25SU Class #19: Indigenous Ways of Thinking | Native American Thought Experiments

(upbeat music) Welcome to the audio version of Soche 119, the largest interactive class about race and culture in the world. Join the nearly 800 students watching in Kersin, live, Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube at youtube.com/soche119. For more information about the class or how to watch, go to soche119.org. Now from Happy Valley, it's time for class. Take it away, Sam. (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Hello, my name is Chapin Bailey, and my other name is Good Bear. And so I'm just gonna kind of pull everyone together here. I see a lot of faces here from many different places. It's an honor to be here. So just gonna kind of pull everyone together. So if you're on your phone or whatnot, let me take you into a part of my world. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) Oh, Megwitch, thank you, Chapin Bailey, for that song. (audience applauding) So there are a number of ways that I can introduce myself. I think right now I'm gonna start off by saying, yes, I am a former Redskins fan, and we're gonna talk about that in a little bit, but I grew up in the DMV, Northern Virginia, right? Got some people from DC out here. And I started my career here at Penn State working with Dr. Sam Richards, and I also instruct this course called Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Happens to be that I'm also part indigenous. My family is indigenous to the lands in the Philippines, and I had this connection to taking this course and bringing Penn State students to the reservations in Northern Minnesota. I think some of you in this audience, actually I know at least one of you out here is Dakota, and you might know the lyrics to the song that Amon sang just now, but a lot of us in this audience are not. But today, Amon and I are here to help and just invite you as much as you want, as much as you want. It's your choice to just step out of your own shoes and start to see or feel, and maybe step into the shoes of someone who's Native American from this region, because it's really important. It's really important. So go to the next slide. So there's a lot of different theories. Some people will call it science, but really science is just testing theories, right? A lot of different theories that talk about how do Native Americans get here? What actually makes them indigenous people? Really, I mean, are they indigenous people? There are some anthropologists who will say, "30,000 years ago, 30,000 years ago, "Native people who are indigenous to this region, "to these continents called the Americas came here." Right? They crossed this so-called Bering Strait and came here. But Amon, how would your ancestors, really? If you don't mind, how would your ancestors or your elders, what would they say about where you came from? - That's a really good question. I think I want to start off with, I really love technology. I really love technology. I see it as a tool. But can anybody tell me how old technology is? Maybe 500 years old? Let's give it another 1,000 or 1,500 years old, okay? So science is only about 1,500 years old. So our traditional knowledge and our stories go back over 50,000 years. So you have indigenous knowledge and you have science. You see where I'm going here? So one is way older by far, which is beginning to crack the service of understanding where our place is in life. Where science is really based off of, what can I hold in my hand? Can only prove what I can hold in my hand. So we have creation stories that go back over 50,000 years. - And we'll talk, maybe you guys might have some questions about creation stories and what gets passed down through oral tradition. But these stories, the one that Amin is referring to, are not the stories that I've been taught as a citizen in the US growing up in the American school system, right? Go to the next slide, Jeff. The stories that I was taught about American history and that maybe all of us can share in this room who might not be international students is about the starting of the Americas here, right? So this is one of the older maps of the US and we can see where settlements were happening along the coast. Remember, when you think about contact and when this land was getting settled or colonized, right? It happened along the edges where the water is. And if you look up in the Great Lakes region, it's not just happening on the coast, it's happening on the Great Lakes region. Upward, the Ojibwe in Northern Minnesota and Canada reside. And one of the stories that I was taught about the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi who are part of the Three Fires, okay? The Three Fires of Native Peoples. The Ojibwe are the medicine carriers. They were the ones who were controlling what were the highways? The highways in times of colonizing our bodies of water. And so in our stories, we're taught as colonizing colonists come to the edges of these waters and start settling. You notice how there's nothing to the left of that map? What, really? There's nothing? But for America, United States of America, there is nothing to the left of that map. We don't know the next slide. Go ahead to the next slide, Jeff. We don't know this one. So here's a map of native peoples of tribes and not the territory that they own as property, but the territory in which they inhabit, what they take care of. We don't talk about this as much. Go to the next slide. Is there anyone in the front that speaks Spanish? Do you want to translate? So it says, "Ningun ser humano es ilegal." And that means that no human is illegal. No human is illegal. But today we're talking about conflict. One thing that come up is who's illegal on whose land? I mean, is this true from your position as a native person? Is this, what do you think of this sign? What do you think about this protest? Well, it's, I just think about how every single person, every single human being on this earth should be given these essentials for living, which is pure water, food, shelter. So I'm just thinking like, what makes someone illegal? Because south of the border, oh yeah, Mexicans, they're illegal. They're illegal. Actually, they're Mexican Indians. So a lot of people don't realize that. They're Mexican Indians. So it's kind of saddening in a way that people are illegal in a sense. - Can I push you a little bit? - Sure. - Would you say that everyone else here is illegal? Like for real. I mean, if you, yeah. - Yes, pack your stuff up and leave. - No, I'm not trying to push out the anger, but maybe, but I just want to welcome whatever emotions you have. You can bring that to the table. So go to the next slide. So what happened? 'Cause somehow there's a lot less of Amund's family and more of my family and your families. Some of you are going to talk about how you are from that same hometown that your families have come from for generations. And what happened? I mean, we all know, right? We all know that one of the largest genocides in the world took place right here. And I'm not talking about just Pennsylvania. I am talking about the largest genocide happening up and down the Americas. Up and down the Americas. So genocide is taking place. War is getting costly. I'm skipping parts of history here, right? And why are we at war? Land, territory, property, ownership, religion, things we're still talking about. Why you're in this class? Maybe some things you're gonna talk about in this class and you have been. And this is an actual sign. Grand Old Rush for Indian Territory. Now, come with me for a second. And as Americans, imagine that this poster is about you. And it says Grand Old Rush for American land. And Chinese people are coming across into the borders. And this is what's being advertised while they're on the planes. These are the flyers that are getting sent through their emails. This. That's what happened for a long time. Go back to the map with the colonies. Back, yeah. So this Ohio River Valley, this so-called blank area, that was the Middle West. That was the Grand Old Rush to the West in those territories. But people were there. They were getting pushed out, concentrated into smaller densities and also killed. But land was getting sold and somehow getting land through these posters. Go back to the poster. Somehow, we're just taught about the movement West and the Gold Rush and the land that's available and that it's uninhabited. But that's the only part of the story. Keep trying to walk with me into almond shoes. Next slide. So I'm at almond at, if you look at Minnesota, do you have a pointer for me? Okay, just point to Minnesota. Or you can give it to me. Oh, yeah, there, thanks. Okay, so here's where the Penn State students that I work with every year, this is where they travel to, Northern Minnesota. And I met almond in one of the largest Ojibwe reservations right here. Okay, in Leech Lake. Most natives today, yeah, they mostly live off the reservation. I mean, there's a lot of territory off reservation. But this is what happened. The genocide, the land takeover, the Dawes Act, the Trail of Tears and what Andrew Jackson did. Every tribe had a Trail of Tears, y'all. It wasn't just the Cherokee. Every president had to deal with the Indian problem. Indian problem, Indian problems. Gotta get smaller, gotta cost less money. So I met up here, Leech Lake Reservation. And I began to learn more about what it's like to be in his shoes. And I learned about the boarding school era. Because eventually, throughout this time, negotiating with people, right? The United States government with the people who did live here first, the native people, negotiating with them gets costly. And killing people, I don't know. I think, Sam and I were debating about this 'cause I really think people could, but he was saying no. People just can't really cold blood kill all other people who aren't like you. Right? So you've got an Indian problem. You have land, resources, and expansion that you're trying to do for your people, escaping religious persecution of your own. What do you do? Amin, you're in the United States government shoes, right? It's, you know, early 1900s, getting into the mid 1900s. You're like, damn, these Indian wars are costing a ton of money. And we made these reservations. People are pushed onto them, but why are they so poor still? And they're really, now we have these treaties where we have to adhere to respecting each other's land and they still wanna hunt. And oh my God, they have the Black Hills, which have gold. Amin, you're the United States government. What are you gonna do? I think I'd go along with those words that are divide, divide and conquer, divide, divide, divide. So if you can take somebody's family and split them up, well then you're continuing that genius genocide. It's a genius thing to do to take your kids from your family so that they cannot learn their language. So if they can't learn their language, take them to a boarding school, beat them, rape them, kill 'em, throw 'em in the ground without a proper burial or sending 'em back home, those that did make it back home didn't speak the language anymore. So when they came back home, well they couldn't communicate with the grandparents. Most likely couldn't communicate with their mother or their father or their uncles and their aunts. So now they're being pushed away because they cannot speak their own language, which our language is our culture. That's what makes us who we are. And I'm sure there's a lot of people in here that speak foreign language. And you know that when you speak a foreign language, it's not about definition of what this word means. It's really based off of thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings. So if you take the language away, you're in a way, you're killing that part of our people with just the language alone. And then the customs to live civilized, civilized. - So let's take a few steps back. Indian wars are costing a lot of money. Having this relationship with native people who inhabited this land first is getting into a costly conflict and you can't just keep killing people. So this is what General Pratt had a brilliant idea to do. It's to take native children and put them in boarding schools. Take a moment and read the root, the essence of what General Pratt's idea was about. (audience laughing) A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with that sentiment, but only in this, that all the Indian there is in a race should be dead. Kill the Indian and save the man. This is one of the first boarding schools of its time, of the boarding school era. And it's right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There's gotta be people, it's just we're at Penn State. There are people who are from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And right now, this Indian boarding school is actually an army war college. And right at one of the gate entries of this army war college is what Amen was just talking about. It's a grave site. Of Indian kids who died while they were in school. Okay? So all of this context is important because in a few minutes, we're just gonna start getting into the social issues of today, right? Like what's going on on reservations today? Are relationships and empowerment happening within the native community? Yes, yes, we're gonna get into that. But you have to know the context because you can't ask about poverty or sexual violence unless you actually understand the boarding school era. Because it's people in generations that are the same as your parents who went through the boarding school. This isn't old. It's dated. But this happened in your parents' generation. And right here in Pennsylvania, this was a huge one. It was one of the founding models, Carlisle Pennsylvania boarding school. Do you wanna say anything about boarding schools and what else it costs your people besides taking away language, having a history of rape, not being able to go back to your community and know who your family is? Is there anything else you wanna say about the cost of boarding school? It was pretty devastating because about three years before I was going into, they call it foster home or group home, but which was a nicer word than saying boarding school. I remember that I got taken in right away. And the mother there, she was very strict. And I remember that they right away, they, oh, hi, how's it going? Okay, and they took me right in the bathroom and they cut my hair. And that was one of the most devastating things because I thought that someone in my family had died. So I'm wondering what was happening and at the same time I couldn't talk to her quite yet because I didn't trust her. I ran away a few times, only to be picked up by the police. I remember one time that I booked, they were busy, they were watching TV and I snuck out the back and I was in the desert. So I ran to the railroad tracks and I just started booking and it was probably about 20 minutes later that they realized it and they sent a squad and the squad, he intercepted me right where the road meets the railroad tracks. And I mean, there's lots of stories of where they didn't want me to go back with my family so they did their best to adopt me out. And I remember that I went to a family in Montana and I don't think that they were ready for me and I don't think that I was supposed to be with them but I was kind of, I raised Kane, I was a very, very bad kid being through all that. So and I think that's what kind of helped me out. - You're saying you were being punished and you didn't necessarily understand why but then you had to convince yourself to make sense of it, you convinced yourself that you were bad, like a bad person. - Yeah, I thought I was a really bad kid when I was actually, I'd look back on it now and I'd think, oh man, it's just a kid, it's just a kid. - So for this next part, I just need two volunteers to come up and sit with Alman. All we're gonna do is just watch this video. Two volunteers, it could be, it might be nice to have a guy and a girl. - I don't bite. (laughing) - Hi. - Hi, I'm Hannah, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. - I'm Louise. - Louise, nice to meet you. - Oh, I get a microphone. - Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. This is kind of like, a little bit like last class, right? So we're gonna have you guys watch a video. We're all gonna watch this video and Jeff, don't forget the lyrics, you got it. Great. Okay, so some of you, remember, you get as much choice as you want in being able to take off your own shoes and try on someone else's. But for you two, our volunteers, just really, you guys shook hands, right? Okay, so just with all the stuff I told you, imagine your grandparents went through the reservation period, your parents went through the boarding school era, but you were taught that you're from here. Like this is your home. - You're now my brother and you're now my sister. - Nice, nice. Okay, so you guys are relatives and let's go ahead and watch this video together. Watch it as if you guys are brothers and sisters, okay? What are you left feeling? What are you left feeling about what your home is? And what's your name again, Hannah? - Yeah. - Hannah and Luis? - I think it kind of makes you feel kind of ashamed of yourself, even though-- - You're a native person, right? - Right, so it would, okay, so it would make me feel ashamed of like Americans in the image of what Americans should be now, that coming in, taking land, supposedly Christians are killing people, but being against it themselves, but they're willing to kill for the things that they want, guess that aren't necessary needs, but wants. - You're seeing that there's more wants than needs and you feel ashamed, okay? How about you, Luis? Remember, you're his brother and you just watched, you know, your history and you know, some of now. - I think it's funny because one of the images of the video shows is like a scale. - A what, a scale? - Yeah. - Yeah, the justice scale? - Yeah, and it's funny 'cause we start with all these images of our people and it almost seems as if the scale has been tipped more towards the needs of the people coming in than the people who were already here, as if the people coming in, as if their needs and their wants, because as Hannah says, it's more of a want than a need, are valued more than those people who were already here. - Yeah, 'cause native people are taught, you only take what you need, right? You only take what you need, but you're seeing, I don't know, mass consumption happening. So, let's for a moment. Actually, Amin, do you wanna reply? How do you feel? - I'm raged. I'm like, my heart is beating fast because a lot of people don't realize that it's still happening today. It's still happening today. And sometimes I have to control my emotions because of the work that I do when I want to just scream out with rage. And that rage is coming from my ancestors who (sighing) who sat in the very same place and prayed for the future generation to still continue to be here with clean water and food for the people and our culture still alive as human beings. So, I got a lot of emotions going on right now. - Thanks for putting that out there. Hannah, you're this native young woman. What do you wanna tell the class? What do you wanna tell the class about? What's something you want them to know? - I feel like in that video you saw at the end a man who was a chief and he, for his people, represented so much and stood up for his people and respected them and wanted what was best for them, not more than they needed, but what they wanted and the governments today and the leaders today in America don't show that it's almost as if they don't really care about the people here and the individuals as long as they're in power and have that power, that's all they want. And it's kind of, it is and it makes you feel raged when you look at that. You don't feel like you're important. You don't feel like you're a person anymore and you don't have someone to stand for you. - Yeah, you might not feel as important. You might not feel as valued in this country. And how about you, Louise? What's something you would say to the class? This is what I, you're gonna say, "This is what I want you to know." - I think what I would say is that it comes down to the way you handle things because even if people came here centuries ago thinking that no one was here and found out that, oops, you're wrong. Like there's people who are already established here. I think things would have gone a lot better and still, like today, they would go a lot better if things were handled with much more empathy because we may speak differently. We may dress differently. We may approach and see life in a different way, but we still have the same needs as anyone else, as any of the people in power, basically. We want happiness for our families and love for our children and our roots over our heads. - It strikes me that you're actually, even though you're hurt yourself or angry yourself, you're actually still wanting to let people know that we're all human beings. That strikes me 'cause I'd be pissed and I'd just be all about my people, you know? So thank you for that. If there's like one or two images you could pick out from that, whether it was an image of a native person or the kids in the boarding school, can you pick out one image that like, or gave you a different feeling that was really strong? Go ahead, Hannah. - I think like I said before, the image read at the end, like really, I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was like the empowerment in his face or how he looked, but that was a leader that you want to follow and you want to respect. And I think in this country today, there's a leader that doesn't have a lot of respect and a lot of people don't want to follow. And so looking at that, you know, like, these people had pride and took pride in somebody that stood for them and stood there once. And I think the other images that were repeated over and over again were just people laying on the ground, dead, dead for no reason, dead because of who they were and they were at the wrong place at the wrong time or what was deemed as the wrong place, but it was their right place. And they stood for something they cared about and we don't get to do that anymore because we get ridiculed for it. And those people died for what they believed in and our people died for what they believed in and I think that's powerful to everybody. - Thanks Hannah, how about you? - I'd like to add those images that you saw in the winter time, the one that always hits me is, is Bigfoot, Chief Bigfoot and he was laying there frozen. And that's actually a picture of where they, he was facedown, which means that is, if anybody's in forensics, when you're facedown, that means that you were running and you were shot in the back. So a lot of the people and the images that you saw, they were shot in the back. The children were shot in the back. When they wanted to save bullets, they stepped on baby's heads. So that's, that time is from the ghost aunts and so after being forced to practice Christianity and you take it up and you say, okay, yeah, I see the similarities rather than seeing the differences right away, I see the similarities. And then saying that you're not worthy enough to be praying to Jesus Christ. So when they did the ghost aunts, the Calvary was so afraid that they started shooting people in the middle of winter. Babies, kids, elders. So that's what you see frozen there. They turn them over, that's why the arms are contorted for Bigfoot, but that's just, that's what always hits me and in even times, I go to sleep and I'll still picture that because I have that connection with our ancestors. It's hard. - Luis, is there an image that you wanna comment on? - I think it was a series of images. I think it showed like a valley and like a spring and then right after they showed like a brand new shopping mall and it was just, I felt a little upset because it was a little bit of a disrespect to the environment that we have and that we've been fighting for and that we have had for thousands of years and replacing that with something that we already have plenty of and we don't need. - Clothes, what do you mean? - Yeah, like is it like, I'm sorry to call you out on this, but is it like New Jersey, the town of malls? Like don't you have like all around every corner? - Or shopping centers, I also have a lot of shopping centers in DC. - Like you already have a bunch of malls and places to get your clothes. Like why do you need another one? - Yeah, why do we? Why do we need another one? I might be shopping online later, you know? But you were saying that that image, seeing the shopping mall made you feel, what? - It made me feel upset just 'cause like, I get it, maybe we need one or two like every now and then because of like needs, but you don't need to, like just because it's on like nature untouched doesn't give you the right to go in and plunder and destroy it and just 'cause you can. Just because you can physically doesn't mean you should. - Right, Hannah, were you gonna say something? - I just think the most, what you said to you about the images of like the gorgeous valley, like everyone probably looked at it and was like, wow. And then you see them all. I think people in America are constantly traveling, like retweeting things like, oh, this place, this, this place has this, like these beautiful mountains, this, like we had that, we had that stuff too, but it's gone. Like it's gone because of killing people who were preserving those lands. And now, you know, like a beautiful landscape has taken so much for granted and we have to travel to go see it when like we had that. - Yeah, thank you, thank you. So, okay, step back out of your no longer brothers and sisters, but is there a question you wanna ask? (laughing) Is there a question you wanna ask? And though about any of the issues we talked about or just something you're wondering, it's like, you're one time, everything you were afraid to ask a native, you get a shot. Ooh, that sounds, not like a shot, wow. (laughing) But a chance, an opportunity. - I guess I have relatives, not like first or rude or anything, but isn't there, still live in New Mexico, like part of like Pueblo Indians and things like that. And I guess my culture was kind of, I was never cultured about it 'cause it was taken away, it was Americanized as a lot of this stuff was. But I see a lot of issues today. It's always about like black and white, I guess, and we kind of like disregard all of the other issues that could be going on, like this being one of the largest genocides. Like my Bubba is Ukrainian and when she came here, they like failed her in school because she couldn't spell her last name and she was in first grade. They Americanized her right away. And the Russians created one of the other biggest genocides more so than the Holocaust here, like killing Ukrainians and like that's so going on. And so I guess like my question to you would be, how do you feel that like everything in America, like the problems just seem to be like so black and white, not taking away that issue at all? But how do you think that makes you feel that nobody is really like paying attention, nobody's listening to how the Native Americans feel? - I think that there are a good amount of people out there that do and want to listen. So it's not, you know, say that no one is listening, but I think the rest of the mainstream people that watch that mainstream media are caught up in the smoke and mirrors. So they're not gonna see that. Whereas someone who is a little bit more connected will see something like that and will want to talk about that because, you know, like I can just feel, I can feel a lot of guilt out there right now. I can feel that. And that's not, I can feel a lot of the guilt out there. And that's not what it's about right now. It's about moving forward in a productive way, not sweeping something under the carpet, but understanding that now you see those reservations of ours, but one thing that you may not realize, or some of you may realize is that it's gonna be one whole reservation. You know, it's becoming one whole reservation. You know, slowly and secretly becoming one reservation where it'll be like cattle. Everyone's gonna be like cattle. So not to get too in depth with it or debate over it, but those that know, know and can share later. - Do you wanna ask a question, Louise? - Sure, so I grew up in Puerto Rico and all the natives that we had, they were killed or they fled. So we have like no natives. So I've never had a conversation with an American person before. So for a person like me who has little to no knowledge of the cultural background of your people, how would it be, like would it be sensible to straight up ask questions about like traditions or headdress or growing your hair? Like would it be silly or would you take offense in that? - It's more about educating. That's what it comes down to, because where some of the things that you did pull up are from a Hollywood vision of what, the identity of what Indians look like. And you know, that's something that people have to move away from because that's actually not a good thing. You had mentioned about Puerto Rico. I have a lot of friends that are from there that people were taught in history that all the correct term is Arawak. Arawak people, also known in English as Taino, they still are around. So they were never extinct. But the language was driven out of them so much that now they only speak Spanish. So Spanish is a colonized language from overseas. So that's actually not an indigenous language to the South. - And it's cool that you hit on education. If you guys have more questions, Ommon will be around later, but I just wanted to thank you for coming up and sharing some of your story and my love out to your family. Yeah, yeah, hope they're okay. Yeah, so thanks. - I do want to share. When people come over here, they, you know, 500 plus years ago, you came over here as a refugee because the way that you wanted to practice your religion, you couldn't. So those that know the history know what I'm talking about. And so when you came over here, the freedom of religion. Well, what also happened was we had our religion taken away. It was actually outlawed. It was illegal. We could be imprisoned, raped, killed, murdered, everything under the sun, just until 1979. 1979 is when we were legally able to practice our religion without being imprisoned. - Separating the consequences, yeah. - Yeah. So, and we did have elders that were underground carrying on these traditions so that when the time came, we could still preserve. So even after all this time, we're still here. - So the Indian problem. - The Indian problem is also their spirituality, which I want to get to. So let's just do this next slide really quickly. And you guys can stay or you can go back up to your seats. Thanks, thanks, you guys want to shake hands. Okay, so to wrap up this part, here's some of the negative names that we don't hear these negative names. You don't hear negative names about the people who are not around you. And as you saw on the map, reservation territories, really small ones exist like in Virginia, North Carolina. 566 federally recognized tribes today, but still not around Pennsylvania, right? So you might not be familiar with these names, but we're taught something about native people. We're even taught like the romanticized version. If not this all this dark negativity, we're taught about Pocahontas. Some of you are probably thinking about dressing like a native person for Halloween, right? Kind of like go to the next slide. You know? Or like you're watching football this weekend or next or last weekend and you're rooting for the Redskins. And go to the next slide. And so as you learn this more romanticized version of what native means, what do you think he's learning about native people? Actually, can we get a mic? Can someone respond from the crowd? What is this young kid, young man, learning about native people? Anyone? Really? Oh, go ahead. We've got one here, Jeff. I think Amun's gonna... What do you think he's learning? We're all taught in like elementary school about how like on Thanksgiving, our people and like Native Americans all shared food together and like exchanged gifts. And we learn about how like we were, we like made peaceful treaties between like each other and lived in harmony. No, truly, that's what I... Yeah. It's almost embarrassing at the ignorance that I have like in myself because I'm not like I wasn't educated in my like school about what our American government did to like the boarding schools and like that's the stuff you see is in touched in like American grade school, unfortunately. Right on. And specifically him though is someone else. What is he learning? He's going to the NFL football games, which are huge and he's learning about what Redskins are. What is he learning about the Redskins? So I think he's learning that natives are a mascot, like a character. They're not real people that have a real history and it totally disconnects him from the reality that they're individuals. They're not a mascot. They're not just a cartoon character. They have problems in a history that are still happening today and he's never gonna know that. Right, take, can you guys each just take a minute? I'm just, and I'll call you back. Turn to the person next to you, left or right. Talk about what is he learning versus what we're talking about today? What are the differences? What are the differences? And could we even share any of what we talked about today with him? Okay, let's go ahead and bring it back. Let's go ahead and bring it back and go to the next slide, Jeff. Okay, so there are real issues. I got some crazy statistics to tell you. I don't wanna go too much into it, like one in three Native American women will be sexually assaulted. So if you look around you and you just count three young women, look around you. If you can just count three young women in your site, imagine they were native. One of them will be sexually assaulted, right? Or like out of 1,000 people, 124 if they were Native American, would be a victim of a violent crime, have the chance of being a victim of a violent crime. For black and African Americans, it's 61 out of 1,000. Right? For white, it would be 49 out of 1,000. Okay, so crazy statistics. We can't get to those real issues like this young lady was saying, we can't get to those real issues when we romanticize people, right? Next slide. Okay, ah, my God. Okay, medium household income. This is kinda old data. We're Native Americans? Damn, they're not even on this chart. Okay, we're not gonna spend too much time on that. You guys get the point, we did a lot of heavy lifting. It's, this is not the story of today. And so I'm gonna ask Amen to sing one more song because right now we're gonna change the game and I wanna bring you to the empowerment. The empowerment that I feel every time I go to the reservations. So that I visit the Ojibwe reservations in Northern Minnesota. And we'll talk about this song. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) ♪ Send down your blessings from above ♪ ♪ So our little ones may grow ♪ ♪ With good health and happiness ♪ ♪ Oh, holy rain ♪ ♪ Oh, beautiful holy rain ♪ ♪ Oh, beautiful holy rain ♪ (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) ♪ Oh, beautiful holy rain ♪ ♪ Send down your blessings from above ♪ ♪ Send down your blessings from above ♪ ♪ So our little ones may grow ♪ ♪ With good health and happiness ♪ ♪ Oh, holy rain ♪ ♪ Oh, beautiful holy rain ♪ ♪ Oh, beautiful holy rain ♪ (singing in foreign language) I just wanna share why I sang that song is because there are areas that are not getting any water that should be getting water. And so it's really important that we pray for those places that are getting too much water, get less water. And those places that are getting no water, more water. So (speaking in foreign language) - Okay, so Native Americans, one of the things that's romanticized about them is their spirituality, right? You may have seen images about the peace pipe or teepees. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna talk about this picture. This is him and his buddy going ricing together. Spirituality is something real. And for Native people, you can't unwind spirituality and culture, right? For us, some of us like choose spirituality through religion, but for indigenous people who are really connected to their culture, spirituality is part of who they are. I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna talk about what makes the earth sacred? - What's sacred? - Oh, what's sacred? You're asking me what's sacred. - What's sacred, yeah. - You flipped it, okay. For me, what's sacred are things that my grandmother taught me. Some of you may have noticed that every now and then I bite this piece of metal up here. My grandmother taught me that whenever you're, you have too much inside of you and you can just, whether it's your nervousness or negative, something, you just bite that metal, usually a spoon. You want something that's like rounded, not like a fork. And you just bite that and all that energy goes into that fork or spoon, I mean. And that's something sacred, that really helpful, practical thing that not everyone can understand is sacred to me. - So why I ask that question is because there are different terms and different levels of sacred and what sacred means to you will mean something different to you will mean something different to you. So sacred to us is knowing that we are inseparable, that we are connected at every single moment in time from second to minute to hour to day to week to month to year for the rest of our lives. So when we're out there rising in a sense, we're gathering and collecting ourselves. We're gathering and collecting our ancestors. - Those are rice beds up there, by the way. - So anybody ever had wild rice, raise your hand. Wild rice, right? - Oh, cool. - Good, good, good. So every year I go back because currently I do work out here in the prisons, so I go back every year and we do ricing. So ricing ceremony where it lasts for a couple weeks, gathering up that rice so that I can give it to my relatives, give it to some friends. And while I'm out there, it's so beautiful because I'm actually at poll, so I stand there and while I make it look easy, it's actually really hard. And my buddy Charles, he is knocking the rice with the knockers, so we bend the rice down in, not to break it, but to gently pull it over the canoe and then swipe it with the knockers to land that rice into the canoe and some goes back out. So it actually grows again, we don't really have to do anything and that's why it's wild. - So there's like this natural replanting that goes on. You know that not everything is gonna come into the canoe. - Right, which means that if you need more, if you need more, then you need to work harder. So rather than make it easier, you, some places they have combines and they're trying to genetically alter the wild rice and most of, you know, some of you that know about genetically altering something is not, there's not happy consequences, so. - So look, we have a few more minutes, but just go to these next images, right? So we just barely are starting to touch on how the earth is sacred and you guys may have heard about no dapple last year, right, getting ready for pipelines. Next slide, getting ready for pipelines. I'm about to ask anyone in the crowd this next question, by the way, picture of the pipeline and then next slide, anyone over here, what were you taught no dapple was about? Anyone, what were you taught no, what have you learned the protests about the pipeline was about? Who was it for? - Anyone? - Anyone? Okay, who's got their hand, I can't see. Oh. - Yeah, who was no dapple for? - So to my memory, it was both that it was on sacred near American land, so they didn't want to risk hurting the land and if it was an oil spill, it could also affect the water supply to the Native American reservations around there and to the much greater surrounding area as well. - Yeah, these protests aren't for native people. Water, when you pour a glass of water on the ground, actually, do you want to say what I'm about to say? You know where I'm going. Yeah. - Go ahead. - No, you do it. - You. - Okay, when you pour a glass of water on the ground or you pour it in the soil, it doesn't stop just because it hits, I don't know, a log or something. It goes around the log. These protests aren't for native people. This is for all of us. You want to elaborate? - There are 17 to 18 million people that are south of that pipeline. If that oil goes into the water, people that hunt, people that fish, so those deer that go and drink that water can no longer drink clean water. You have corn fields out there and vegetation and crops that no longer can get that water because there's oil in it. Birds that fly there and drink that come there yearly to get their nutrients and then make offspring will no longer, that will cease. And then you have us, which we're down there and we rely on that clean water. So if we can't get clean water, then that's kind of, and it's not just about us. That's one thing that people don't understand. Some of you don't understand is that it's not about me, myself and I, which a lot of us are taught. I know that I was taught that. Everything's single serving. But in our culture, it's about we, us and ours. We, us and ours. That's what it really should be about. So that water is not just for us, it's for every single person and next generation of all the people that we share the land with on this continent. I'm hoping that as we talked about this today, native issues or approaching someone who's Native American is approachable for you. And you may not know someone's Native American just because of how they look, right? There's probably native people here in this audience right now.