how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
You know I've been writing about that and I think
it's far past time for us tokind of let Columbus go.
You know, from that pantheon.
So if you think about it, thereare only three out of our
federal holidays, only three arerelated to people.
One is George Washington'sbirthday, the other is Martin
(29:46):
Luther King Jr's birthday andthe other is Columbus right.
And you know, if you thinkabout that as kind of a trinity
of people, that I, you know it'shard to see Columbus fitting
and that he never sets foot, youknow, on any soil that's in the
current boundaries of thecountry.
You know, and it's really justkind of stunning, you know,
(30:12):
really, I think the heart of itis that you know, columbus gets
centered in American history,essentially because the
fledgling nation wanted to seemolder and more inevitable than
it was right.
So they bring Columbus forwardand claim that legacy as a way
of giving an infant, you know,nation a 300 year instant
(30:33):
history, you know, and so it'skind of a rhetorical, strategic
move to begin with to kind ofcenter Columbus in general, you
know there.
But the thing is it doesrepresent, it just represents,
yeah, this kind of doctrine ofdiscovery, a settler colonialism
.
You know, it's astraightforward, a straight line
(30:56):
.
You can't draw the line muchstraighter, you know than that.
And so the question for ustoday is you know, when a
country it's worth noting today,that the country I mean that
was never.
I think you know it's ananti-democratic claim.
I was gonna say thatstraightforwardly, right.
You can't both be a promisedland for European Christians and
(31:18):
a pluralistic democracy.
These two things are completelyincompatible, and so Columbus
Day is celebrating the formerand undermining the latter.
I mean, I think we'd have to bereally clear about that.
It's also the case that, justfrom a pragmatic point of view,
the country is no longer amajority white and Christian.
So even if we serve where totake that from demographic today
(31:41):
the country's only 42% whiteand Christian.
So it doesn't even representeven if you were thinking about
that as a very pragmatic ways,it doesn't even represent the
majority of Americans today.
So you know, biden became thefirst sitting president to make
a proclamation for Indigenouspeople's day, and his first term
was roundly criticized by Trumpfor doing so.
(32:06):
And he's done that.
I don't know, but I assume thathe'll do that this year, but
did it last year as well, and so, but he's done both right.
He's made a proclamation forColumbus Day and a proclamation
for Indigenous people's day.
So I think we are in thismoment of transition.
You know.
(32:26):
I hope that we'll be clear-eyedabout it and see our way.
You know, if we're thinkingabout, you know the other, I
guess the other function thatthe holidays do is they orient
us toward values.
And so, if you think about thatfunction of national days off,
times of reflection,celebrations, what would serve
(32:47):
us better going forward, ifwe're trying to live into being
the you know, live into thepromise of a pluralistic
democracy, I think Indigenouspeople's day does a lot more for
us on that front, and ColumbusDay, in fact, directly
undermines it.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well, not only that, I think, probably it bodes well
for our eventual survival aswell, I mean, given that we're
in a total meltdown here withenvironmental crisis, by kind of
revisiting those relationshipsfrom the 18th century, you know,
with Indigenous people's 17thand 18th century and maybe, you
(33:26):
know, inculcating some of thosevalues, indigenous values.
This is what you know.
My point is that maybe we havea chance, you know, because and
I think that might be what'swhat some of the pressure might
be coming from, right, you know,we know that really the
Columbus legacy is no longerviable, frankly, you know, and
(33:50):
that we need to look for someother system of values or sort
of make our capitalist societybehave in certain ways, you know
, that honors the earth ratherthan just using it up, you know.
Yeah, I mean on that point.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I'll just make one of their quick point on this.
You know, I was speaking atNotre Dame University last year
and they have these historicfrescoes in the administration
building glorifying Columbus,right, and they're, and you know
they are, you know, from the19th century and they've got,
you know, columbus looking inall his regal finery, and native
(34:29):
people, sort of smaller anddiminutive, you know, in the
paintings.
And they've covered them up atNotre Dame, and it was a student
movement at Notre Dame thatsaid exactly that this is no
longer a viable way to tell ourstory and we don't want to tell
our story this way.
(34:49):
And so what they've done isthey've covered them up, they've
contextualized them, they'vedone a whole kind of now, like,
if you go in the administrationbuilding, there's a whole little
kind of placards to tell thestory of like why they covered
them up, what they mean, howthey've been reflecting on them,
and now they uncover them oncea year for a few weeks and
students are actually nowstudying them, but studying them
(35:10):
about like being morecritically reflective of that
legacy, and so I think that's agood example of the tide, or you
know, the ship is turning, Ithink, on this question.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think the you know herein Syracuse we have a Columbus
statue has a very bad legacy.
It's just really egregious.
Has been for the last 100 years.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
He stands on four severed Indian heads looking for
directions.
His back is to the court system, so he's backed by the city
courts, and he looks westthrough the main Catholic church
in Syracuse.
So just the way it's placed isso egregious.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
And we have a very strong, like old Italian group
that wants to maintain.
Yeah, businessmen, politiciansthat want to maintain the statue
.
Of course it was put up in 1933, you know, really during the
rise of fascism, and you know.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Mussolini helped pay for its shipment back to
Syracuse.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, you can't make up this history, you know.
So it's, it's and, and you knowthere are continual
demonstrations down there.
But but this is the point Iwant to make and again kind of
ties together African-Americanand indigenous movements is it
was really the Black LivesMatters protests in Syracuse I
(36:36):
mean they were everywhere but inSyracuse that called into
question that.
You know that statue, and I'mproud to say that one of our
former grad students, who's atrans-African-American student,
put up a changeorg petition andgot like 25,000 signatures and
(36:59):
it's something that politiciansin Syracuse just couldn't ignore
, right?
I mean, you know so.
So you know you can draw theline then between Black Lives
Matter and you know this, thisdesire to change that myth
history and take down theColumbus statue.
You know, and I think that'sthat's happening all over the
(37:22):
place.
You know with Confederatestatues and and you know other
things.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
You know in California and otherwise, but
yeah, I mean meanwhile thosemurals stand at the US Capitol
building right and then, a fewdecades ago, they chipped away
at the original columns leadinginto the old original Supreme
Court chamber because theoriginal columns were made of
corn husks to reflect theindigenous roots to American
(37:50):
democracy that came through theHaudenosaunee.
So why were those covered?
But now you can see them.
So you're uncovering andcovering these images that are
in conflict with one another.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
It's interesting, yeah, um, yeah, uh.
Let me pause here for a sec.
Sure, so why don't you sharefor our listeners what you see,
(38:32):
as you know, the possibilityexamining these hidden roots of
white supremacy, what, what yousee as the path toward a shared
American future?
I mean sort of you know how,how, how I mean solving our past
is way too much to to talkabout, but you know how,
(38:52):
addressing our past because thisis something my students often
ask well, what's the solution?
Right, I don't think there's asolution exactly, but I I think
there is a way forward and thatyou indicate.
I wonder if you could talkabout that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah well, you know I don't have a sterling 10-point
plan at the end of the book.
You know that we can all justfollow and solve the problems
and everyone should besuspicious if I did have such a
thing at the end of the book.
But I did learn some thingsfrom watching people on the
(39:29):
ground, like in localcommunities, and I think that
that is where I see some hope.
You know, and I do think itstarts with true telling and I
should just say we are only atthe very beginning of the
process of telling the truthright in this country like.
Just you know that we have,we've had this kind of, I think,
(39:50):
rush of energy in the last fewyears around the Black Lives
Matter movement.
That has been, you know, Ithink, like nothing I've seen in
my lifetime I was born in 1968and certainly not in my adult
lifetime have I seen that kindof energy around something, but
I think it still has.
It's a beginning, you know,point of telling the truth and
(40:13):
but you know so in the book.
I spent some time inMississippi, I spent some time
in Oklahoma and I spent sometime in Minnesota and one in
kind of three different states,but there's some commonalities
that I saw in all places andthey all involved, really, a
story like you mentioned, likeyou know, you mentioned a
graduate student that just saidI'm gonna do something right and
and started, you know, anonline petition.
(40:36):
You know, in Mississippi nowthere was a guy named Jerome
Little who was the firstAfrican-American elected county
commissioner in TallahatchieCounty in early 80s.
I think, and you know, first ofall, it's worth saying why was
he the first African-American ina half Black county?
Because until after the VotingRights Act, there were no Black
(40:59):
people registered to vote inTallahatchie County.
So they finally get enoughpeople registered to vote, elect
their first African-Americancounty commissioner.
And you know he had grown up inthat county and did not know
the story of Emmett Till andthat's where he was killed,
where his trial was, and he wasin Europe in the Marines when he
(41:21):
learned the story of EmmettTill he's like wait, that's the
county I'm from.
And then went back and saidlike we are going to tell the
truth about what happened hereand it, you know, built some
momentum and it ended up being,you know, a group of everyday
people in this county, black andwhite, to kind of tell the
story, and these weredescendants of enslaved people
(41:42):
and sharecroppers and indescendants of enslavers, you
know that really got together totell the story.
And so I, in each of the placesthey really just come down to,
people deciding in their localcontext, yeah, whether it's a
statue or the absence of a storythat should be told there, like
that's often what happens aswell.
(42:03):
You're trying to tell these,these stories across the board.
So you know, and I think thatanother reason I find hope is
that these are not easy placesMississippi, oklahoma these are
not easy places for thesestories to succeed, you know,
and yet I think they are makingsome headway, despite some of
the prevailing political winsthat are trying to, kind of, you
(42:27):
say, cover up these stories,keep these stories from emerging
.
But I do, I don't think thatthat's ultimately going to win
the day.
I mean, I do think that the newstory is coming out and
continuing to come out are goingto help help us shape, you know
, our next steps, and I thinkit's only by getting those
stories out there and us kind oftelling them that we're going
(42:49):
to be in a place to even knowwhere to go, you know, but I
think those stories are going toprovide the foundation for it.
So I'm kind of hopeful that youknow that's really where the
work has to be.
Is these, these efforts at truthtelling, because you know, back
to your that vision, you know,of the kind of shared space and
I am trying to think about that.
How do we think about, you know, what a pluralistic democracy
(43:12):
is right, sharing space, sharingresources on an equitable you
know basis.
You know those don't happen ifwe don't have the, the right
stories of how we actually gotto where we are right and you
need this cross-culturalconversation?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
yeah, because you mentioned in your book James
Baldwin you know talking aboutas, as groups of people are
being oppressed, they'restudying the oppressors and
trying to understand whatmotivates these people.
Well, the oppressor is notgiving one bit of thought to the
people they are oppressing.
Yeah, so no, understand moreabout why.
(43:49):
Yeah, I'll say this.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
So you know.
So white christian guy, againmostly british.
You know ethnicity from bothsides of my family, but you know
the thing that has like movedme, me, you mentioned Baldwin.
So you know, with the last bookI think it was Baldwin haunting
my thoughts like what does awhite christian guy from the
(44:12):
south have to say?
right to the indictment broughtby Baldwin.
And then you know, it's notjust Baldwin, of course.
I mean, it's king FrederickDouglass, like you know.
I mean, it's not, you know.
And then the other thing thatbecame so clear to me is you
know these other voices that I,frankly, didn't know before I
really started doing theresearch.
So vine to loria junior, right,yeah, uh.
(44:35):
And I mean, you know, uh,custer died for your sins.
What 1969?
Right?
Um, it's not new, um, you know.
And he writes this open letterto the christian churches of
north america in like 1972, Ithink.
Um, you know, god has read godhas read yeah right, I mean,
there are these resources thatare that have been out there for
(44:55):
half a century, calling peoplelike me to account, you know,
and I think that's, I thinkpartially.
What's happening, uh, isthere's an opening now, I think,
for that conversation to happen.
That just didn't happen 50 yearsago you know, it didn't, but
but the faithful work of thosepeople, I think, has laid the
(45:17):
groundwork for conversationsthat are just now happening
today, um.
So, and others who have, youknow, obviously followed in
their, in their, in theirfootsteps as well.
That I've learned from uh aswell.
So I, I'm, I'm hopeful thatthat cross yeah, you said the
kind of cross culturalconversation, both from voices
that are no longer with us, uh,but that rang that bell really
(45:40):
clearly when they were, um andthe ones who are, you know, with
us now, yeah, yeah, well, um,there's a little part in a
little section in my book at thebeginning, I think that's that
I, that I um, I address why thewhite guy, you know uh, why
should, why should we beinvested in these stories?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
I mean, there is the tendency, well, and I think it's
a needed lack in the academy,um, that native voices,
african-american voices, othervoices uh that are not white,
need to be uh, speaking loudlyand clearly.
But I, I don't think that meansthat, you know, white guys like
(46:25):
us uh shouldn't be involved inthose conversations, right, I
mean, I, I think it's, it's both.
And you know, um, because, asmy teacher, uh, charles H Long,
who was recently passed away,but one of the founders of the
discipline of history, religions, you know, african-american
scholar, really wrote on blackreligion, african religions, as
(46:47):
he often said, you know,everybody needs to be involved
and invested in undoingcolonialism, um, it's, it can't
be just up to, you know,enslaved Africans.
You know, uh, it can't be upjust up to Native Americans, uh,
because we, as white people,have benefited from that, that
(47:09):
legacy as well.
So, so we need to be investedin these conversations as well.
So I, I really appreciate thattoo.
Um, uh, about your writing andyour commitment to these, to
these ongoing conversations, andI do think the way forward is
through, you know, sort of onthe ground engaged education,
(47:31):
you know, you know trying totrying to approach people where
they live.
Um, I will just say we'rereally looking forward to your
coming to Syracuse for ourconference in December.
Um, you know the religiousorigins of white supremacy, the
(47:52):
doctrine of discovery andJohnson v McIntosh, uh, which is
something we didn't really talkabout here today.
But you know, johnson vMcIntosh is really what creates
a doctrinal you know umdoctrinal emphasis on civilizing
Native people through theacquisition of lands.
(48:14):
Right, and, uh, he, he, youknow so Marshall's the one that
brings into um American lawthrough the Supreme Court ruling
, the.
The doctrine of discovery isfundamental to to property title
.
That's a tough one.
You know that's going to be atough one.
We're going to need a lot ofpeople talking about that and
(48:36):
how to address that.
You know lawyers, you knowactivists of various kinds.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
So yeah you know, and you mentioned how, um, that
decision opened the floodgatesfor federal anti-Indian law to
be established, and that's whatall Native people are dealing
with now.
Are these, uh, puppet regimesof the United States silencing
the indigenous traditionalpeople in all those territories?
(49:01):
Yeah, and that's why we're in aunique place, because Anandaga
and and the Haudenosaunee stillneed, according to their
pre-colonial matrilineal clansystem, and they don't have,
like Christian, um you know,voices dictating their politics
yeah, the federal government isnot involved at Anandaga at all
(49:22):
through the BIA, so they'reunique in the country that way
too, so so it's a unique placehere.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Um that, going back to the federal anti-Indian law,
that's the title of a of a bookby Peter Dorico just recently
came out.
He's going to be here.
Finally, it's been, you know,an emeritus law professor at
Amherst, and um, and, and I mean, you know, you think about it,
beginning with mark uh,beginning with Marshall's
(49:53):
trilogy of uh, of rulings, um,you know that, um, um, that
really, that really is thebeginning of federal Indian law.
But it really is not forIndians, right?
It's not for Native people,right?
Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
It's really antagonistic to their very
existence and puppet regimesyeah yeah, you know, and the
just one comment there, I meanthe things that sort of stay
with me from that ruling.
You know, is this reference tothe superior genius of Europe,
right?
Um, and that's, that's themoral justification, right,
(50:31):
that's, that's, in a nutshell,like what it appeals to.
Um, you know that the previouspeople that they've been
convinced by the superior moralgenius of Europe that that all
of this was justified, um, youknow.
And then it goes on to say youknow, and if the country's been
founded on that principle, wecan't question it.
But that's not exactly a robustmoral or legal argument yeah,
(50:57):
civilization stands in for youknow, digitization or something
you know.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
I mean, it's like, uh , it's too obvious but everybody
, I suggest you read your book.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's so go out and just draws you right in full of
so much information and um youhave an art of storytelling.
So it's um.
They're wonderfully written, ohthank you roots of white
supremacy and the path to ashared American future.
Robert.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Jones just uh on the New York Times bestseller list,
so congratulations on that aswell, thank you the producers of
this podcast were Adam DJ Brettand Jordan Lawn Cologne.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Our intro in outro is social dancing music by oris
edwards and reaches cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
loose foundation, sir q'suniversity at Hendricks chapel
and the indigenous valuesinitiative.
If you like this episode,please check out our website and
make sure to subscribe.
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
The producers of this podcastwould like to acknowledge with
respect the Onondaga NationFirekeepers of the Hood Nishoni,
the Indigenous Peoples on whoseancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands.
Now introducing your hosts,phil Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back to the Mapping of the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast series.
This is the first of seasonthree.
My name is Phil Up Arnold.
I'm faculty in the religiondepartment at Syracuse
University, founding director ofthe Scano Great Law Peace
Center and the president ofIndigenous Values Initiative.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And I'm Sandy Bigtree , a citizen of the Mohawk Nation
at Akvasasni, and I'm on theacademic collaborative of the
Scano Great Law Peace Center andon the board of the Indigenous
Values Initiative.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Today, we are very privileged to have Robert P
Jones as our guest.
Robbie, as he likes to becalled, is the president and
founder of Public ReligionResearch Institute, or PRRI, in
Washington DC.
A leading scholar and commenteron religion and politics, jones
(01:26):
writes regularly on politics,culture and religion for the
Atlantic time and the religionnews service.
He is frequently featured inmajor national media such as
MSNBC, cnn, NPR, the New YorkTimes, the Washington Post and
others.
He holds a PhD in religion fromEmory University and an M Div
(01:49):
from Southwestern BaptistTheological Seminary.
He is the author of White TooLong the Legacy of White
Supremacy in AmericanChristianity, which won the 2021
American Book Award, and theend of White Christian America,
which won the 2019 GrawmireAward in Religion.
He writes a regular substacknewsletter at
(02:12):
robertpjonesubstackcom.
His new book, which will be thefeatured topic of the
conversation today, is theHidden Roots of White Supremacy
and the Path Toward a SharedAmerican Future.
Welcome, robbie, and thanks forcoming.
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I'm glad to be here, looking forward to the
conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'd like to start with that PhD in religion at
Emory.
We too at Syracuse Universitytrain religion graduate students
and PhDs in religion.
It's an uphill climb.
We have a very modest graduateprogram on, like Emory or
(02:55):
Chicago or the other big places.
One of the things that I thinkwe're known for is less sort of
the academic elements in thestudy of religion and more of an
engaged scholarship or, if not,an activist scholarship.
(03:18):
I think that has served uspretty well.
You're a unique person in theworld of religion.
You're someone who is a publicintellectual, an engaged scholar
.
That's not the usual path ofgraduate students.
I wonder if you could just talkbriefly To give our graduate
(03:43):
students some heart in thisdifficult time when religious
studies is really not valued thesame as some other areas of the
university.
We're still fighting for theimportance of the academic study
of religion, not the trainingof ministers or whomever in
(04:05):
religion, but the critical studyof religion in the academy.
I think you're someone, morethan others on this podcast,
that can speak to that.
I wanted to give you some timefor that.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah Well, thanks, it's been an interesting journey
, I think.
For me, as you know, mostgraduate programs sounds like
Syracuse.
One is not quite like.
So.
Most graduate programs teachyou to be fairly detached from
the scholarship.
You write in third person, youdon't write in first person.
(04:43):
If you ever use the word Iwrite in a piece, it gets
stricken from the record.
Emery wasn't so strict on that,but there was this sense of
objectivity, detachment ofcourse, objectivity and at least
the idea of putting yourpreconceived things to the side
(05:07):
and letting them at least be inconversation with maybe new
things that are.
You know that research revealsis important, although I'm not
one that thinks true objectivityis possible.
We all bring our things, ourpast, our prejudices, all of
that to the scholarship that we,not only to the scholarship
that we do, but even to thesubjects that we choose right.
(05:29):
That's always a challenge thatwe always have to kind of think
through.
But I would say that my ownwork has evolved a bit to be
more personal over time and soif you just look at the last
three books, I'll not take a lotof time here.
But I moved into writing tradebooks out of the kind of
(05:52):
academic university press worldinto writing for trade presses
because I wanted to write for amore general audience.
And what I found over time isthat to do that effectively I
needed to write in a moreengaging way, and the best way
to do that was to kind of behonest about my placement in the
story and what I had at stakeand what brought me to the
(06:13):
research.
And I think I've gradually donemore of that as I've written.
So the first trade book was abook called the End of White
Christian America and it wasreally about the changing
demographics in the country.
So a lot of demographic workthere.
I told a little bit of my ownstory there.
(06:33):
But then the next book, calledWhite Too Long the Legacy of
White Supremacy in AmericanChristianity, was really about a
third memoir and that was thefirst time that I really thought
, ok, I've got to be honestabout why I care about this
topic, what I think is at stakeboth personally and for the
country, and write it that way.
(06:55):
And so I had a lot of my ownfamily stories, including my own
family's connections to thewhole American project of
settler colonialism and how myEuropean, mostly British
Christian family fit into thatnarrative, and that was really a
sea change, I think, from mywriting and really I think
(07:16):
opened up a whole differentaudience for the writing that I
think sometimes academic writingdoesn't reach and I've kind of
continued that and in this bookI have.
A third of the book is aboutMississippi, which is my home
state, where I try to unpackthat history and try to also be
(07:37):
honest about having grown up inthere, gone to public schools,
had my college education atMississippi College, thinking
about what I was and wasn'ttaught in those settings and
what that means.
That's relevant, especiallywhat I was not taught about
(07:58):
American history.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, it certainly brings it to life, and you're
such a gifted writer.
I really enjoyed reading thesehorribly dark stories, if that
makes any sense.
But yeah, I can remembervividly third grade, first
introduction to history books.
I was just horrified becausethere was no place for me in any
(08:20):
of that history.
If we can't relate to it, Ithink we're missing a vast
percentage of our populationbeing engaged in this process.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Right.
And of course, prri is knownfor your well-known pollster in
religion politics.
But anyone who reads thesebooks White Too Long or the
Hidden Roots of White Supremacythey're going to also learn that
you're a master storyteller andyour own narrative is there,
(08:54):
but it doesn't interfere withthe larger history that you're
wanting to tell and examinecritically.
So I really do appreciate that.
But how do those things developin you, those two different
strands, the mathematician andthe storyteller?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, as you know, but your listeners probably
don't nobody's looked at my biothat carefully.
But my undergrad degrees incomputer science and math, and
so I came out of that, came atthe work, I think, through this
very left brain, linear thinkingkind of thing.
(09:38):
But I was also a math majorthat went to seminary.
So, and religion at its heart,it's narrative, it's stories.
It's narrative.
I mean you take the Christiantradition, I mean the first
thing in the Jewish tradition onwhich it's based, you have the
(10:00):
first book of the ChristianBible.
The first book of the Torah isa story.
It's a Genesis story, it's acreation myth.
So it begins there.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
At least one story, maybe two, maybe three.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And that's important too, right, because it preserves
the plurality of stories, right, and it builds out of what was
originally a narrative tradition.
That gets written down much,much later and you get all of
the ambiguity that you get withoral tradition things.
Then they get put into text andkind of frozen in the Christian
(10:39):
tradition.
But so I think I've always beenattracted to the stories and
history and it's just taken me awhile, I think, in my
professional life to kind ofpull them, you know, to pull
them together and to figure outhow to write in a way that you
know not only draws on the datathat PRI produces, but I also
even think about that.
(10:59):
And even in a paragraph thathas percent signs sprinkled
through it, it's telling a story, right, and you're using
numbers, but you really arestill trying to tell a story, to
make it really concrete.
When we get data back from a bignational survey and most of our
(11:20):
surveys will survey 5,000people they may have a hundred
different questions in them.
So that means that when we getback is actually a grid, a
database that has 5,000 rows,one row for each respondent in
the survey, by a hundred columnsfor every answer every 5,000
person gave.
So what?
(11:42):
Your job as a social scientistis to look at that grid of
numbers and to tell a story, allright.
To look through the patterns,to look at what you see as
recurrent patterns and whatmakes sense, and it's absolutely
a storytelling endeavor, asmuch as the hardcore quant folks
(12:04):
may wanna pretend.
No, we're just kind of puttingthe data from the thing on the
page, but you're alwaysselecting which lens do you
bring to it, which groups areyou looking at, what rises to
the four and the data guideswhat.
You can't just tell any storyfrom that data, but there's
certainly multiple stories youcould tell.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Wow, that's fantastic .
I really appreciated that onegraph I think it's at the very
end of the book pretty much Likewhat people think about the
they might not know the termdoctrine of discovery, but they
do know what you're talkingabout.
Right, you know that this is.
I can't remember exactly whatthe polling question is, but
(12:45):
it's like that America wasdestined to be a white Christian
nation, something like that,and that, to me, is a story.
I mean that graph right therethat sort of reveals some.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
I want you to know it was great restraint on my part.
I only have two charts in thisbook and they're both at the end
, but that's right.
And so we crafted that questionas a way of trying to
explicitly knowing the historyof the doctrine of discovery.
(13:21):
We crafted that question tryingto say, well, look, is it a
stretch to say that these 15thcentury documents still hold any
sway in American consciousness?
And so one way to find out isto ask about the core idea.
And that core idea was whetherAmerica was designated by God to
(13:46):
be a kind of promised land forEuropean Christians where they
could set an example for therest of the world.
That's the vision, that's thecore vision of the doctrine of
discovery.
And so when we asked about it,yeah, I was.
I kind of knew that it did justfrom watching American politics
.
But you can see at the data,it's about three in 10 Americans
(14:09):
that agree with that vision ofAmerica, and it's a majority of
white evangelical Protestantsthe group that I grew up being a
member of and it's a majorityof Republicans, self-identified
Republicans that agree with thatstatement.
So it tells you something aboutwhy it's still not just a kind
of dusty old historical fact,but something that's quite live
(14:35):
in determining the future of thecountry.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And that there's a strong presence right now in
trying to protect these originstories, of instance in this
country.
And, as you had talked about,the so-called Indian problem and
the Negro quote problem.
If people dig deeper they willcome to understand both are
connected to the white Christianproblem, which goes back to the
(15:03):
doctrines of discovery, andyour whole book kind of revolves
around that theme andaddressing all of that.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And so for so long those two problems have been
separate, those twoconstituencies really haven't
been talking with one another.
African-american people andindigenous or Native American
people really haven't broughttheir sources of oppression
(15:34):
together in some way.
That is revealing of thehistory of the United States.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So that's what I think is very important about
this You've been able to do that.
You begin this conversation andconnecting these two.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, can you talk?
More about that I mean it's youvery gently kind of deal with
1619 project and those kinds offolks that are doing some really
important work but who we havenot really been engaged with.
Just put it that way, personalterms and then move it into the
(16:14):
doctrine of discovery, whichkind of is a zoom out, I think a
little bit on the whole issue.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Yeah, Well, that's the way I think about it too.
I mean, I think about this askind of just widening the
aperture, if you're thinkingkind of like a photography
metaphor or painting on a biggercanvas or thinking kind of an
art.
I used to collect postagestamps and I remember when I
think of 1776, I think of aparticular postage stamp and I
(16:44):
think it's good because it'ssmall right.
So there's little postage stampand it's all the white guys in
Philadelphia and their colonialfinery with their kind of white
knee socks and their quill pens,kind of awkwardly posed around
a table signing the Declarationof Independence.
And I think the gift that the1619 project did was, at a kind
(17:07):
of broader cultural level.
It's like zoomed out, as yousaid, and kind of said no, no,
no, we got to come back bigger.
And they also gave us adifferent image.
I think that's importantBecause, again, we do think in
images and stories and thebigger image.
If you remember the New YorkTimes, the original thing that
it published was not the whiteguys at that table in
(17:27):
Philadelphia, but it was a vastocean, was the image, and it was
this kind of monochromatic,kind of ominous looking, dark
ocean, gray sky, and then theother image that gave us was a
single ship, right, and itwasn't the Mayflower, it was a
single ship bringing kidnappedAfricans who were destined for
(17:51):
enslavement in the Britishcolonies in 1619.
So that's a different, verydifferent vision, right, and I
think if I'm learning anythingand trying to do something
different in the book, it'sactually taking it even one step
further, because the thing thatkind of came crashing on my own
consciousness, and largely fromreading Indigenous scholars,
(18:14):
was the realization that well,man, by the time 1619 rolls
around, there's more than acentury of European Indigenous
contact that's unaccounted forin that picture.
So you really have to kind oftake it back even further to
really take it back to.
I argue that a good time totake it back to is 1493 in the
(18:38):
book, which is the year Columbusgoes back after his first
encounter here and it's also theyear that that papal bull,
intercatera, is issued.
That further gives the churchblessing on the whole settler
colonialism project, with thefull blessing of the church.
(19:00):
So I think that is a morefateful year.
And we've been talking aboutstories.
But I think the power then isthat whatever we have in the
frame, in our in the beginning,whatever follows that phrase.
The rest of the story has toaccount for right.
You can't tell the rest of thestory without accounting for
whatever's in that initial frame, and I think that's why we're
(19:22):
fighting over it today inAmerican culture, right, because
if the only thing that's inthat frame are those white guys
in that postage stamp, wellthat's a pretty simple story to
tell about European's place inAmerica, right.
But if it's a 1619 project thatocean, you know or if it's back
(19:45):
to, you know, the kind ofColumbus appeal to the Vatican,
you know, for a kind of moralmandate for colonization, that's
also a really different storythat we have to tell about
ourselves.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Well, added into this mix is the Haudenosaunee origin
story of first contact with theDutch, and that was 1613.
Yeah, right To Rampel.
And Wampelm is still veryprevalent in the Grand Council
of the Haudenosaunee Raiseschiefs.
It's a method of condolingpeople so they can attain the
(20:19):
right state of mind to speak andlead and listen and be aware of
the surrounding world.
But this two row Wampelm wasthe coming together of extremely
different cultures and it spokeof the parallel paths along the
river of life that the Dutchwould stay in their boat, the
Haudenosaunee would stay intheirs, not interfering with
(20:42):
each other, but they'd be ridingin this river of life together
and respect and mutualunderstanding and good faith.
And but with that you have tohave some idea of your
relationship with the naturalworld.
So Indigenous people alwaysunderstood that important
relationship with the naturalworld.
(21:03):
But the colonists came over andnever were able to comprehend
the depth of that understandingof partnership and living
together.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And that's the fundamental feature of the
Doctrine of Discovery is reallythis extractive economy.
Exactly Whether it's extractingslaves from Africa or later on
involved in the extraction ofdifferent gold and silver out of
Latin America, et cetera.
So I think that with that comesa different sort of
(21:36):
relationship to the world that Ithink right now we're seeing
come to a real crisis point.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Right and that has to be factored into these origin
stories of First Continent.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Do you need help catching up on today's topic or
do you want to learn more aboutthe resources mentioned?
If so, please check our websiteat
podcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorgfor more information and, if you
liked this episode, review iton Apple, spotify or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
You know the word that has stayed with me that
actually I actually went backand read Alexa Detokeville's
Democracy in America you knowwhen I was doing research for
this book because it had neverquite occurred to me until I was
doing the re like again, thesekind of things that just stay in
silos in your brain.
I mean, I read that book, youknow, 30 years ago I think for
(22:34):
the first time and it just Idon't think it was assigned that
the at the end of volume onehere's a whole chapter on
thinking about African Americansand Native Americans in America
like and what the future isbetween Europeans, africans and
(22:54):
Indigenous people in the countrywrestling with that.
And you know he has a word thatI ended up using in the book
that I think describes whatyou're talking about, that
extractive posture.
And I should say I feel likeyou do this so well in your new
(23:16):
book on the importance ofIndigenous values.
But the word that Detokevilleused that I ended up using in
the book was rapacious.
It's not a word that I had used, I don't think it was.
I mean it was in my book, Iknew what it meant but I don't
think I'd ever written it, youknow before and ever used it.
But I have found that that wordhas really stayed with me.
You know it essentially meanslike aggressively greedy is what
(23:41):
it essentially means you know,and just like insatiable,
insatiably greedy, that's thepiece of it, you know, and that
that is probably the best likeadjective that I think just
describes the just devouring,you know mentality of kind of
Europeans over land, resources,labor, you know it was, you know
(24:06):
, just this kind of insatiable,yeah, rapacious energy that has
not relented.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You mentioned the Delta and destroying, you know,
all the land down there toprepare it for crops and cotton,
and in the early, explorers andfarmers from Europe really had
no clue on how to sustain thosecrops.
Where in the Americas, you know, people were practicing
regenerative forms ofagriculture whereby you, you
(24:38):
grow multiple crops and producetop soil as you're growing these
crops to feed everybody, andthat had to be eye opening.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, well, in some of the energy of moving into
places like Mississippi wasprecisely because the tobacco
had exhausted the soils inVirginia and the Carolinas and
Georgia, and so you know thekind of European plantation
owners were looking for new landbecause they had essentially
(25:08):
destroyed the top soil, you know, in the lands that they had.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And would continue to mine that top soil as it washes
down the Mississippi River,right, so yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Right.
It directly goes back to theDoctrine of Discovery to think
you have the right to destroywater systems and till the soil
and determine what crops aregoing to grow in these new kind
of landscapes.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, I mean one of the things and I'll present it
as an irony, but one of thethings that we're trying to
present at the Scano Great LawPeace Center is that, you know,
among others, but primarily, theHood and the Shoney sat in
council with those foundingfathers on your stamp, you know,
in that frame and taught themabout Western democracy.
(25:56):
You know, and this kind ofhidden history for me and, I
think, for Sandy and all of ushere in the heartland of the
Hood and the Shoney, presents akind of hope.
You know that there are theserelationships that were
established.
You know, back in 1987, jointresolution of Congress
(26:20):
acknowledged the Iroquoiscontribution to Western
democracy and a coin was minted,you know, in 2010,
commemorating that.
And yet no one knows about that.
You know, I mean so.
You know these hidden historicalfeatures of our history and our
legacy of Western democracy isnot just those white guys in the
(26:42):
room right, there's all this.
There's the peacemaker,thousands of years ago here at
Onondaga Lake.
There's Genesitego, who is aOnondaga loyani or chief, as you
know, in common parlance.
You know was presenting to, youknow, benjamin Franklin and
(27:03):
others at the Independence Hall.
You know that this was themessage of the peacemaker, and
really the French, for example,didn't know anything about
equity, fraternity and liberty,you know, until they encountered
native people in the Americas,you know.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So that's another sort of irony here that we're
grappling with and the greatorators laid out to them when
they were taken to Europe.
They were saying you imagine tobe equal, but you're only equal
under the authority of yourmonarchs and your pope.
And I want to take you backagain to the Turo Wampum concept
.
The Haudenosaunee envisioned ashared American future with
(27:46):
Europeans coming in here, andthat was abiding by the tenants
of the Turo Wampum.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And so, yeah, I mean, it makes it maybe even more
tragic, the stories you'retelling, because, you know, as
Orin Lyons often says, you knowwe have to craft the mythology
or the myth history of ourorigins in the United States,
where the native people are thebad guys, you know the
(28:16):
indigenous people are the badguys, because you can't take
land or rob.
You know the good guys.
Yeah, I mean, you know whatwould it be, what would it mean
if we were to shift the mythnarrative, you know, and I mean
I think ICU is being involved inthat.
You know, now push it a littlebit further, because I know
(28:39):
you're involved with this too iswhat's the shift from Columbus
Day to Indigenous People's Dayall about?
I mean, I think it indicatessome kind of change, cultural
shift that's going on here, youknow, because if there's a face
of the doctor who has discovered, it's gotta be Columbus, you
know, and right there in theCapitol Building and you've
(29:00):
published these images as wellright there in the rotunda, you
know, really right there.
So what is that about?
You know, I mean it's acomplicated conversation.
But then the shift in the last,what will just say five less
than 10 years to IndigenousPeople's Day you know, I mean,
(29:21):
how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
You know I've been writing about that and I think
it's far past time for us tokind of let Columbus go.
You know, from that pantheon.
So if you think about it, thereare only three out of our
federal holidays, only three arerelated to people.
One is George Washington'sbirthday, the other is Martin
(29:46):
Luther King Jr's birthday andthe other is Columbus right.
And you know, if you thinkabout that as kind of a trinity
of people, that I, you know it'shard to see Columbus fitting
and that he never sets foot, youknow, on any soil that's in the
current boundaries of thecountry.
You know, and it's really justkind of stunning, you know,
(30:12):
really, I think the heart of itis that you know, columbus gets
centered in American history,essentially because the
fledgling nation wanted to seemolder and more inevitable than
it was right.
So they bring Columbus forwardand claim that legacy as a way
of giving an infant, you know,nation a 300 year instant
(30:33):
history, you know, and so it'skind of a rhetorical, strategic
move to begin with to kind ofcenter Columbus in general, you
know there.
But the thing is it doesrepresent, it just represents,
yeah, this kind of doctrine ofdiscovery, a settler colonialism
.
You know, it's astraightforward, a straight line
(30:56):
.
You can't draw the line muchstraighter, you know than that.
And so the question for ustoday is you know, when a
country it's worth noting today,that the country I mean that
was never.
I think you know it's ananti-democratic claim.
I was gonna say thatstraightforwardly, right.
You can't both be a promisedland for European Christians and
(31:18):
a pluralistic democracy.
These two things are completelyincompatible, and so Columbus
Day is celebrating the formerand undermining the latter.
I mean, I think we'd have to bereally clear about that.
It's also the case that, justfrom a pragmatic point of view,
the country is no longer amajority white and Christian.
So even if we serve where totake that from demographic today
(31:41):
the country's only 42% whiteand Christian.
So it doesn't even representeven if you were thinking about
that as a very pragmatic ways,it doesn't even represent the
majority of Americans today.
So you know, biden became thefirst sitting president to make
a proclamation for Indigenouspeople's day, and his first term
was roundly criticized by Trumpfor doing so.
(32:06):
And he's done that.
I don't know, but I assume thathe'll do that this year, but
did it last year as well, and so, but he's done both right.
He's made a proclamation forColumbus Day and a proclamation
for Indigenous people's day.
So I think we are in thismoment of transition.
You know.
(32:26):
I hope that we'll be clear-eyedabout it and see our way.
You know, if we're thinkingabout, you know the other, I
guess the other function thatthe holidays do is they orient
us toward values.
And so, if you think about thatfunction of national days off,
times of reflection,celebrations, what would serve
(32:47):
us better going forward, ifwe're trying to live into being
the you know, live into thepromise of a pluralistic
democracy, I think Indigenouspeople's day does a lot more for
us on that front, and ColumbusDay, in fact, directly
undermines it.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well, not only that, I think, probably it bodes well
for our eventual survival aswell, I mean, given that we're
in a total meltdown here withenvironmental crisis, by kind of
revisiting those relationshipsfrom the 18th century, you know,
with Indigenous people's 17thand 18th century and maybe, you
(33:26):
know, inculcating some of thosevalues, indigenous values.
This is what you know.
My point is that maybe we havea chance, you know, because and
I think that might be what'swhat some of the pressure might
be coming from, right, you know,we know that really the
Columbus legacy is no longerviable, frankly, you know, and
(33:50):
that we need to look for someother system of values or sort
of make our capitalist societybehave in certain ways, you know
, that honors the earth ratherthan just using it up, you know.
Yeah, I mean on that point.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I'll just make one of their quick point on this.
You know, I was speaking atNotre Dame University last year
and they have these historicfrescoes in the administration
building glorifying Columbus,right, and they're, and you know
they are, you know, from the19th century and they've got,
you know, columbus looking inall his regal finery, and native
(34:29):
people, sort of smaller anddiminutive, you know, in the
paintings.
And they've covered them up atNotre Dame, and it was a student
movement at Notre Dame thatsaid exactly that this is no
longer a viable way to tell ourstory and we don't want to tell
our story this way.
(34:49):
And so what they've done isthey've covered them up, they've
contextualized them, they'vedone a whole kind of now, like,
if you go in the administrationbuilding, there's a whole little
kind of placards to tell thestory of like why they covered
them up, what they mean, howthey've been reflecting on them,
and now they uncover them oncea year for a few weeks and
students are actually nowstudying them, but studying them
(35:10):
about like being morecritically reflective of that
legacy, and so I think that's agood example of the tide, or you
know, the ship is turning, Ithink, on this question.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think the you know herein Syracuse we have a Columbus
statue has a very bad legacy.
It's just really egregious.
Has been for the last 100 years.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
He stands on four severed Indian heads looking for
directions.
His back is to the court system, so he's backed by the city
courts, and he looks westthrough the main Catholic church
in Syracuse.
So just the way it's placed isso egregious.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
And we have a very strong, like old Italian group
that wants to maintain.
Yeah, businessmen, politiciansthat want to maintain the statue
.
Of course it was put up in 1933, you know, really during the
rise of fascism, and you know.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Mussolini helped pay for its shipment back to
Syracuse.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, you can't make up this history, you know.
So it's, it's and, and you knowthere are continual
demonstrations down there.
But but this is the point Iwant to make and again kind of
ties together African-Americanand indigenous movements is it
was really the Black LivesMatters protests in Syracuse I
(36:36):
mean they were everywhere but inSyracuse that called into
question that.
You know that statue, and I'mproud to say that one of our
former grad students, who's atrans-African-American student,
put up a changeorg petition andgot like 25,000 signatures and
(36:59):
it's something that politiciansin Syracuse just couldn't ignore
, right?
I mean, you know so.
So you know you can draw theline then between Black Lives
Matter and you know this, thisdesire to change that myth
history and take down theColumbus statue.
You know, and I think that'sthat's happening all over the
(37:22):
place.
You know with Confederatestatues and and you know other
things.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
You know in California and otherwise, but
yeah, I mean meanwhile thosemurals stand at the US Capitol
building right and then, a fewdecades ago, they chipped away
at the original columns leadinginto the old original Supreme
Court chamber because theoriginal columns were made of
corn husks to reflect theindigenous roots to American
(37:50):
democracy that came through theHaudenosaunee.
So why were those covered?
But now you can see them.
So you're uncovering andcovering these images that are
in conflict with one another.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
It's interesting, yeah, um, yeah, uh.
Let me pause here for a sec.
Sure, so why don't you sharefor our listeners what you see,
(38:32):
as you know, the possibilityexamining these hidden roots of
white supremacy, what, what yousee as the path toward a shared
American future?
I mean sort of you know how,how, how I mean solving our past
is way too much to to talkabout, but you know how,
(38:52):
addressing our past because thisis something my students often
ask well, what's the solution?
Right, I don't think there's asolution exactly, but I I think
there is a way forward and thatyou indicate.
I wonder if you could talkabout that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah well, you know I don't have a sterling 10-point
plan at the end of the book.
You know that we can all justfollow and solve the problems
and everyone should besuspicious if I did have such a
thing at the end of the book.
But I did learn some thingsfrom watching people on the
(39:29):
ground, like in localcommunities, and I think that
that is where I see some hope.
You know, and I do think itstarts with true telling and I
should just say we are only atthe very beginning of the
process of telling the truthright in this country like.
Just you know that we have,we've had this kind of, I think,
(39:50):
rush of energy in the last fewyears around the Black Lives
Matter movement.
That has been, you know, Ithink, like nothing I've seen in
my lifetime I was born in 1968and certainly not in my adult
lifetime have I seen that kindof energy around something, but
I think it still has.
It's a beginning, you know,point of telling the truth and
(40:13):
but you know so in the book.
I spent some time inMississippi, I spent some time
in Oklahoma and I spent sometime in Minnesota and one in
kind of three different states,but there's some commonalities
that I saw in all places andthey all involved, really, a
story like you mentioned, likeyou know, you mentioned a
graduate student that just saidI'm gonna do something right and
and started, you know, anonline petition.
(40:36):
You know, in Mississippi nowthere was a guy named Jerome
Little who was the firstAfrican-American elected county
commissioner in TallahatchieCounty in early 80s.
I think, and you know, first ofall, it's worth saying why was
he the first African-American ina half Black county?
Because until after the VotingRights Act, there were no Black
(40:59):
people registered to vote inTallahatchie County.
So they finally get enoughpeople registered to vote, elect
their first African-Americancounty commissioner.
And you know he had grown up inthat county and did not know
the story of Emmett Till andthat's where he was killed,
where his trial was, and he wasin Europe in the Marines when he
(41:21):
learned the story of EmmettTill he's like wait, that's the
county I'm from.
And then went back and saidlike we are going to tell the
truth about what happened hereand it, you know, built some
momentum and it ended up being,you know, a group of everyday
people in this county, black andwhite, to kind of tell the
story, and these weredescendants of enslaved people
(41:42):
and sharecroppers and indescendants of enslavers, you
know that really got together totell the story.
And so I, in each of the placesthey really just come down to,
people deciding in their localcontext, yeah, whether it's a
statue or the absence of a storythat should be told there, like
that's often what happens aswell.
(42:03):
You're trying to tell these,these stories across the board.
So you know, and I think thatanother reason I find hope is
that these are not easy placesMississippi, oklahoma these are
not easy places for thesestories to succeed, you know,
and yet I think they are makingsome headway, despite some of
the prevailing political winsthat are trying to, kind of, you
(42:27):
say, cover up these stories,keep these stories from emerging
.
But I do, I don't think thatthat's ultimately going to win
the day.
I mean, I do think that the newstory is coming out and
continuing to come out are goingto help help us shape, you know
, our next steps, and I thinkit's only by getting those
stories out there and us kind oftelling them that we're going
(42:49):
to be in a place to even knowwhere to go, you know, but I
think those stories are going toprovide the foundation for it.
So I'm kind of hopeful that youknow that's really where the
work has to be.
Is these, these efforts at truthtelling, because you know, back
to your that vision, you know,of the kind of shared space and
I am trying to think about that.
How do we think about, you know, what a pluralistic democracy
(43:12):
is right, sharing space, sharingresources on an equitable you
know basis.
You know those don't happen ifwe don't have the, the right
stories of how we actually gotto where we are right and you
need this cross-culturalconversation?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
yeah, because you mentioned in your book James
Baldwin you know talking aboutas, as groups of people are
being oppressed, they'restudying the oppressors and
trying to understand whatmotivates these people.
Well, the oppressor is notgiving one bit of thought to the
people they are oppressing.
Yeah, so no, understand moreabout why.
(43:49):
Yeah, I'll say this.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
So you know.
So white christian guy, againmostly british.
You know ethnicity from bothsides of my family, but you know
the thing that has like movedme, me, you mentioned Baldwin.
So you know, with the last bookI think it was Baldwin haunting
my thoughts like what does awhite christian guy from the
(44:12):
south have to say?
right to the indictment broughtby Baldwin.
And then you know, it's notjust Baldwin, of course.
I mean, it's king FrederickDouglass, like you know.
I mean, it's not, you know.
And then the other thing thatbecame so clear to me is you
know these other voices that I,frankly, didn't know before I
really started doing theresearch.
So vine to loria junior, right,yeah, uh.
(44:35):
And I mean, you know, uh,custer died for your sins.
What 1969?
Right?
Um, it's not new, um, you know.
And he writes this open letterto the christian churches of
north america in like 1972, Ithink.
Um, you know, god has read godhas read yeah right, I mean,
there are these resources thatare that have been out there for
(44:55):
half a century, calling peoplelike me to account, you know,
and I think that's, I thinkpartially.
What's happening, uh, isthere's an opening now, I think,
for that conversation to happen.
That just didn't happen 50 yearsago you know, it didn't, but
but the faithful work of thosepeople, I think, has laid the
(45:17):
groundwork for conversationsthat are just now happening
today, um.
So, and others who have, youknow, obviously followed in
their, in their, in theirfootsteps as well.
That I've learned from uh aswell.
So I, I'm, I'm hopeful thatthat cross yeah, you said the
kind of cross culturalconversation, both from voices
that are no longer with us, uh,but that rang that bell really
(45:40):
clearly when they were, um andthe ones who are, you know, with
us now, yeah, yeah, well, um,there's a little part in a
little section in my book at thebeginning, I think that's that
I, that I um, I address why thewhite guy, you know uh, why
should, why should we beinvested in these stories?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
I mean, there is the tendency, well, and I think it's
a needed lack in the academy,um, that native voices,
african-american voices, othervoices uh that are not white,
need to be uh, speaking loudlyand clearly.
But I, I don't think that meansthat, you know, white guys like
(46:25):
us uh shouldn't be involved inthose conversations, right, I
mean, I, I think it's, it's both.
And you know, um, because, asmy teacher, uh, charles H Long,
who was recently passed away,but one of the founders of the
discipline of history, religions, you know, african-american
scholar, really wrote on blackreligion, african religions, as
(46:47):
he often said, you know,everybody needs to be involved
and invested in undoingcolonialism, um, it's, it can't
be just up to, you know,enslaved Africans.
You know, uh, it can't be upjust up to Native Americans, uh,
because we, as white people,have benefited from that, that
(47:09):
legacy as well.
So, so we need to be investedin these conversations as well.
So I, I really appreciate thattoo.
Um, uh, about your writing andyour commitment to these, to
these ongoing conversations, andI do think the way forward is
through, you know, sort of onthe ground engaged education,
(47:31):
you know, you know trying totrying to approach people where
they live.
Um, I will just say we'rereally looking forward to your
coming to Syracuse for ourconference in December.
Um, you know the religiousorigins of white supremacy, the
(47:52):
doctrine of discovery andJohnson v McIntosh, uh, which is
something we didn't really talkabout here today.
But you know, johnson vMcIntosh is really what creates
a doctrinal you know umdoctrinal emphasis on civilizing
Native people through theacquisition of lands.
(48:14):
Right, and, uh, he, he, youknow so Marshall's the one that
brings into um American lawthrough the Supreme Court ruling
, the.
The doctrine of discovery isfundamental to to property title
.
That's a tough one.
You know that's going to be atough one.
We're going to need a lot ofpeople talking about that and
(48:36):
how to address that.
You know lawyers, you knowactivists of various kinds.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
So yeah you know, and you mentioned how, um, that
decision opened the floodgatesfor federal anti-Indian law to
be established, and that's whatall Native people are dealing
with now.
Are these, uh, puppet regimesof the United States silencing
the indigenous traditionalpeople in all those territories?
(49:01):
Yeah, and that's why we're in aunique place, because Anandaga
and and the Haudenosaunee stillneed, according to their
pre-colonial matrilineal clansystem, and they don't have,
like Christian, um you know,voices dictating their politics
yeah, the federal government isnot involved at Anandaga at all
(49:22):
through the BIA, so they'reunique in the country that way
too, so so it's a unique placehere.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Um that, going back to the federal anti-Indian law,
that's the title of a of a bookby Peter Dorico just recently
came out.
He's going to be here.
Finally, it's been, you know,an emeritus law professor at
Amherst, and um, and, and I mean, you know, you think about it,
beginning with mark uh,beginning with Marshall's
(49:53):
trilogy of uh, of rulings, um,you know that, um, um, that
really, that really is thebeginning of federal Indian law.
But it really is not forIndians, right?
It's not for Native people,right?
Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
It's really antagonistic to their very
existence and puppet regimesyeah yeah, you know, and the
just one comment there, I meanthe things that sort of stay
with me from that ruling.
You know, is this reference tothe superior genius of Europe,
right?
Um, and that's, that's themoral justification, right,
(50:31):
that's, that's, in a nutshell,like what it appeals to.
Um, you know that the previouspeople that they've been
convinced by the superior moralgenius of Europe that that all
of this was justified, um, youknow.
And then it goes on to say youknow, and if the country's been
founded on that principle, wecan't question it.
But that's not exactly a robustmoral or legal argument yeah,
(50:57):
civilization stands in for youknow, digitization or something
you know.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
I mean, it's like, uh , it's too obvious but everybody
, I suggest you read your book.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's so go out and just draws you right in full of
so much information and um youhave an art of storytelling.
So it's um.
They're wonderfully written, ohthank you roots of white
supremacy and the path to ashared American future.
Robert.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Jones just uh on the New York Times bestseller list,
so congratulations on that aswell, thank you the producers of
this podcast were Adam DJ Brettand Jordan Lawn Cologne.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Our intro in outro is social dancing music by oris
edwards and reaches cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
loose foundation, sir q'suniversity at Hendricks chapel
and the indigenous valuesinitiative.
If you like this episode,please check out our website and
make sure to subscribe.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.