Embark on a profound exploration with us as S. Lily Mendoza and Jim Perkinson take us through the winding paths of decolonization and the urgent quest to reconnect with the land. They illuminate the suppressed histories and indigenous cultures that beckon us to re-evaluate the civilizational narratives we've long been fed. Witness how the act of returning land plays a crucial role in healing the historic wounds inflicted upon native communities, especially around Detroit, and join our conversation as we acknowledge our collective responsibility to this shared history.
Our journey doesn't stop at intellectual discourse; we immerse ourselves in the spiritual bonds that indigenous cultures, like the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, share with nature. These traditions, which treat water as a sacred entity and embrace radical diversity, inspire us to reflect on our own cultural roots and the devastating impact of colonization. Their experiences of cultural rediscovery, alongside the tragic loss of indigenous languages in places like the Philippines, serve as a vivid reminder of the rich cultural diversity that we need to preserve and celebrate.
Navigating the complexities of Christianity's history, we grapple with its darker legacy of violence and the rise of white nationalism. This includes a critical look at how institutions, such as the prison industrial complex, perpetuate racial injustice, and economic exploitation. We honor the resistance that has emerged from within religious traditions, highlighting the courageous alignment with indigenous peoples against imperialistic forces. Our dialogue, enriched by the Henry Luce Foundation, Syracuse University, Hendricks Chapel, and the Indigenous Values Initiative, underscores the vital collaboration between indigenous wisdom and academic research, aiming to foster a better understanding and respect for the myriad of perspectives that shape our world.
View the transcript and show notes at podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org. Learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery on our site DoctrineofDiscovery.org.
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Episode Transcript
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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 Haudenosaunee
, the indigenous peoples onwhose ancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands, and nowintroducing your hosts, phil
(00:27):
Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back everyone to Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery.
My name is Philip Arnold, I'm afaculty member in the
Department of Religion atSyracuse University, core
faculty in Native AmericanIndigenous Studies, and I'm here
with and I'm Sandy Bigtree, acitizen of the Mohawk Nation at
Akwesasne.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I grew up, however, just a couple miles north of the
Onondaga Nation and live on theunceded lands of the Onondaga.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
And this podcast is sponsored by Henry Luce
Foundation Really appreciate alltheir help and support in this
important work.
Today we have some really oldfriends and special guests.
First we have and I'm going toask you to introduce yourselves,
because that's probably thebest and easiest way for our
(01:25):
folks here that listen to thepodcast to understand who you
are S Lily Mendoza and JimPerkinson, both faculty members
in Michigan, my old stompingground and one of the reasons
why I'm really interested inhaving this discussion today.
(01:47):
But can you introduce yourselfto our audience, lily?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Maya Payabak Keikongan Diri nanda kayong.
Maya Payatu Ako I Lily Mendoza,anak ng Horatio Mendoza, at
Esperanza Luna.
Good morning to everyone thatis from my Kapampangan, native
tongue.
I was born and raised in thePhilippines, in the land of the
(02:15):
Aita peoples and in a provincecalled Pampanga, by the
riverbank, and I'm here inWawiatanong, the crooked way of
the river, home of theAnishinaabe people, swayan, the
Turon Fox, miami, and so inDetroit and I teach.
I'm a professor of culture andcommunication at Oakland
(02:40):
University and also executivedirector of the Center for
Babilan Studies, which is amovement among the esporic
Filipinos committed todecolonization and
indigenization.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Thank you and Jim yes , jim Perkinson, I can only do
this in English.
I could improvise in Spanish,but that's about it grew up in
Cincinnati, shawnee Territory,and now for more than 35 years
here at Wawiakanaong, as my babyspoke just a minute ago in
(03:19):
introducing herself.
I won't reiterate that, but doacknowledge that ancestry here
and struggling out of those 35years of being rearranged by
inner city black culture withLily Mendoza in 2001 and having
(03:51):
to engage a whole other rite ofongoing initiation into Filipino
culture, the first officialcolony that settler, colonial
state United States ever tookelsewhere.
And I teach at an inner cityseminary that over my 25 years
there has become more reflectiveof Detroit itself.
(04:11):
It's located in the inner cityand is now overwhelmingly
African-American.
And I have also taught part-timeout at Oakland where Lily
teaches race and communication,hip-hop, race in the city, et
cetera.
I do spoken word poetry.
I'm an activist in the city,particularly in the last eight
(04:35):
years pushing back on watershutoffs and the struggle over
the human right of water andlearning that water actually
first of all belongs to herself.
She is her own creature.
So all of that is ongoinginitiation, rearrangement for me
(04:56):
as white male, being greatlygifted with all of that input
and constant checking giftedwith all of that input and
constant checking.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So full disclosure.
Jim and I went to graduateschool at the University of
Chicago together.
We've been, we've, you know,met up at various points in our
career, although we're very, invery different kind of circles.
In some ways We've kept intouch.
And you know, both of you gavereally thrilling papers at the
(05:32):
conference, the Doctrine ofDiscovery conference, which was
titled Religious Origins ofWhite Supremacy no-transcript,
(06:12):
and so the conference was really.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
it felt like home.
It felt like home to me and Ithink it's for me in my own
journeying.
I find that there has to be atwo-step process for those who
are wishing to get on this pathof not just decolonizing but
(06:43):
being schooled by a differentvision of how to be a human
being on this earth, and that is, it's not just about learning
from indigenous people andrecovering our own sense of
(07:08):
ancestral reconnection, but alsounderstanding the
civilizational narrative thatserves as a log in our eyes in
terms of understanding theradical difference between
indigenous ways of being andwhat we have been schooled by,
(07:31):
which is being thoroughlyimmersed in this narrative of
progress and civilization, etcetera.
As Charles Solomon has said,there is no word that is more
vague and has been permitted tocommit more crimes than that
(07:51):
term civilization.
And so, yeah, I was reallyheartened by the presentations
that I listened to at theconference.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yes, for me, being in Syracuse with Phil and Sandy
and Steve Newcomb and the wholecrew of folk was a real gift and
not something I take forgranted, a great honor and a
responsibility to live up to,and I enjoyed the presentations,
enjoyed getting to know somefolk after hours.
(08:32):
And where I think we need to gofor me is pushing through white
supremacy back to Christiansupremacy.
I would understand whitesupremacy as a kind of offspring
of Christian supremacy, goingall the way back to Roman times
(08:57):
and even then back behind thatto what Lily was talking about
civilizational supremacy.
What Lily was talking aboutcivilizational supremacy and how
to for me, how to do that herein Detroit.
We'll talk about it as thepodcast goes on, but most of my
work up until meeting Lily wasdealing with whiteness in
(09:22):
relationship to blackness andpushing back on other white folk
about that, about the whitesupremacy piece.
With her, it's been a matter ofpushing in a sense, underneath
that to deeper history anddeeper disappearance, the
genocidal eclipse of native folk, three Fires, folk in this area
(09:44):
, as well as Wendat Huron thatstill are present here, and the
question about land return.
That remains a throbbing, achingquestion that I think needs to
be the lodestone for all of ouractivity of social resistance
and pushing for a differentworld, and part and parcel of
(10:07):
that is learning, relearningrelationship with the more than
human world.
For me, when I go outside thedoor barefoot and wiggle my toes
in the soil, I understandinvisibly running between my
toes and the soil is a river ofblood that I don't have the
right just to relate to the landwhere I am and recover ways of
(10:34):
belonging to the land, as WinonaLaDuke might say.
But I have to first payattention to the indigenous folk
, in this case the Three Firesfolk who were disappeared from
so much of this land, and get inrelationship to those who
remain.
And I'm only here by permission, not by any title or property
(10:59):
right, and so I try to integratethat into my teaching and
understand that as a hugeongoing agenda.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It kind of connects to what Lily was saying.
You just can't go back andexperience being indigenous.
It's like well, Charles Longwould talk about digging through
the history.
You have to understandcolonialism, and it's so much
baggage there that there is noway you're going to ever
(11:34):
experience indigeneity with theland.
Right.
But future generations may, andthat's really an indigenous
precept anyway that you live forseven generations, and so it's
being actively involved in thisprocess of decolonization and
reconnecting with the earth.
(11:55):
We're really doing this for theseventh generation to come.
We may see very little of aneffect in the work that we do,
and it's difficult work and it'svery upsetting work every day,
right.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
And if I can jump in Sandy in response, part of the
process for me own recovering ofa sense of indigeneity is
making visible the defaultconditioning right, because the
(12:34):
narrative of modernity andcivilization is so naturalized
that we don't think about it.
It's the default assumption ofwhat it means to live a good
life, of what it means to be ahuman being.
And so when we encounter otherways of life and for example,
(13:01):
when I was little, I wouldencounter the Aita people, and
because they no longer live intheir intact communities, I
could only see them as pitiful,as primitive, as backward, as
(13:22):
representing our past that wecan no longer go back to and
shouldn't even wish.
We can't even imagine longingfor that way of life.
We ran away from it.
But my own transformation cameabout when I was sitting in an
(13:43):
ethnomusicology class and forthe first time I encountered the
richness of Indigenous lifesince that colonial lens.
You know the amazing weavingdesigns, the architecture that
(14:04):
doesn't use any nails right, thebasketry, the dances, and that
was what broke me open to thatworld and I said, wow, why then,
if this were our people, whyare we looked upon as backward
(14:31):
and primitive?
Where does that come from?
And so that started me on thatpath of understanding.
What are our defaultassumptions about what a human
being is supposed to be?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Well, it was a propaganda campaign that the
United States implemented on theFilipinos in all over Southeast
Asia to gain a stronghold atthe turn of the 20th century,
and they used much of the samekind of campaign propaganda
campaign they used to settle theUnited States and portraying
(15:10):
Filipinos as savages.
They used similar iconographiesand cartoon characters and
teaching everybody aboutindigeneity being below human,
subhuman.
What's the book?
The Imperial Cruise was areally excellent book to read on
that subject, right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Teddy Roosevelt Traveled with.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Chad and several congressmen were on this cruise
and it was just ushering forththis smear campaign so they
could acquire stronghold.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
That really helped us understand what was happening,
and the foundation of thatnarrative is on a separation
from the land, because living onthe land is seen as merely
being an animal, as if being ananimal were an insult, were an
(16:08):
insult right.
And so people who are stillliving subsistence lives,
lifestyles, are deemed as livinglike animals.
That's why, when they came,they would say the land is empty
right, because they're justpart of the flora and fauna.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Except for all the resources Right, exactly Even in
that concept of naturalresources Right.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Exactly Even in that concept of natural resources.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You have built in this idea of development and
progress.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And an indigenous way of living with the earth is in
the way.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
It's a hind struggle with the shadow side of my
ancestry and learning how to ownthat honor, that let it have
space in my body but then opento another way of being a human,
like Lily is talking about.
(17:12):
Initially, for me, learned fromAfrican-American folk, ordinary
low-income folk, using thememories and the continued
bodily expression of theirtraditions coming out of West
and Central Africa, using apercussive vocabulary,
especially not just in musicsbut in everyday interaction on
(17:33):
the street corner, on thebasketball court, in the beauty
salon.
Ways of arranging fabric on thebody that are right, primal
colors juxtaposed that slap youreyeball awake from 50 yards
away.
All of that once.
It took me eight years to getto the point where I could even
start to see the incrediblecreativity of that way of
(17:56):
engaging reality.
A call response, communal ethos, probing an impossible
situation, making desperationyield beauty in spite of itself.
Once I saw it, I fell in lovewith it.
It began to rearrange me.
It comes out as spoken wordpoetry.
But it's not mine to take, it'smine to, yes, participate in to
(18:17):
the degree I have permission,but stay in relationship with
actual black folk who can sayJim, uh-uh, you're going too far
, halt, stop, don't steal.
And that's been the deepesteducation in my life black anger
and black humor that rearrangedmolecules.
But then also learning fromindigenous folk right here, a
(18:41):
whole nother way, and then inthe Philippines, yet another way
of being a human being that ismore embedded in land and
learning from the plants andanimals and soils and seasons
and weather and waters.
And, for me, being involved inpushing back on the water shut
off episode in Detroit, startingin 2014 and then 2015, a walk
(19:06):
to join the water struggle inDetroit with the water struggle
in Flint, starting at Plaza onthe Flint, starting at the Plaza
on the Detroit River, whereMona Stonefish, an Anishinaabe
water-walking woman, pulled upsome water and talked to it and
talked about her people's way ofrelating to water, where it is
the sole prerogative of women,and that pushed me then to have
(19:30):
to ask questions, not just aboutwater as a human right but, as
I said earlier, water asbelonging to herself, as a
living, spiritual creature,animate force.
And then taking that to go backinto my own Christian formation
and my own Indo-Europeanformation and going back to
(19:52):
Ireland particularly, andlearning some of the indigenous
traditions there the only colonyin Europe colonized by Great
Britain or by England, reallyand learning some of the deep
land relationships there that Ican't claim immediately but they
(20:15):
are there at some level back inmy DNA, and learn the traces
and the memories, the myths, therituals, the foods, the songs
that I can partially letrearrange me.
And in all of that then it'snot just an experience of
dealing with shame and horror,but it's also astonishment and
(20:39):
beauty and falling in love withsomething that's very different
than I grew up with, and havingthat as an animating force.
Fabulous, yeah, well put.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah.
Very well put and, um, you know,there's so many things to so
many threads to take up here.
Um, one of the things that hasreally struck me lately in
teaching is how, how goodindigenous people are at
diversity, right, um, it'ssomething that we don't do well,
(21:10):
uh, with, in spite of ourlanguage, in spite of our
constitutional reinforcementsfor religious diversity or, you
know, ethnic and racialdiversity, all those kinds of
buzzwords don't do it as well asindigenous peoples, you know.
I mean, you know, among theHaudenosaunee there is something
(21:38):
called the edge of the woodsceremony.
I mean, they're really finelyattuned to welcoming people into
their communities that haveentirely different languages,
entirely different worldviews,that live like 50 miles away.
You know, I mean it's that kindof radical diversity, because
those people over there, 50miles away, they know their
(21:58):
deities, they know their spiritsand the, the spiritual beings
that reside in that place, andwhenever somebody goes and
visits, as we always do, theyhave to, as the Taradajo says,
wipe them down, really addresstheir sorrows and their
(22:19):
struggles, you know, and all ofthose things that we all carry
with us.
And so the Edge of the Woodsceremony, back in Boulder,
colorado, that was one of thethings that really attracted me
to the Haudenosaunee, as anundergrad, that, and Sandy
Bigtree, but we were, you know,that kind of way of grappling
(22:41):
with the human condition aspeople present themselves, as
people are in the world ratherthan as they should be, or
something which you know I mean.
It just becomes much moreenlivening to have that kind of
framework to work in.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Well, when the earth identifies you through your
clanship, you know you are theearth, the water you belong to
the water.
You belong to the earth.
The earth is diverse and it'sforever changing.
The water's shifting Speciesmove and, you know, interact
(23:22):
with one another.
So when you pay attention andyou're of the earth, diversity
is a natural way of being in theworld.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
And that's what I realized is the stuff of real
culture.
Real cultures are not justhuman inventions.
They're worked out in veryintimate relationship with
particular ecologies and theydon't presume to universalize
(23:51):
their local relationship,because they understand that
other places require differentedge of the.
Did you say edge of the villagedifferent?
You're having to negotiate thatedge instead of imposing it,
(24:37):
and I think, imposing your ownto the other, and I think that's
what Christianity did acrossthe globe when it came, it had
and it was particularlydevastating in the Philippines,
because we quickly learnedEnglish and, because of our
(25:02):
modern education, had for itsofficial language English right,
and so the missionaries thatwould come didn't have to learn
any of our indigenous languages.
They couldn't do that inIndonesia or Malaysia, so there
was not even an attempt attranslation of trying to see how
(25:27):
the spirit of Christianitycould be incarnated within this
context.
There was no such, and so thecolonization of Filipinos
becomes rather profound, verydeep, rather profound, very deep
(25:53):
.
They say that the Spaniardswere more interested in
catechism, they were not verysystematic, but the states, the
United States, the Americans,really, really built in the
colonial ideology and the whitesupremacy within our modern
(26:17):
education system.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Absolutely and that's one of the reasons I mentioned
diversity, lily, is because, youknow, the Philippines are just
this radically diverse place.
Yes, culturally radicallydiverse place, culturally
radically diverse.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Over a hundred ethno-linguistic communities.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's amazing how do you navigate all of that?
You know it must've been.
There were these protocols thatwere in place before
colonialism, before the?
You know attempts atunification, which I think
you're still struggling withthere, and I you know attempts
at unification, which I thinkyou're still struggling with
there.
And you know, I don't know, Idon't know if you can tell us a
little bit about that, or theremust have been all of these.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah, they were blood compact.
You know when they would havepeace treaties with each other.
There has been a lot ofinter-island trading that was
going on even before the comingof Spain.
But then, when you have anexternal power, come in and then
(27:28):
impose its own requerimientoright, impose its own protocol
and say this is the only way,then it runs roughshod all of
this intricate negotiations thatwere already happening with one
(27:53):
another.
So there was really no onenation right.
What brought about thePhilippines as a nation state is
the resistance to colonizationdistance to colonization, and it
becomes a struggle todaybecause now you have Manila
(28:19):
they're talking about Manila,imperialism right where you have
all of these ethno-linguisticcommunities with their own
diverse ways of diverselanguages, diverse cultures, and
(28:48):
having to have a nationalizedidentity that's premised on the
most urbanized, the center right, and the rest become periphery
pretty much, and so theviability of a nation state I
question even the viability of,because all nation states have
their own internal minorities.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
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If so, please check our websiteat
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listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think that, yeah, what we're talking about really
is the radical democratic if youlike, radical democratic
framework of indigenous peoples.
Right, you know that they're,and this is what inspired the
founding fathers.
Oddly enough, you know and yousee that here in Haudenosaunee
territory.
So this whole colonial historyis this chock full of these
(29:52):
ironies you know of.
You know, friendship,inspiration, those kinds of
issues.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It was radical when the first treaty with the Dutch
was called the Two Row Wampumand it was that the colonist
ship would sail down one row andthen the Haudenosaunee would
row down the other river intheir canoe and they would never
interfere with one another andrespect each other down the
(30:24):
river of life.
And the colonists see that aswell.
You're going to stay out of ouraffairs and you know we can do
what we want and we won'tinterfere with your way, not
even talk to you as a matter offact.
We'll just like plow in thereand take over everything.
The concept they didn'tunderstand the colonists was the
(30:46):
river of life.
You're both sailing in parallel, not interfering with one
another, down the river of life.
You're both sailing in parallel, not interfering with one
another down the river of life.
And if you don't respect beingpart of this force, then you're
missing the whole concept of thetwo row.
And that's what the Edge of theWoods ceremony is about.
There's a certain protocol whenyou bring someone as close as a
(31:09):
few miles from your territoryinto your territory, because
you're still, your languages arestill a little different, you
have different ecosystems andyou're not interfering with
theirs.
They're not interfering withyou.
So there's protocol when youmeet and talk right but you have
respect for the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I mean, you know the woods are the the basis of that
relationship or you have respectfor the water of the river of
life, like Jim was talking about, right, so the water, we have
to have this.
There are certain kind ofuniversals sort of built into
this in a way, but they're notideological, ideological
frameworks, and I kind of wantedto pick up on that, jim,
(31:50):
because your work on pushingback against white nationalism,
white Christian supremacy, hasbeen really inspirational to me
and I think it's of my graduatestudents as a kind of setup here
(32:10):
.
One of my graduate studentslast semester came in with a
shocking statistic that it's menlike us, white cisgender men
like us that are committingsuicide at higher rates than any
other ethnic racial group.
That is, 60 and above.
Right, that's us.
(32:30):
So I mean know it's, it ispersonal, you know, and I'm I'm
wondering you know how you workwith that in your, in your work
in the classroom?
Speaker 5 (32:42):
uh, you know, and uh, in the neighborhood, yeah, so
the what you're saying about theedge of the woods ritual
ceremony original diversity Iwould call it biodiversity is
what I'm learning thatindigenous folk understood that
the more than human world wasalready modeling how to handle
(33:03):
diversity and you needed tolearn from that and collaborate
with that, and that's exactlywhat I now try to do with
Christianity.
So, yeah, I'm a cisgenderedwhite guy and, on some days, a
Christian.
Some days Christianity is45,000 denominations on the face
(33:24):
of the planet right now.
So what is Christianity?
Who says?
And I'm not particularlyinterested in preserving
Christianity per se.
I am interested in preservingthe memory that Christianity
encodes in its root, which isactually not Christian but
(33:45):
Jewish, and the memory thatJudaism encodes in its root,
(34:16):
which is not particularly place,which are valid there but not
universalizable and not validelsewhere, and to push for a
Christianity that would recoverdown in there, back behind there
, its own indigenous roots thathave their own wonderment and
(34:37):
their own incredible beauty,like the Sabbath Jubilee
tradition of learning from theland, when Moses led the crew
out from Egypt and they had torelearn how to be human and did
so in relationship to Midianite.
Pastoral nomads learned to eataphid defecation that's called
(35:00):
manna in Hebrew Aphids are scaleinsects that eat tamarisk
leaves and poop 130% their bodyweight every hour.
That puddles at the base of thetree that is scooped up by Arab
Bedouin today in the area andcalled man.
It's a carbohydrate to keep youalive.
And so for 40 years they werehaving empire and urban
(35:25):
aggression gradually debridedout of them and relearning the
land through their herd animalsand only in that way sort of
re-indigenizing into the areathere but that's only valid
(35:46):
there and then joining up whenthey eventually crossed the
Jordan River from east to west,with rebellious Canaanite
peasants who were fleeing thecity-state systems on the
Mediterranean seaboard.
And so they become this verymixed thing called Israel, and
the L part of the name is aCanaanite high god, a storm god,
(36:09):
a god of water, like Sandy wastalking about, and the Sabbath
jubilee tradition that'selaborated out of all that
wilderness wandering experienceprobably was dictated to them by
the rains, the rains that comeand end the summer drought,
(36:31):
regularly in September andOctober, celebrated in the Feast
of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths,which is a rain ceremony,
originally longing for theMediterranean storms to blow off
the Mediterranean and end theSiroccoan drought coming up from
the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia,coming up from the Hejaz in
(36:51):
Saudi Arabia, and they do thatregularly for about six years at
a time, sometimes seven years,and then they go AWOL.
It's like the rains say to thehuman community there we know
you need us for your small-scaleagriculture and your animal
life, so we'll come regularly,we'll cooperate with you, but
(37:13):
every seventh year or so we'regoing to do our own thing.
We're going to go and be on ourown rhythm and time and cycle
and you'll have to deal withthat by returning to a much more
vulnerable relationship withthe land, and then we'll come
back and cooperate with youagain for another six years.
So this seven, this emphasis onseven days, seventh month,
(37:36):
seven years, may well have beensomething the original folk
there learned from the rain.
So it's that kind of stuff thatI try to now teach in the
seminary and again to awakenastonishment but also to say but
that only applies there.
And if Christianity is going togo elsewhere, what it has to do
(38:01):
is listen to the people whoknow their elsewheres, know the
codification, the language, theculture, the deities, as you
said, phil, of that place.
The woods are different fromthe savannah and you don't have
permission to enter into anotherspace until you ask the people
(38:23):
who know that space and then,even if you get permission, you
need to learn the beauty, thespirituality, the creatures that
are there.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, I love Michigan and and you know, the urgency
of our moment is to protect thewater, and I grew up loving the
lakes and the Great Lakes andbeing fearful of them and all
that sort of thing.
So what you're saying reallyresonates with me as a
(38:58):
Michigander as well, reallyresonates with me as a
Michigander as well.
I think you're uniquely.
Both of you are teaching verypowerful topics, really
demonstrating the value ofreligious studies in different
kinds of ways and, to speak tothe urgency of our moment as
well, I've always felt, and witha greater sense of longing in a
(39:24):
way, that we need to protectthe Great Lakes, we need to
protect those waters.
That's what we have, that's ourresponsibility, and what you're
both saying in different ways,is kind of like how we, in
history of religions andtheology, can participate in
that work, what it means to be awater protector just where we
(39:53):
are, and I think that'ssomething we share because we're
also, you know, among the GreatLakes here in New York State.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
It's difficult, though, when you're entering,
like a Christian community.
The first time I visited Phil'sparents' cottage up at Crystal
Lake.
We're driving up there and I'mexcited you know, anticipating
this to see this beautiful lakethey're all talking about, and
as we're getting into the accessroads, one is called Seychem
Court, and then there'sOngweonwe, which is our word for
(40:26):
the real people, and so we'redriving down and already I'm
like offset right.
And then there's one mansionafter the next mansion, log
cabin, it's all varieties on thebeautiful, beautiful access we
reach the family.
You know, log cabin it's themost modest, little you modest
little lodging on the entirelake but it's beautiful.
(40:47):
But you know I'm already setback and it's so hard to talk
about anything once you gothrough that entry.
There's there's no reallywelcoming you and respecting who
.
You are coming into such aplace.
You have to adapt coming intothat place.
(41:08):
And I felt all of that.
You know, just with that firstlittle drive like kit log cabin
that still stands there.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's like one bedroom , you know a loft.
It's probably, I don't know,300, like 400 square feet right
the year you were born yeah,right.
So it was like I've been goingup there my whole life, but now
it's surrounded by mcmansions.
You know like you know you'vegot because it's such a
beautiful lake.
The Frankfort area is a lovelyplace, but you know, our little
log cabin still sits there.
(41:47):
You know, I'm sure ourneighbors hate us, but you know
it's well kept.
But it was originally thisDisciples of Christ camp that
was given to them by therailroad, you know just to kind
of locate this in a way right,you know, right between in the
kind of interlocking betweenLake Michigan and Crystal Lake.
(42:11):
So since then things havedeveloped, but the camp remains,
even though, for example, thedisciples have repudiated the
doctrine of discovery.
I find that nobody seems toknow what that means in our
little world.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Or really care.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Or really cares, because it just sort of
interrupts the.
You know it's a little like hey, you get off my cloud.
You know, remember the oldRolling Stones song, you know,
it's like, it's like don't messwith my utopia.
You know, and it's beeninteresting, having gone up
there my whole life, to see thisarc of these beautiful lakes,
(42:53):
you know, and the things thatthey've gone through.
But then also the people, justjust I mean they're probably
liberal, well-meaning people,you know, as opposed to many of
the other rural counties inupstate Michigan, but still they
just don't have a clue.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
They're so content with their beautiful lakeside
cottages.
They're beautiful lakesidecottages.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and it's a challenge, because I think the
form of Christianity that you'retalking about is just so
foreign to them.
But on the other hand, theiridea of Christianity is dying.
Like I said, we go to myparents' church in East Lansing
and they're considering sellingit, you know, because nobody's
(43:45):
attending, nobody's coming thereanymore.
So even in the face of thiskind of inevitable death that
Christianity is going through inmany denominations, there's not
this sense that did we getsomething wrong?
Speaker 3 (44:04):
there's not this sense that.
Did we get something wrong oryou know?
No, I'd like to clarify.
We went to that church once in10 years to be with your parents
.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
We don't know yes, and now, and and there was a
transgender woman that was thepastor at the, at the church,
and my parents, who are in their90s, are are just like they're,
they're, they're.
They had to sit us down and say, now, this is not the church
you grew up in, phil.
And then they said we have atransgender pastor.
And then Sandy and I said wewant to go.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, it's like hallelujah right let's break
this thing apart.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I often say and I thinkLily should weigh in here
quickly too I often say that Ithink history would have been
better off without Christianitytraditions.
(45:02):
There are more dead bodies atthe feet of Christianity than
any other major world religionon the planet.
Other world religions, onceindigenous religious traditions,
get gathered up to serve anurban elite that is bent on
aggression.
They also have participated inall kinds of domination,
violence, genocide, butChristianity, I think, takes the
(45:24):
prize at this point in time.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
And maybe the most insidious.
So sneaky, yeah, most insidious.
They're so sneaky about it andbrutal at the same time.
Speaker 5 (45:38):
So I teach that the Bible is the most dangerous book
on the planet.
It's authorized more genocide,enslavement, rape, pillage and
plunder than any other book.
And if you're going to be aChristian, the first thing
you've got to do is learn thathistory, own it, understand it,
be repulsed by it, be humiliatedor humbled by it, and figure
(46:00):
out what then to do.
Coming out the other side ofthat kind of deep work and it's
not just a matter of processingit in your head, it's a matter
of letting it down in your bellyand into your body, so that you
are horrified and deeplydisturbed by it all in
relationship to some group ofpeople who've suffered the other
(46:21):
side of it.
All in relationship to somegroup of people who've suffered
the other side of it, becauseuntil it gets social in
relationship, it's just an ideaand the reality is the trauma is
all around us, up inside us too.
Like Bill was saying, now whitemen, particularly working and
lower middle class men, are faceto face with their utter
(46:44):
emptiness, white supremacyhaving given them nothing to be
proud of or to be astonished by.
And what do they do?
There's no way to communalizeanything worthy.
I think that's right.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And grief is always seen as a weakness in this
culture and Christianity.
It shows a weakness in yourfaith if you're depressed, or
it's just a no-win situation.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Maybe you could talk a little bit about white
Christian nationalism in thePhilippines as well, because we
know that.
I mean it's on the riseeverywhere, you know.
But one of the things I like totell my students is that if you
don't understand religion andyou don't understand the history
that Jim is talking about, thenyou really don't know what's
(47:43):
going on in the world right now.
You know, I mean it's justliterally everywhere.
I mean yesterday we went by apickup truck that was belching
smoke.
You know, and that's a symbolof, you know, the apocalypse.
I mean somebody embracing thiskind of apocalyptic idea of you
(48:07):
know the world is going to end,so let's make it end sooner,
sort of thing, right?
And I think you know there's somany indicators of how white
Christian extremism, nationalism, is expressing itself.
I wonder if you can wade in onwhat's happening in the
(48:28):
Philippines as well.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Yeah, there are so many threads that I wanted to
jump in on.
But yeah, there is this notionin the Philippines that we don't
have racism there just becausewe're all brown skin.
You know, it's not your typicalwhite settler colony like
(48:53):
Australia, for example, or theUS, but I actually wrote a piece
on it questioning that notionthat there's no racism Because
our racism is through anda-vis,our indigenous people, and it's
(49:56):
more in Kuwait in the sense thatit's the civilizational
supremacy that is embedded inthe discourse of progress and
development and modernity.
So what is happening throughoutthe Philippines now is all the
indigenous places are beingturned into tourist places,
(50:26):
places and like, for example, inmy home province, they're
building a new Clark City.
This is where the US militarybases used to be and that is the
homeland of the Aita people,and so the Aita are saying we
used to roam these places freely.
Now they're saying we can't gothere.
They confine us to thesemarginal places.
(50:49):
What are we supposed to do?
And so I'm really my heartbreakis towards the way in which the
same colonial logic that hasbeen imposed on us by foreign
rulers is being imposed on ourindigenous peoples.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Well, it's been suggested that we talk a little
more about the criminal state,the violence against criminals
and how that plays into anetwork of Christian domination
and civilizational supremacy.
And I know, jim, you've beenworking in that area of the
(51:30):
incarceration state and you haveto in your work and I wonder
how those two things you knowkind of kind of connect.
You know white Christiansupremacy and the, and you know,
in the overwhelming numbers ofincarcerations in the African
(51:54):
American population.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
Yeah, be in effect a pre-police force militia,
(52:28):
pre-police force militia, armedto be on the lookout for
continuing to survive NativeAmericans and runaway slaves,
enslaved Africans, and ourmodern day police force grows
out of that in this country andthis idea that a gun is a
prosthesis of white maleidentity.
I'm going to get my figureswrong here, but overwhelmingly
(53:08):
the great percentage is whitemales and it's a continuing
legacy of being on hunt forbodies that you're going to
criminalize, in fact alreadyhave rendered property anybody
who has dark skin.
Yes, you initially, once youcome over, clear native folk off
(53:30):
the land genocidally, either bykilling them, infecting them or
pushing them west, and thenreach into Africa and pull over
the new labor force that youshackle.
But you also work with languageso that black skin becomes a
shackle.
You can't peel off if you getthe iron shackle off, and then
you monitor it with a gun on thepart of all the white males,
(53:54):
and that continues to be thevalid form of enslavement in our
culture.
The Netflix video 13th runsthrough the way.
The 13th Amendment eliminatedslavery except in the case of
committing a crime, and then itcontinues and legitimizes
(54:15):
slavery in that instance.
And so now, yeah, you have, youknow, the civil rights movement
and black power movements andthe eruption of cities in the
North in the 60s, black folkemerging in a new public
dimension of assertiveness.
And the response is to take theprison industrial complex from
(54:43):
what it was doing in 1970, whichis incarcerating 300,000 folk,
to incarcerating 2.3 million bythe early 90s, overwhelmingly
dark-skinned bodies.
And you then create anindustrial complex around it so
(55:05):
that all kinds of folk,particularly white folk, but not
just white folk, have theirlivelihood connected with that
serving that complex ofincarceration.
And so it's one more form ofcapitalizing on black and brown
bodies and, yes, red bodies here, but also up in Canada.
It's one more form ofcapitalizing on black and brown
bodies and, and, yes, red bodieshere, but also up in Canada,
(55:26):
their version of it thatcontinues the, the economic
exploitation.
So it's, yes, it's, it'scriminalization in the sense of,
uh, negatively perceivingbroadcasting, a cultural habit
of negatively perceiving darkskin, but then you make that
(55:50):
yield economic benefit throughthis great big complex.
One more time, the other thing Iwould say is that Christianity
and Judaism, both are camped outon outlaws.
All the major figures wereoutlaw.
Moses was an outlaw.
He had to go OG from Egypthaving, you know, killed an
(56:14):
Egyptian overseer and theprocess of advocating for a
Hebrew slave.
So he has to exit with a priceon his head.
John the Baptist beheaded,jesus crucified.
All of the early the innercircle didn't make it to old age
.
Being criminal with respect tothe political state that you are
(56:38):
part of is the vocation of alegitimate Christianity.
Now, if you're in an indigenoussituation, that's not what you
do.
You learn.
You sit back and shut up andlearn from the people of the
land, but if you're embedded inan empire, then you better be
resistant.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
That's exactly what happened in Haudenosaunee
territory.
I mean, here they're consultingwith the founding fathers about
the great law of peace, anothervision, another way of living,
and then Washington, during theRevolutionary War, issues forth
this scorched earth campaign toburn out all the crops and
villages of the Haudenosaunee,and they had to flee their
homelands.
(57:17):
And then, when they return most, all of their land is taken.
And then, when they return most, all of their land is taken and
it's been assigned to all themilitary army right, the
sergeants, the generals andeverybody is allotted a piece of
land.
So in being paid off with land,washington establishes a
(57:37):
military state in Haudenosauneeland.
So that's the beginning of thatpolice force, right, and
they're all armed becausethey're soldiers.
There's a reason why we're theempire state Exactly.
Speaker 5 (57:51):
Yeah yeah, maybe it looks like Adam has a question
for you on this.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, I'm just reading his message here.
In the Philippines, presidentBombo Marcos has continued the
policies of the Tertus War.
Is there a civil rightsmovement in the Philippines
fighting for abolition andagainst the prison industrial
complex there?
There?
(58:27):
I wish I was really up on thepolitics in the homeland in this
regard.
I know that there are a numberof progressive movements and
feminist women's movements.
I have been focused for most ofmy work on what is going on
with Indigenous peoples, and soI wish I could speak to that.
Speaker 5 (58:45):
To what degree are Indigenous folks criminalized,
babe?
Speaker 4 (58:50):
Oh yeah, Well, we have one of the highest
extrajudicial killing rates nextto Brazil or at some point I
think we have surpassed Brazilin terms of the killing of
(59:10):
indigenous land defenders, andthat is still going on.
We have Canadian miningcompanies, we have all kinds of
corporations now loggingcompanies that are in indigenous
territories, and it's notstopping.
(59:30):
It's not stopping.
And a while ago I wanted tointroduce a wrinkle in regard to
Christianity being a curse,almost like a curse on the
planet.
Well, in the Philippines weactually have some progressive
(59:55):
Jesuit and other priests who areworking with indigenous
communities to serve like somekind of a buffer, because
there's a lot of red tagging,you know, indigenous land
defenders being accused of beingcharged with being communists,
(01:00:18):
and so some of the progressivepriests put their bodies on the
line and serve as some kind of alayer of protection for folks.
They themselves became schooledin the people's ways, so that
(01:00:44):
the education is not reallytoward missionizing right, but
then themselves having to learnand to be tutored by indigenous
communities.
So that's just something that Iknow is is laudable.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Yeah, yeah, being a buffer, yeah.
I think one thing that we'vecome to appreciate doing this
work over the last 15 plus yearson the doctrine of discovery is
how unifying it is right.
So you know, in spite of thefact that we're visiting this
(01:01:27):
terrible legacy, these awfulevents and occasions throughout
history, I think you know thatyou know one of the signs of
hope following your littlewrinkle there, lily, is that you
know it does bring us togetherin a variety of ways around a
(01:01:52):
common trauma, common issue.
Some of us are more aware of itthan others, some of us feel it
more keenly than others, andit's not always comfortable in
our conferences, but it's always.
There's a lot of energy,there's a lot of commitment.
You know people areunderstanding this message and I
(01:02:17):
want to thank you both.
You're one of the kind of powercouples I think of that are
doing work across a kind of vastarray of topics and issues in
the history of religions and inindigenous studies, and I really
appreciate you both, I thinkfor both of us really appreciate
(01:02:41):
this conversation and justthank you, thank you.
Thank you for having us For sure, the kind of power couples I
think of in that are doing workacross, you know kind of vast
array of topics and issues in inthe history of religions and
(01:03:02):
and in indigenous studies, and Ireally appreciate you both, I
think, for both of us reallyappreciate this conversation and
just thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and
Jordan Lone Colon.
Our intro and outro is socialdancing music by Oris Edwards
and Regis Cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
Luce Foundation, syracuseUniversity and Hendricks Chapel
and the Indigenous ValuesInitiative.
If you like this episode,please check out our website and
(01:03:40):
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 Haudenosaunee
, the indigenous peoples onwhose ancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands, and nowintroducing your hosts, phil
(00:27):
Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back everyone to Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery.
My name is Philip Arnold, I'm afaculty member in the
Department of Religion atSyracuse University, core
faculty in Native AmericanIndigenous Studies, and I'm here
with and I'm Sandy Bigtree, acitizen of the Mohawk Nation at
Akwesasne.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I grew up, however, just a couple miles north of the
Onondaga Nation and live on theunceded lands of the Onondaga.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
And this podcast is sponsored by Henry Luce
Foundation Really appreciate alltheir help and support in this
important work.
Today we have some really oldfriends and special guests.
First we have and I'm going toask you to introduce yourselves,
because that's probably thebest and easiest way for our
(01:25):
folks here that listen to thepodcast to understand who you
are S Lily Mendoza and JimPerkinson, both faculty members
in Michigan, my old stompingground and one of the reasons
why I'm really interested inhaving this discussion today.
(01:47):
But can you introduce yourselfto our audience, lily?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Maya Payabak Keikongan Diri nanda kayong.
Maya Payatu Ako I Lily Mendoza,anak ng Horatio Mendoza, at
Esperanza Luna.
Good morning to everyone thatis from my Kapampangan, native
tongue.
I was born and raised in thePhilippines, in the land of the
(02:15):
Aita peoples and in a provincecalled Pampanga, by the
riverbank, and I'm here inWawiatanong, the crooked way of
the river, home of theAnishinaabe people, swayan, the
Turon Fox, miami, and so inDetroit and I teach.
I'm a professor of culture andcommunication at Oakland
(02:40):
University and also executivedirector of the Center for
Babilan Studies, which is amovement among the esporic
Filipinos committed todecolonization and
indigenization.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Thank you and Jim yes , jim Perkinson, I can only do
this in English.
I could improvise in Spanish,but that's about it grew up in
Cincinnati, shawnee Territory,and now for more than 35 years
here at Wawiakanaong, as my babyspoke just a minute ago in
(03:19):
introducing herself.
I won't reiterate that, but doacknowledge that ancestry here
and struggling out of those 35years of being rearranged by
inner city black culture withLily Mendoza in 2001 and having
(03:51):
to engage a whole other rite ofongoing initiation into Filipino
culture, the first officialcolony that settler, colonial
state United States ever tookelsewhere.
And I teach at an inner cityseminary that over my 25 years
there has become more reflectiveof Detroit itself.
(04:11):
It's located in the inner cityand is now overwhelmingly
African-American.
And I have also taught part-timeout at Oakland where Lily
teaches race and communication,hip-hop, race in the city, et
cetera.
I do spoken word poetry.
I'm an activist in the city,particularly in the last eight
(04:35):
years pushing back on watershutoffs and the struggle over
the human right of water andlearning that water actually
first of all belongs to herself.
She is her own creature.
So all of that is ongoinginitiation, rearrangement for me
(04:56):
as white male, being greatlygifted with all of that input
and constant checking giftedwith all of that input and
constant checking.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So full disclosure.
Jim and I went to graduateschool at the University of
Chicago together.
We've been, we've, you know,met up at various points in our
career, although we're very, invery different kind of circles.
In some ways We've kept intouch.
And you know, both of you gavereally thrilling papers at the
(05:32):
conference, the Doctrine ofDiscovery conference, which was
titled Religious Origins ofWhite Supremacy no-transcript,
(06:12):
and so the conference was really.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
it felt like home.
It felt like home to me and Ithink it's for me in my own
journeying.
I find that there has to be atwo-step process for those who
are wishing to get on this pathof not just decolonizing but
(06:43):
being schooled by a differentvision of how to be a human
being on this earth, and that is, it's not just about learning
from indigenous people andrecovering our own sense of
(07:08):
ancestral reconnection, but alsounderstanding the
civilizational narrative thatserves as a log in our eyes in
terms of understanding theradical difference between
indigenous ways of being andwhat we have been schooled by,
(07:31):
which is being thoroughlyimmersed in this narrative of
progress and civilization, etcetera.
As Charles Solomon has said,there is no word that is more
vague and has been permitted tocommit more crimes than that
(07:51):
term civilization.
And so, yeah, I was reallyheartened by the presentations
that I listened to at theconference.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yes, for me, being in Syracuse with Phil and Sandy
and Steve Newcomb and the wholecrew of folk was a real gift and
not something I take forgranted, a great honor and a
responsibility to live up to,and I enjoyed the presentations,
enjoyed getting to know somefolk after hours.
(08:32):
And where I think we need to gofor me is pushing through white
supremacy back to Christiansupremacy.
I would understand whitesupremacy as a kind of offspring
of Christian supremacy, goingall the way back to Roman times
(08:57):
and even then back behind thatto what Lily was talking about
civilizational supremacy.
What Lily was talking aboutcivilizational supremacy and how
to for me, how to do that herein Detroit.
We'll talk about it as thepodcast goes on, but most of my
work up until meeting Lily wasdealing with whiteness in
(09:22):
relationship to blackness andpushing back on other white folk
about that, about the whitesupremacy piece.
With her, it's been a matter ofpushing in a sense, underneath
that to deeper history anddeeper disappearance, the
genocidal eclipse of native folk, three Fires, folk in this area
(09:44):
, as well as Wendat Huron thatstill are present here, and the
question about land return.
That remains a throbbing, achingquestion that I think needs to
be the lodestone for all of ouractivity of social resistance
and pushing for a differentworld, and part and parcel of
(10:07):
that is learning, relearningrelationship with the more than
human world.
For me, when I go outside thedoor barefoot and wiggle my toes
in the soil, I understandinvisibly running between my
toes and the soil is a river ofblood that I don't have the
right just to relate to the landwhere I am and recover ways of
(10:34):
belonging to the land, as WinonaLaDuke might say.
But I have to first payattention to the indigenous folk
, in this case the Three Firesfolk who were disappeared from
so much of this land, and get inrelationship to those who
remain.
And I'm only here by permission, not by any title or property
(10:59):
right, and so I try to integratethat into my teaching and
understand that as a hugeongoing agenda.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It kind of connects to what Lily was saying.
You just can't go back andexperience being indigenous.
It's like well, Charles Longwould talk about digging through
the history.
You have to understandcolonialism, and it's so much
baggage there that there is noway you're going to ever
(11:34):
experience indigeneity with theland.
Right.
But future generations may, andthat's really an indigenous
precept anyway that you live forseven generations, and so it's
being actively involved in thisprocess of decolonization and
reconnecting with the earth.
(11:55):
We're really doing this for theseventh generation to come.
We may see very little of aneffect in the work that we do,
and it's difficult work and it'svery upsetting work every day,
right.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
And if I can jump in Sandy in response, part of the
process for me own recovering ofa sense of indigeneity is
making visible the defaultconditioning right, because the
(12:34):
narrative of modernity andcivilization is so naturalized
that we don't think about it.
It's the default assumption ofwhat it means to live a good
life, of what it means to be ahuman being.
And so when we encounter otherways of life and for example,
(13:01):
when I was little, I wouldencounter the Aita people, and
because they no longer live intheir intact communities, I
could only see them as pitiful,as primitive, as backward, as
(13:22):
representing our past that wecan no longer go back to and
shouldn't even wish.
We can't even imagine longingfor that way of life.
We ran away from it.
But my own transformation cameabout when I was sitting in an
(13:43):
ethnomusicology class and forthe first time I encountered the
richness of Indigenous lifesince that colonial lens.
You know the amazing weavingdesigns, the architecture that
(14:04):
doesn't use any nails right, thebasketry, the dances, and that
was what broke me open to thatworld and I said, wow, why then,
if this were our people, whyare we looked upon as backward
(14:31):
and primitive?
Where does that come from?
And so that started me on thatpath of understanding.
What are our defaultassumptions about what a human
being is supposed to be?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Well, it was a propaganda campaign that the
United States implemented on theFilipinos in all over Southeast
Asia to gain a stronghold atthe turn of the 20th century,
and they used much of the samekind of campaign propaganda
campaign they used to settle theUnited States and portraying
(15:10):
Filipinos as savages.
They used similar iconographiesand cartoon characters and
teaching everybody aboutindigeneity being below human,
subhuman.
What's the book?
The Imperial Cruise was areally excellent book to read on
that subject, right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Teddy Roosevelt Traveled with.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Chad and several congressmen were on this cruise
and it was just ushering forththis smear campaign so they
could acquire stronghold.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
That really helped us understand what was happening,
and the foundation of thatnarrative is on a separation
from the land, because living onthe land is seen as merely
being an animal, as if being ananimal were an insult, were an
(16:08):
insult right.
And so people who are stillliving subsistence lives,
lifestyles, are deemed as livinglike animals.
That's why, when they came,they would say the land is empty
right, because they're justpart of the flora and fauna.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Except for all the resources Right, exactly Even in
that concept of naturalresources Right.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Exactly Even in that concept of natural resources.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You have built in this idea of development and
progress.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And an indigenous way of living with the earth is in
the way.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
It's a hind struggle with the shadow side of my
ancestry and learning how to ownthat honor, that let it have
space in my body but then opento another way of being a human,
like Lily is talking about.
(17:12):
Initially, for me, learned fromAfrican-American folk, ordinary
low-income folk, using thememories and the continued
bodily expression of theirtraditions coming out of West
and Central Africa, using apercussive vocabulary,
especially not just in musicsbut in everyday interaction on
(17:33):
the street corner, on thebasketball court, in the beauty
salon.
Ways of arranging fabric on thebody that are right, primal
colors juxtaposed that slap youreyeball awake from 50 yards
away.
All of that once.
It took me eight years to getto the point where I could even
start to see the incrediblecreativity of that way of
(17:56):
engaging reality.
A call response, communal ethos, probing an impossible
situation, making desperationyield beauty in spite of itself.
Once I saw it, I fell in lovewith it.
It began to rearrange me.
It comes out as spoken wordpoetry.
But it's not mine to take, it'smine to, yes, participate in to
(18:17):
the degree I have permission,but stay in relationship with
actual black folk who can sayJim, uh-uh, you're going too far
, halt, stop, don't steal.
And that's been the deepesteducation in my life black anger
and black humor that rearrangedmolecules.
But then also learning fromindigenous folk right here, a
(18:41):
whole nother way, and then inthe Philippines, yet another way
of being a human being that ismore embedded in land and
learning from the plants andanimals and soils and seasons
and weather and waters.
And, for me, being involved inpushing back on the water shut
off episode in Detroit, startingin 2014 and then 2015, a walk
(19:06):
to join the water struggle inDetroit with the water struggle
in Flint, starting at Plaza onthe Flint, starting at the Plaza
on the Detroit River, whereMona Stonefish, an Anishinaabe
water-walking woman, pulled upsome water and talked to it and
talked about her people's way ofrelating to water, where it is
the sole prerogative of women,and that pushed me then to have
(19:30):
to ask questions, not just aboutwater as a human right but, as
I said earlier, water asbelonging to herself, as a
living, spiritual creature,animate force.
And then taking that to go backinto my own Christian formation
and my own Indo-Europeanformation and going back to
(19:52):
Ireland particularly, andlearning some of the indigenous
traditions there the only colonyin Europe colonized by Great
Britain or by England, reallyand learning some of the deep
land relationships there that Ican't claim immediately but they
(20:15):
are there at some level back inmy DNA, and learn the traces
and the memories, the myths, therituals, the foods, the songs
that I can partially letrearrange me.
And in all of that then it'snot just an experience of
dealing with shame and horror,but it's also astonishment and
(20:39):
beauty and falling in love withsomething that's very different
than I grew up with, and havingthat as an animating force.
Fabulous, yeah, well put.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah.
Very well put and, um, you know,there's so many things to so
many threads to take up here.
Um, one of the things that hasreally struck me lately in
teaching is how, how goodindigenous people are at
diversity, right, um, it'ssomething that we don't do well,
(21:10):
uh, with, in spite of ourlanguage, in spite of our
constitutional reinforcementsfor religious diversity or, you
know, ethnic and racialdiversity, all those kinds of
buzzwords don't do it as well asindigenous peoples, you know.
I mean, you know, among theHaudenosaunee there is something
(21:38):
called the edge of the woodsceremony.
I mean, they're really finelyattuned to welcoming people into
their communities that haveentirely different languages,
entirely different worldviews,that live like 50 miles away.
You know, I mean it's that kindof radical diversity, because
those people over there, 50miles away, they know their
(21:58):
deities, they know their spiritsand the, the spiritual beings
that reside in that place, andwhenever somebody goes and
visits, as we always do, theyhave to, as the Taradajo says,
wipe them down, really addresstheir sorrows and their
(22:19):
struggles, you know, and all ofthose things that we all carry
with us.
And so the Edge of the Woodsceremony, back in Boulder,
colorado, that was one of thethings that really attracted me
to the Haudenosaunee, as anundergrad, that, and Sandy
Bigtree, but we were, you know,that kind of way of grappling
(22:41):
with the human condition aspeople present themselves, as
people are in the world ratherthan as they should be, or
something which you know I mean.
It just becomes much moreenlivening to have that kind of
framework to work in.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Well, when the earth identifies you through your
clanship, you know you are theearth, the water you belong to
the water.
You belong to the earth.
The earth is diverse and it'sforever changing.
The water's shifting Speciesmove and, you know, interact
(23:22):
with one another.
So when you pay attention andyou're of the earth, diversity
is a natural way of being in theworld.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
And that's what I realized is the stuff of real
culture.
Real cultures are not justhuman inventions.
They're worked out in veryintimate relationship with
particular ecologies and theydon't presume to universalize
(23:51):
their local relationship,because they understand that
other places require differentedge of the.
Did you say edge of the villagedifferent?
You're having to negotiate thatedge instead of imposing it,
(24:37):
and I think, imposing your ownto the other, and I think that's
what Christianity did acrossthe globe when it came, it had
and it was particularlydevastating in the Philippines,
because we quickly learnedEnglish and, because of our
(25:02):
modern education, had for itsofficial language English right,
and so the missionaries thatwould come didn't have to learn
any of our indigenous languages.
They couldn't do that inIndonesia or Malaysia, so there
was not even an attempt attranslation of trying to see how
(25:27):
the spirit of Christianitycould be incarnated within this
context.
There was no such, and so thecolonization of Filipinos
becomes rather profound, verydeep, rather profound, very deep
(25:53):
.
They say that the Spaniardswere more interested in
catechism, they were not verysystematic, but the states, the
United States, the Americans,really, really built in the
colonial ideology and the whitesupremacy within our modern
(26:17):
education system.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Absolutely and that's one of the reasons I mentioned
diversity, lily, is because, youknow, the Philippines are just
this radically diverse place.
Yes, culturally radicallydiverse place, culturally
radically diverse.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Over a hundred ethno-linguistic communities.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's amazing how do you navigate all of that?
You know it must've been.
There were these protocols thatwere in place before
colonialism, before the?
You know attempts atunification, which I think
you're still struggling withthere, and I you know attempts
at unification, which I thinkyou're still struggling with
there.
And you know, I don't know, Idon't know if you can tell us a
little bit about that, or theremust have been all of these.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah, they were blood compact.
You know when they would havepeace treaties with each other.
There has been a lot ofinter-island trading that was
going on even before the comingof Spain.
But then, when you have anexternal power, come in and then
(27:28):
impose its own requerimientoright, impose its own protocol
and say this is the only way,then it runs roughshod all of
this intricate negotiations thatwere already happening with one
(27:53):
another.
So there was really no onenation right.
What brought about thePhilippines as a nation state is
the resistance to colonizationdistance to colonization, and it
becomes a struggle todaybecause now you have Manila
(28:19):
they're talking about Manila,imperialism right where you have
all of these ethno-linguisticcommunities with their own
diverse ways of diverselanguages, diverse cultures, and
(28:48):
having to have a nationalizedidentity that's premised on the
most urbanized, the center right, and the rest become periphery
pretty much, and so theviability of a nation state I
question even the viability of,because all nation states have
their own internal minorities.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Do you need help catching up on today's topic or
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If so, please check our websiteat
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listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think that, yeah, what we're talking about really
is the radical democratic if youlike, radical democratic
framework of indigenous peoples.
Right, you know that they're,and this is what inspired the
founding fathers.
Oddly enough, you know and yousee that here in Haudenosaunee
territory.
So this whole colonial historyis this chock full of these
(29:52):
ironies you know of.
You know, friendship,inspiration, those kinds of
issues.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It was radical when the first treaty with the Dutch
was called the Two Row Wampumand it was that the colonist
ship would sail down one row andthen the Haudenosaunee would
row down the other river intheir canoe and they would never
interfere with one another andrespect each other down the
(30:24):
river of life.
And the colonists see that aswell.
You're going to stay out of ouraffairs and you know we can do
what we want and we won'tinterfere with your way, not
even talk to you as a matter offact.
We'll just like plow in thereand take over everything.
The concept they didn'tunderstand the colonists was the
(30:46):
river of life.
You're both sailing in parallel, not interfering with one
another, down the river of life.
You're both sailing in parallel, not interfering with one
another down the river of life.
And if you don't respect beingpart of this force, then you're
missing the whole concept of thetwo row.
And that's what the Edge of theWoods ceremony is about.
There's a certain protocol whenyou bring someone as close as a
(31:09):
few miles from your territoryinto your territory, because
you're still, your languages arestill a little different, you
have different ecosystems andyou're not interfering with
theirs.
They're not interfering withyou.
So there's protocol when youmeet and talk right but you have
respect for the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I mean, you know the woods are the the basis of that
relationship or you have respectfor the water of the river of
life, like Jim was talking about, right, so the water, we have
to have this.
There are certain kind ofuniversals sort of built into
this in a way, but they're notideological, ideological
frameworks, and I kind of wantedto pick up on that, jim,
(31:50):
because your work on pushingback against white nationalism,
white Christian supremacy, hasbeen really inspirational to me
and I think it's of my graduatestudents as a kind of setup here
(32:10):
.
One of my graduate studentslast semester came in with a
shocking statistic that it's menlike us, white cisgender men
like us that are committingsuicide at higher rates than any
other ethnic racial group.
That is, 60 and above.
Right, that's us.
(32:30):
So I mean know it's, it ispersonal, you know, and I'm I'm
wondering you know how you workwith that in your, in your work
in the classroom?
Speaker 5 (32:42):
uh, you know, and uh, in the neighborhood, yeah, so
the what you're saying about theedge of the woods ritual
ceremony original diversity Iwould call it biodiversity is
what I'm learning thatindigenous folk understood that
the more than human world wasalready modeling how to handle
(33:03):
diversity and you needed tolearn from that and collaborate
with that, and that's exactlywhat I now try to do with
Christianity.
So, yeah, I'm a cisgenderedwhite guy and, on some days, a
Christian.
Some days Christianity is45,000 denominations on the face
(33:24):
of the planet right now.
So what is Christianity?
Who says?
And I'm not particularlyinterested in preserving
Christianity per se.
I am interested in preservingthe memory that Christianity
encodes in its root, which isactually not Christian but
(33:45):
Jewish, and the memory thatJudaism encodes in its root,
(34:16):
which is not particularly place,which are valid there but not
universalizable and not validelsewhere, and to push for a
Christianity that would recoverdown in there, back behind there
, its own indigenous roots thathave their own wonderment and
(34:37):
their own incredible beauty,like the Sabbath Jubilee
tradition of learning from theland, when Moses led the crew
out from Egypt and they had torelearn how to be human and did
so in relationship to Midianite.
Pastoral nomads learned to eataphid defecation that's called
(35:00):
manna in Hebrew Aphids are scaleinsects that eat tamarisk
leaves and poop 130% their bodyweight every hour.
That puddles at the base of thetree that is scooped up by Arab
Bedouin today in the area andcalled man.
It's a carbohydrate to keep youalive.
And so for 40 years they werehaving empire and urban
(35:25):
aggression gradually debridedout of them and relearning the
land through their herd animalsand only in that way sort of
re-indigenizing into the areathere but that's only valid
(35:46):
there and then joining up whenthey eventually crossed the
Jordan River from east to west,with rebellious Canaanite
peasants who were fleeing thecity-state systems on the
Mediterranean seaboard.
And so they become this verymixed thing called Israel, and
the L part of the name is aCanaanite high god, a storm god,
(36:09):
a god of water, like Sandy wastalking about, and the Sabbath
jubilee tradition that'selaborated out of all that
wilderness wandering experienceprobably was dictated to them by
the rains, the rains that comeand end the summer drought,
(36:31):
regularly in September andOctober, celebrated in the Feast
of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths,which is a rain ceremony,
originally longing for theMediterranean storms to blow off
the Mediterranean and end theSiroccoan drought coming up from
the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia,coming up from the Hejaz in
(36:51):
Saudi Arabia, and they do thatregularly for about six years at
a time, sometimes seven years,and then they go AWOL.
It's like the rains say to thehuman community there we know
you need us for your small-scaleagriculture and your animal
life, so we'll come regularly,we'll cooperate with you, but
(37:13):
every seventh year or so we'regoing to do our own thing.
We're going to go and be on ourown rhythm and time and cycle
and you'll have to deal withthat by returning to a much more
vulnerable relationship withthe land, and then we'll come
back and cooperate with youagain for another six years.
So this seven, this emphasis onseven days, seventh month,
(37:36):
seven years, may well have beensomething the original folk
there learned from the rain.
So it's that kind of stuff thatI try to now teach in the
seminary and again to awakenastonishment but also to say but
that only applies there.
And if Christianity is going togo elsewhere, what it has to do
(38:01):
is listen to the people whoknow their elsewheres, know the
codification, the language, theculture, the deities, as you
said, phil, of that place.
The woods are different fromthe savannah and you don't have
permission to enter into anotherspace until you ask the people
(38:23):
who know that space and then,even if you get permission, you
need to learn the beauty, thespirituality, the creatures that
are there.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, I love Michigan and and you know, the urgency
of our moment is to protect thewater, and I grew up loving the
lakes and the Great Lakes andbeing fearful of them and all
that sort of thing.
So what you're saying reallyresonates with me as a
(38:58):
Michigander as well, reallyresonates with me as a
Michigander as well.
I think you're uniquely.
Both of you are teaching verypowerful topics, really
demonstrating the value ofreligious studies in different
kinds of ways and, to speak tothe urgency of our moment as
well, I've always felt, and witha greater sense of longing in a
(39:24):
way, that we need to protectthe Great Lakes, we need to
protect those waters.
That's what we have, that's ourresponsibility, and what you're
both saying in different ways,is kind of like how we, in
history of religions andtheology, can participate in
that work, what it means to be awater protector just where we
(39:53):
are, and I think that'ssomething we share because we're
also, you know, among the GreatLakes here in New York State.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
It's difficult, though, when you're entering,
like a Christian community.
The first time I visited Phil'sparents' cottage up at Crystal
Lake.
We're driving up there and I'mexcited you know, anticipating
this to see this beautiful lakethey're all talking about, and
as we're getting into the accessroads, one is called Seychem
Court, and then there'sOngweonwe, which is our word for
(40:26):
the real people, and so we'redriving down and already I'm
like offset right.
And then there's one mansionafter the next mansion, log
cabin, it's all varieties on thebeautiful, beautiful access we
reach the family.
You know, log cabin it's themost modest, little you modest
little lodging on the entirelake but it's beautiful.
(40:47):
But you know I'm already setback and it's so hard to talk
about anything once you gothrough that entry.
There's there's no reallywelcoming you and respecting who
.
You are coming into such aplace.
You have to adapt coming intothat place.
(41:08):
And I felt all of that.
You know, just with that firstlittle drive like kit log cabin
that still stands there.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's like one bedroom , you know a loft.
It's probably, I don't know,300, like 400 square feet right
the year you were born yeah,right.
So it was like I've been goingup there my whole life, but now
it's surrounded by mcmansions.
You know like you know you'vegot because it's such a
beautiful lake.
The Frankfort area is a lovelyplace, but you know, our little
log cabin still sits there.
(41:47):
You know, I'm sure ourneighbors hate us, but you know
it's well kept.
But it was originally thisDisciples of Christ camp that
was given to them by therailroad, you know just to kind
of locate this in a way right,you know, right between in the
kind of interlocking betweenLake Michigan and Crystal Lake.
(42:11):
So since then things havedeveloped, but the camp remains,
even though, for example, thedisciples have repudiated the
doctrine of discovery.
I find that nobody seems toknow what that means in our
little world.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Or really care.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Or really cares, because it just sort of
interrupts the.
You know it's a little like hey, you get off my cloud.
You know, remember the oldRolling Stones song, you know,
it's like, it's like don't messwith my utopia.
You know, and it's beeninteresting, having gone up
there my whole life, to see thisarc of these beautiful lakes,
(42:53):
you know, and the things thatthey've gone through.
But then also the people, justjust I mean they're probably
liberal, well-meaning people,you know, as opposed to many of
the other rural counties inupstate Michigan, but still they
just don't have a clue.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
They're so content with their beautiful lakeside
cottages.
They're beautiful lakesidecottages.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and it's a challenge, because I think the
form of Christianity that you'retalking about is just so
foreign to them.
But on the other hand, theiridea of Christianity is dying.
Like I said, we go to myparents' church in East Lansing
and they're considering sellingit, you know, because nobody's
(43:45):
attending, nobody's coming thereanymore.
So even in the face of thiskind of inevitable death that
Christianity is going through inmany denominations, there's not
this sense that did we getsomething wrong?
Speaker 3 (44:04):
there's not this sense that.
Did we get something wrong oryou know?
No, I'd like to clarify.
We went to that church once in10 years to be with your parents
.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
We don't know yes, and now, and and there was a
transgender woman that was thepastor at the, at the church,
and my parents, who are in their90s, are are just like they're,
they're, they're.
They had to sit us down and say, now, this is not the church
you grew up in, phil.
And then they said we have atransgender pastor.
And then Sandy and I said wewant to go.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, it's like hallelujah right let's break
this thing apart.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I often say and I thinkLily should weigh in here
quickly too I often say that Ithink history would have been
better off without Christianitytraditions.
(45:02):
There are more dead bodies atthe feet of Christianity than
any other major world religionon the planet.
Other world religions, onceindigenous religious traditions,
get gathered up to serve anurban elite that is bent on
aggression.
They also have participated inall kinds of domination,
violence, genocide, butChristianity, I think, takes the
(45:24):
prize at this point in time.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
And maybe the most insidious.
So sneaky, yeah, most insidious.
They're so sneaky about it andbrutal at the same time.
Speaker 5 (45:38):
So I teach that the Bible is the most dangerous book
on the planet.
It's authorized more genocide,enslavement, rape, pillage and
plunder than any other book.
And if you're going to be aChristian, the first thing
you've got to do is learn thathistory, own it, understand it,
be repulsed by it, be humiliatedor humbled by it, and figure
(46:00):
out what then to do.
Coming out the other side ofthat kind of deep work and it's
not just a matter of processingit in your head, it's a matter
of letting it down in your bellyand into your body, so that you
are horrified and deeplydisturbed by it all in
relationship to some group ofpeople who've suffered the other
(46:21):
side of it.
All in relationship to somegroup of people who've suffered
the other side of it, becauseuntil it gets social in
relationship, it's just an ideaand the reality is the trauma is
all around us, up inside us too.
Like Bill was saying, now whitemen, particularly working and
lower middle class men, are faceto face with their utter
(46:44):
emptiness, white supremacyhaving given them nothing to be
proud of or to be astonished by.
And what do they do?
There's no way to communalizeanything worthy.
I think that's right.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And grief is always seen as a weakness in this
culture and Christianity.
It shows a weakness in yourfaith if you're depressed, or
it's just a no-win situation.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Maybe you could talk a little bit about white
Christian nationalism in thePhilippines as well, because we
know that.
I mean it's on the riseeverywhere, you know.
But one of the things I like totell my students is that if you
don't understand religion andyou don't understand the history
that Jim is talking about, thenyou really don't know what's
(47:43):
going on in the world right now.
You know, I mean it's justliterally everywhere.
I mean yesterday we went by apickup truck that was belching
smoke.
You know, and that's a symbolof, you know, the apocalypse.
I mean somebody embracing thiskind of apocalyptic idea of you
(48:07):
know the world is going to end,so let's make it end sooner,
sort of thing, right?
And I think you know there's somany indicators of how white
Christian extremism, nationalism, is expressing itself.
I wonder if you can wade in onwhat's happening in the
(48:28):
Philippines as well.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Yeah, there are so many threads that I wanted to
jump in on.
But yeah, there is this notionin the Philippines that we don't
have racism there just becausewe're all brown skin.
You know, it's not your typicalwhite settler colony like
(48:53):
Australia, for example, or theUS, but I actually wrote a piece
on it questioning that notionthat there's no racism Because
our racism is through anda-vis,our indigenous people, and it's
(49:56):
more in Kuwait in the sense thatit's the civilizational
supremacy that is embedded inthe discourse of progress and
development and modernity.
So what is happening throughoutthe Philippines now is all the
indigenous places are beingturned into tourist places,
(50:26):
places and like, for example, inmy home province, they're
building a new Clark City.
This is where the US militarybases used to be and that is the
homeland of the Aita people,and so the Aita are saying we
used to roam these places freely.
Now they're saying we can't gothere.
They confine us to thesemarginal places.
(50:49):
What are we supposed to do?
And so I'm really my heartbreakis towards the way in which the
same colonial logic that hasbeen imposed on us by foreign
rulers is being imposed on ourindigenous peoples.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Well, it's been suggested that we talk a little
more about the criminal state,the violence against criminals
and how that plays into anetwork of Christian domination
and civilizational supremacy.
And I know, jim, you've beenworking in that area of the
(51:30):
incarceration state and you haveto in your work and I wonder
how those two things you knowkind of kind of connect.
You know white Christiansupremacy and the, and you know,
in the overwhelming numbers ofincarcerations in the African
(51:54):
American population.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
Yeah, be in effect a pre-police force militia,
(52:28):
pre-police force militia, armedto be on the lookout for
continuing to survive NativeAmericans and runaway slaves,
enslaved Africans, and ourmodern day police force grows
out of that in this country andthis idea that a gun is a
prosthesis of white maleidentity.
I'm going to get my figureswrong here, but overwhelmingly
(53:08):
the great percentage is whitemales and it's a continuing
legacy of being on hunt forbodies that you're going to
criminalize, in fact alreadyhave rendered property anybody
who has dark skin.
Yes, you initially, once youcome over, clear native folk off
(53:30):
the land genocidally, either bykilling them, infecting them or
pushing them west, and thenreach into Africa and pull over
the new labor force that youshackle.
But you also work with languageso that black skin becomes a
shackle.
You can't peel off if you getthe iron shackle off, and then
you monitor it with a gun on thepart of all the white males,
(53:54):
and that continues to be thevalid form of enslavement in our
culture.
The Netflix video 13th runsthrough the way.
The 13th Amendment eliminatedslavery except in the case of
committing a crime, and then itcontinues and legitimizes
(54:15):
slavery in that instance.
And so now, yeah, you have, youknow, the civil rights movement
and black power movements andthe eruption of cities in the
North in the 60s, black folkemerging in a new public
dimension of assertiveness.
And the response is to take theprison industrial complex from
(54:43):
what it was doing in 1970, whichis incarcerating 300,000 folk,
to incarcerating 2.3 million bythe early 90s, overwhelmingly
dark-skinned bodies.
And you then create anindustrial complex around it so
(55:05):
that all kinds of folk,particularly white folk, but not
just white folk, have theirlivelihood connected with that
serving that complex ofincarceration.
And so it's one more form ofcapitalizing on black and brown
bodies and, yes, red bodies here, but also up in Canada.
It's one more form ofcapitalizing on black and brown
bodies and, and, yes, red bodieshere, but also up in Canada,
(55:26):
their version of it thatcontinues the, the economic
exploitation.
So it's, yes, it's, it'scriminalization in the sense of,
uh, negatively perceivingbroadcasting, a cultural habit
of negatively perceiving darkskin, but then you make that
(55:50):
yield economic benefit throughthis great big complex.
One more time, the other thing Iwould say is that Christianity
and Judaism, both are camped outon outlaws.
All the major figures wereoutlaw.
Moses was an outlaw.
He had to go OG from Egypthaving, you know, killed an
(56:14):
Egyptian overseer and theprocess of advocating for a
Hebrew slave.
So he has to exit with a priceon his head.
John the Baptist beheaded,jesus crucified.
All of the early the innercircle didn't make it to old age
.
Being criminal with respect tothe political state that you are
(56:38):
part of is the vocation of alegitimate Christianity.
Now, if you're in an indigenoussituation, that's not what you
do.
You learn.
You sit back and shut up andlearn from the people of the
land, but if you're embedded inan empire, then you better be
resistant.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
That's exactly what happened in Haudenosaunee
territory.
I mean, here they're consultingwith the founding fathers about
the great law of peace, anothervision, another way of living,
and then Washington, during theRevolutionary War, issues forth
this scorched earth campaign toburn out all the crops and
villages of the Haudenosaunee,and they had to flee their
homelands.
(57:17):
And then, when they return most, all of their land is taken.
And then, when they return most, all of their land is taken and
it's been assigned to all themilitary army right, the
sergeants, the generals andeverybody is allotted a piece of
land.
So in being paid off with land,washington establishes a
(57:37):
military state in Haudenosauneeland.
So that's the beginning of thatpolice force, right, and
they're all armed becausethey're soldiers.
There's a reason why we're theempire state Exactly.
Speaker 5 (57:51):
Yeah yeah, maybe it looks like Adam has a question
for you on this.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, I'm just reading his message here.
In the Philippines, presidentBombo Marcos has continued the
policies of the Tertus War.
Is there a civil rightsmovement in the Philippines
fighting for abolition andagainst the prison industrial
complex there?
There?
(58:27):
I wish I was really up on thepolitics in the homeland in this
regard.
I know that there are a numberof progressive movements and
feminist women's movements.
I have been focused for most ofmy work on what is going on
with Indigenous peoples, and soI wish I could speak to that.
Speaker 5 (58:45):
To what degree are Indigenous folks criminalized,
babe?
Speaker 4 (58:50):
Oh yeah, Well, we have one of the highest
extrajudicial killing rates nextto Brazil or at some point I
think we have surpassed Brazilin terms of the killing of
(59:10):
indigenous land defenders, andthat is still going on.
We have Canadian miningcompanies, we have all kinds of
corporations now loggingcompanies that are in indigenous
territories, and it's notstopping.
(59:30):
It's not stopping.
And a while ago I wanted tointroduce a wrinkle in regard to
Christianity being a curse,almost like a curse on the
planet.
Well, in the Philippines weactually have some progressive
(59:55):
Jesuit and other priests who areworking with indigenous
communities to serve like somekind of a buffer, because
there's a lot of red tagging,you know, indigenous land
defenders being accused of beingcharged with being communists,
(01:00:18):
and so some of the progressivepriests put their bodies on the
line and serve as some kind of alayer of protection for folks.
They themselves became schooledin the people's ways, so that
(01:00:44):
the education is not reallytoward missionizing right, but
then themselves having to learnand to be tutored by indigenous
communities.
So that's just something that Iknow is is laudable.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Yeah, yeah, being a buffer, yeah.
I think one thing that we'vecome to appreciate doing this
work over the last 15 plus yearson the doctrine of discovery is
how unifying it is right.
So you know, in spite of thefact that we're visiting this
(01:01:27):
terrible legacy, these awfulevents and occasions throughout
history, I think you know thatyou know one of the signs of
hope following your littlewrinkle there, lily, is that you
know it does bring us togetherin a variety of ways around a
(01:01:52):
common trauma, common issue.
Some of us are more aware of itthan others, some of us feel it
more keenly than others, andit's not always comfortable in
our conferences, but it's always.
There's a lot of energy,there's a lot of commitment.
You know people areunderstanding this message and I
(01:02:17):
want to thank you both.
You're one of the kind of powercouples I think of that are
doing work across a kind of vastarray of topics and issues in
the history of religions and inindigenous studies, and I really
appreciate you both, I thinkfor both of us really appreciate
(01:02:41):
this conversation and justthank you, thank you.
Thank you for having us For sure, the kind of power couples I
think of in that are doing workacross, you know kind of vast
array of topics and issues in inthe history of religions and
(01:03:02):
and in indigenous studies, and Ireally appreciate you both, I
think, for both of us reallyappreciate this conversation and
just thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and
Jordan Lone Colon.
Our intro and outro is socialdancing music by Oris Edwards
and Regis Cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
Luce Foundation, syracuseUniversity and Hendricks Chapel
and the Indigenous ValuesInitiative.
If you like this episode,please check out our website and
(01:03:40):
make sure to subscribe.
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