The hypocrisy of the season

You may find it ironic, especially as the nation raises the ghosts of my ancestors and gives thanks for the colonization of our homeland, but you won’t find me rejecting Syrian refugees.

It’s been nearly 400 years since the Wampanoag welcomed the pilgrims to live in our territory. By the time our Massasoit, Oosameequan, made his peace with them more than half of the Mayflower passengers had died. They endured an incredible and harrowing journey packed like sardines in an ill equipped ship to a new frontier thousands of miles from their homeland. They were men, women and children who fled religious persecution. Sound familiar?

When I imagine what Oosameequan might have been thinking looking into the eyes of an English born child staring back at him with wanting wide blue eyes and wispy golden hair blowing over her fair skinned face, her only crime in her faith, his decision had to be easy. And despite what occurred in the next generation, I don’t regret the welcoming tradition that still thrives among the Wampanoag to this day.

As Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, along with more than half of our country’s narrow minded state leaders, paint Syrians and Muslims with a broad stroke of potential threat they achieve exactly what the terrorists want from us - fear.

I have room in my home and my heart for Syrian refugees. Because it isn’t the people that bring hatred, it’s an ideology that consumes them. Historically it was an ideology fueled by Manifest Destiny and endorsed by the Doctrine of Discovery that sanctioned the oppression, wars and genocide perpetrated on Native Americans. An ideology of intolerance to differences.

Turning that boatload of hapless pilgrims away wouldn't have changed that eventual outcome. Change will come when we are consumed by knowledge, respect and tolerance for others. Stripping the ideology of hate in the name of false gods of any integrity. Like the Parisian man who lost his wife in the attack on Paris earlier this month but refused to answer hate with more hate.

Last week I was comforted to hear President Barak Obama offer clarity on the issue of what to do with refugees when he said that our greatest weapon against terrorists is to be fearless. But who was really paying attention?

As you gather together on the holiday inspired by this nation's original refugees feasting on your cornucopia of good fortune will you be serving hypocrisy pie for desert?

Closing our country to fleeing Syrians is not only the wrong thing to do, it will only provide a false sense of security. Our borders, like those around the globe, are eminently porous. Even Donald Trump’s money can’t build a wall high enough to shut us in. And if he could, is that really what we want?

Are our memories so short that we don’t remember how our nation breeds terrorists? From the government sanctioned genocide on Native American reservations to the wholesale lynching of blacks in the south by the KKK? Have we forgotten James Huberty gunned down 21 people in a San Diego McDonalds in 1984? The 1986 shooting in Edmond, Oklahoma when postal worker Patrick Sherrill killed 14 people making the term “going postal” a household phrase? That in 1991 George Hennard killed 22 people in a Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas? In 1995 Timothy McVeigh was far more calculating when he made a 4,800 pound bomb of easily available materials and a truck load of fertilizer killing 168 people including children he knew to be playing in a day care in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out to commit the most heinous and unimaginable school shooting the nation had ever seen killing 13 classmates in Columbine, Colorado. Their vicious act has since trended among mentally unstable teens with access to guns only to be outdone in particularly savage fashion in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut where Adam Lanza killed 20 first graders and six adults before he killed himself.

Carnage from mass shootings in places like Atlanta, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Wakefield, Red Lake Indian Reservation, Blacksburg, Omaha, Dekalb, Binghamton, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Roseburg and too many other cities and towns across this nation to list have mounting body counts but can hardly be calculated in terms of devastated lives. All acts of terrorism committed here in this country - overwhelmingly by white men who are citizens of this country. The threat to America is already here and it’s called “U.S.”

Syrian civilians face a horrible fate. Trapped between ISIS militants and a corrupt and brutal government they have little choice but to risk their lives crossing dangerous seas in poorly equipped boats to foreign lands hoping to find refuge. Sound familiar?

To deny refuge to the truly disenfranchised and threatened innocents of the world, who are the real terrorists? Opening our boarders to refugees includes risk, but it’s risk far out weighted by the creation of a larger state of common good will toward an objective for world wide peace and understanding. Make that the dominant ideology, and while we are at it spread the word - killing in the name of your god does not make you a martyr and there are no virgins waiting for you in heaven.

Get the "Message"

There is constantly competition for my undivided attention so whenever I can call something finished and move on to the next project I am relieved.

This week I was grateful to turn the page on the second chapter of “Our”Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History as we opened “The Messenger” in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Community

Attaquin Weeden, the Messenger, and I attending the
exhibit opening at the Tribal Government Center

and Government Center.

In November of last year the multi-media traveling display was kicked off with the first of six chapters, “Captured 1614,” the graphic and boldly told story of 27 Wampanoag men kidnapped to be sold as slaves in Spain. Thousands of visitors to the physical exhibit that traveled around Southeastern Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as countless others who checked in online, were fascinated with the critical back-story to colonization, much of it told in the voices of contemporary tribal members portraying the impact such a loss had on our ancestors. Many visitors were people who had become inured to history never questioning why Squanto, the only one of the 27 kidnapped known to have returned, knew how to speak English so well. And it wasn’t as if that truth was buried deep in some unknown archive. It was simply not a priority when told in “his”story books.

After a tremendously successful year with Captured 1614 I really thought it would be difficult to generate that same kind of enthusiasm for the next chapter. But I was wrong. This year’s installment has already made a powerful statement around the globe.

And it could not have been more timely for us tribally. After waiting more than four decades for the return of our ancestral homeland, we installed the exhibit just as the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe deeds were being recorded as official trust land establishing our reservations in Mashpee and Taunton. And it is no coincidence that the Messenger exhibit includes the very same map of the tribe’s 17^th century territory used to convince the Bureau of Indian Affairs of our entitlement to these regions. For that I owe a great debt of thanks to my dear friend and fellow tribe member Jessie little doe Baird who shared her scholarly research to make it possible.

Displaying the territory also gave us a perfect opportunity to teach people about the tradition of the messenger in a contemporary way. Historically strong runners who were not only fast and could endure long distances, but also had impeccable memory and could be trusted with important and often sensitive information were chosen as messengers and honored to do the job. They were known to carry messages to villages throughout the vast Wampanoag territory and to neighboring tribes and might travel hundreds of miles before they were done.

The “Our”Story video “The Messenger” is shared on You Tube.

Remarkably “Our”Story designed and developed entirely by Wampanoag people with complete editorial control over its content is funded by Plymouth 400 Inc., the organization responsible for planning the commemoration of the 400^th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower in 2020. They are not only fully aware this story cannot be told without the inclusion of the indigenous story, they embrace it for the truths that have been overlooked for centuries. I am grateful for that support and for all the tribal members who contributed to make the exhibit possible.

Each year in November through 2020 you can expect a new chapter to be produced and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

A bitter sweet breakfast

Today I am melancholy as the youngest of my children turns 21.

She is away at college but earlier in the week surprised us with a quick visit home and an early celebration with family. I am sure what ever occurred last night among her peers was a far cry from her spaghetti dinner and panda cake affair here. I hope she had an amazing time.

This morning as Savannah awakes an adult in the legal sense it is a milestone for both of us. I have no more “children.”

Apparently neither does my mother. At breakfast I told her it was Savannah’s birthday. She dropped a chunk of her home fries to the dog sitting dutifully to her right and looked back at me with a blank stare.

This moment, these faces, I never want to forget.

“Who has a birthday?” she asked.

“Savannah, my daughter,” I answered.

"Oh," she said seemingly unaware that I had a daughter.

Then I asked her if she had any daughters.

“No,” she said. “I don’t have any children.”

I started to get a little weepy but fought it off as there were others at the table and I didn’t want to make a scene. In reality it was a scene from my daily drama called, The Guiding Darkness, featuring me as the chaperone for my mother slipping deeper and deeper into her dementia. In this episode all of her memories of motherhood have vanished. From giving birth to four children, to losing her first born, to our youth and our school days, watching us struggle and succeed in becoming successful adults with kids of our own. I wonder if the succession of annual traditions and holiday gatherings that make our family so unique and special are still in there somewhere. 

Motherhood for me has not always been easy. There have been a host of challenges but they are far outweighed by the rewards. Like the day my daughter Rhiannon finished the Falmouth Road Race 18-months after major orthopedic surgery, and when my son Steve married his high school sweetheart Jennifer, and the day my grandson Russell was born, and when Savannah skipped down the stairs with news she had been accepted into Dartmouth College and gave me the first spontaneous hug I had received from her since she entered puberty.

Who would I be if I didn’t remember those things?

Days like this are bitter sweet. Celebrating that my baby girl is officially a grown woman at the same time knowing this horrible disease has robbed my mother of all of her memory of raising her family. I know how hard she worked at it. I know how much she loved us. 

That is the real tragedy of Alzheimer's. 

Never too old to appreciate good dance moves

While for most people it was time to “get ready for some football,” this past Sunday my niece and daughter and GMa and I decided to huddle up on the sectional in our jammies and watch chick flicks. Scrolling through selections of newly available on demand movies we picked Magic Mike XXL.

Mom and Mindy smiling at Magic Mike.

Rhiannon left the room with a groan but was caught sneaking down the stairs to peek when ever Hana and I were screeching with delight.

Meanwhile mom was clapping and singing random, nonsensical lyrics to the beat mocking the half naked rapper with six-pack abs.

It was a perfect moment in our lives lived moment to moment with mom.

I miss her, the mom who loved and nurtured me, who encouraged me, who believed in me. She was a dedicated mom who never said no to any of her children in need. She was a role model for social justice and political advocacy who taught me that caring, whether for an orphaned baby squirrel, a homeless person, or her own mother and son in their dying days was not a burden but a responsibility.

Mom was brilliant in so many ways and I’m sure knew what was happening to her long before we did; weekly games of scrabble and contract bridge at the senior center were her desperate attempt to exercise her brain and stave off the inevitable. The hardest part of witnessing the toll of this illness was seeing mom endure the personal heartbreak of experiencing the loss of her cognitive ability. She had a hard time joining a foursome at bridge games and her scrabble buddy completely stopped coming. She told me she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

But then one day she did wake up in another place in time and much to our delight she brought us along. For months we went through a period of learning about her childhood days with her brother and sisters in New Bedford. We even met her high school sweetheart vicariously through mom's time warp.

Then there were the songs, sung out of tune but lyrics as crisp as they were written yesterday. I started Googling the words and discovered a whole new era of music that taught me that a “flat foot floosie” was a hooker and the “foy, foy” was slang for venereal disease. Who knew?

These days she talks far less. She knows far fewer people who come through the door. Casually she asks, “Who is back at your house?” hoping the answers will give her a clue to the familiar face. She repeats the same verse every night before bed, “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

When I see her old friends they ask of her and many are surprised she still lives at home. Quite honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure there are lots of assisted living and nursing home facilities dedicated to elderly patients with dementia but even if she did go to one I would still have to be there every day to make sure she was getting the same care I would giver her. Family and friends that come here would have to go to a sterile facility to visit her where I’m sure having a slick bodied Michael Strahan wearing nothing but a thong and dancing through a shower of dollar bills in high definition on the big screen would not be allowed.

So while there are things I certainly miss about the old mom, I count myself among the most fortunate to have her home and to have such a supportive group of family and friends who pitch in when needed. It makes me a little sad when she knows the dog is Mindy but doesn’t remember my name, but mom still experiences occasions of pure joy like when the cat who is miserable to everyone else in the house curls up on her lap and purrs. She laughs spontaneously at things unexplained and mysterious, and sings out of tune.

This mom has her moments.

Cultural Lives Matter

By no means to detract from all that “matters” in this ever increasing land of indifference, recent events compel me to make another obvious declaration: culture matters. It matters if it’s appropriated, it matters if it’s mocked, it matters if it’s used to threaten or intimidate.

As Native Americans we endure regular acts of cultural degradation from children dressed up for Halloween in outfits that are a reflection of our traditional regalia to team mascots and sports fans wearing feathers and face paint mocking ancient spiritual rites and tradition. The concert of voices in opposition to these racist practices is growing but ignorance is stubborn and shame has a hard time penetrating monomaniac sports enthusiasts.

Brown Alum Jennifer Weston and Mashpee Wampanoag Hartman Deetz
stand by as Tall Oak Weeden makes remarks at Brown University where more
than 300 protestors gathered for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

That said, I honestly thought the undeniable scholarly evidence of atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus would more easily rectify the national holiday celebrated in his name. The primary source references to his crimes against humanity resulting in the genocide of millions of Arawak would earn him a special spot in hell right next to Hitler. In recent years a multi-racial movement to rename the holiday Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been embraced by numerous cities and colleges and universities across the country.

But this year at two Ivy League schools the reactions of some students one might expect to be among the best and the brightest this country has to offer quite honestly shocked me.

At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island a non-Native student’s column in the Brown Daily Herald suggesting that Native people embrace Columbus Day not for the man but for the resulting “Columbian Exchange” drew hundreds to the campus green for a peaceful but vocal protest. The student group, Native Americans at Brown, gathered more than 1000 signatures on a petition to rename the holiday next year. I hope they are successful.

A few hundred miles north at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire Native Students staged a protest on the second Monday in October choosing to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead.  What they endured from an anonymous and cowardly hate group was disgraceful.

Dartmouth Students observing Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Photo by Kohar Avakian

Native students found the campus papered with flyers promoting an online marketing campaign to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day by raising the ghost of the  “Dartmouth Indian” logo on swag from T-shirts to thongs. The offensive Dartmouth Indian has been banned for more than 40 years.

This was far more than sophomoric prank. It does more than offend; it threatens and degrades Native students at Dartmouth who deserve to feel safe and respected. Just imagine how Dartmouth’s African American students would react to a black lawn jockey on the green. The anonymity and pervasiveness of the act left Native students feeling like burglary victims, violated and defenseless, like someone stepped into their hearts in the dark of night and took a piece of their pride to be exploited.

Dartmouth student making a statement.
Photo by Kohar Avakian

To knowingly dishonor these students suggests a deeper disregard for their heritage and perhaps a more open expression of what many Native students experience on a daily basis; resentment.

Do full-pay and legacy students begrudge the mission of the school established in 1769 to educate Native Americans? Can they actually be that blind to the social inequity that defines their generation?

In 1970 a new college president, John Kemeny, kicked open the doors of Dartmouth to Native students establishing an aggressive recruitment campaign to honor the school’s original charter that had been virtually ignored for 200 years. Since then Dartmouth counts more than 700 Native students among graduates, more than all other Ivy League schools combined. Decades before diversity initiatives became the norm and far ahead of the cultural sensitivity curve Kemeny also abandoned the unofficial Dartmouth Indian logo, the face of an angry and hostile looking Native man. While he was at it, Kemeny also spearheaded a change in the

Photo by Kohar Avakian

admissions policy to allow women to attend Dartmouth.

Sadly the only students more threatened than Native Americans at Dartmouth today are Native American women.

I hope they stay strong in their convictions and endure. An ironic benefit of exposure to this elite brand of education is to bear witness to what can be the heartlessness of privilege and rise above it.

Many of Dartmouth's graduates return to tribal communities and reservations where they become role models for the next generation and their education and experience help to build a bridge out of poverty. 

Native Americans at Brown and supporters gather on the Brown University
green to observe Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Photo by Danielle Perelman

Here I am. Where'd I go?

Every time I think I'm going to make a serious commitment to contribute to this blog more regularly something comes up. I let it slide and then I take a look back and can see it's been months since I last posted anything. In my own defense, it was a busy summer and I did get a lot of other things done.

Mom and me at the Aquinnah Powwow

First there was family in abundance. I am so blessed with such a large and loyal extended family who all like to gather at my home or around my fire pit. They are vital to my mother and her on going journey into her elder years. She will be 94 in January and while her memory is failing she has retained a diverse kit of tools to fend off dementia. She reads and studies photos constantly. When a visitor comes she becomes a stealth detective with questions like, "who is back at your house?" and "where do you live now?" The answers provide her clues to the visitor's identity and even if she never guesses who they are she has started a good conversation.

Best of all mom travels well. If there was some place to go or someone to see we were there. From volley ball, to dancing at Dino's on the deck, to the powwow on Martha's Vineyard she was always ready to rock and roll.

Much of the summer was spent gathering interviews and photos and stories about the raid on the Mashpee Nine in 1976. I had the pleasure of working with my intrepid intern Douglas Pocknett Jr. who became a fan of my cooking while helping me to navigate social media.

Summer became fall all too quickly along with a fast deadline to complete the next theme of the "Our"Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History exhibit. I knew Captured 1614 would be a tough act to follow but having just viewed the video for the Messenger Runner starring Weeden cousins Attaquin and Brian, I have a feeling no one will be disappointed.

Now that I can refocus my attention on the Mashpee Nine documentary I have a new production assistant on board to help keep the project on track. Tribal member Talia Landry will be a welcome addition to the crew and just in time for us to be invited to present at the Indigenous Coast to Coast Film Festival at UNH next month. Whew!

So stay tuned. The "Our"Story exhibit new theme will debut on November 12 at the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Government Center while Mashpee Nine: The Beat Goes on is due to premier in time for out 2016 Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow.

Meanwhile, I will try to stay in touch.

Down to the wire, don't let us down!

As many of you know Wes Ennis and I have been working on a documentary about the Mashpee Nine, a story of injustice, outrage, activism, and vindication that emboldened cultural pride and integrity for the Mashpee Wampanoag in 1976.

Wes and I posed in front of the green screen with
Bruzzy Hendricks interviewing him about his experience.

Over the weekend donations to our Kickstarter campaign that began on May 15 put us over the $10,000 mark toward our $12,000 goal. Wes and I want to thank everyone who has pledged in amounts that range from $10 to $1,000. Each of you represents a desire to shine a light on social justice and preserve this story for the next generation.

But as of today, with six days to go, we are nearly $2,000 shy of our goal.  If you are unfamiliar with this kind of crowd source online backing for entrepreneurial projects, a pitch is made and the goal must be reached by the end of the campaign - in our case June 15 - or nothing is awarded.

Some of you have asked a very legitimate question. What is the money needed for?

I am a freelance journalist and scholar of Wampanoag history and principal owner of SmokeSygnals. Wes is a freelance photojournalist and filmmaker with Wes Ennis Films. We have teamed up with help from the Indian Spiritual and Cultural Training Center Inc. to produce a half hour film to be distributed in 2016 in time for the 40^th anniversary of the raid on 12 Acres on Mashpee Pond that inspired this story. You can learn more about the project on the website for Mashpee Nine: The Beat Goes On.

The cost to produce even a low budget documentary film ranges anywhere between $1,000 per minute to $3,000 per minute depending on the scope of the story and scale of production. The research, writing, scheduling locations and interviews, and gathering consents has been largely my job.

Wes has been collecting and editing video of interviews and events with his team and equipment that bills out at up to $3,000 per day on commercial projects.

Each of us have donated countless hours to this project to date, time we know we will never be paid for. As committed as we are to finishing we cannot afford to neglect our professional bottom line indefinitely. We each need to support ourselves, pay employees, and finance support services.

At the end of the day the finished product, Mashpee Nine: The Beat Goes On will be debuted in Mashpee for our home audience, shown at film festivals, shared with tribes nationally, and with any luck at all will be aired on public television.

An initial donation of $10,000 from our Friend and generous supporter Rachel Carey Harper who is also passionate about justice got us on our way. In addition I have also submitted two grant proposals and am working on a third.

The success of this Kickstarter campaign will keep this dream alive as we seek the remaining funding to finish the film.

Thanks to everyone for all your support and consideration. 

*In order to count toward our goal all donations must be made on the Kickstarter site. Anyone having difficulty can contact me directly and we will find a way to facilitate your donation online.