Air Date 3/4/2022

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. I'm doing something a little bit different today, because I want to tell you a story that I've been mulling over for a while. And when I say that I have a story, a singular story, I mean that. And I have chosen my words carefully. At times, it's going to sound like I'm telling different stories from different parts of the world, but I think it's very important to understand them as a single story. This is a story about indigenous peoples.

But it's not a tragedy. It's a story about colonization and dispossession; but also about rebirth and recapturing what was lost. And to me, it's also a story about the alienation that I believe is endemic to society today. Widespread loneliness, disillusionment, and a general sense across the political spectrum that society is headed in the wrong direction.

I think all of these are the natural results of the inhuman structures of our society. And the path that this story takes I think [00:01:00] shows that, and also points to some solutions. As I'm recording, this past week was the 50th anniversary of the Siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. When Native peoples took a stand against systemic injustice in the same place where their ancestors had been massacred by the federal government of the United States in 1890. That will be part of this story, but it is not where we're starting. Today, we begin with the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.

The Dark History of the Overthrow of Hawaii - Sydney Laukea - TED-Ed - Air Date 2-17-22

NARRATOR: It was January 16th 1895, two men arrived at Lili'uokalani's door, arrested her, and led her to the room where she would be imprisoned. A group had recently seized power and now confiscated her diaries, ransacked her house, claimed her lands, and hid her away. Lili'uokalani was Hawaii's queen and she ruled through one of the most turbulent periods of its history.

75 years earlier, American missionaries first [00:02:00] arrived in Hawaii. They quickly amassed power building businesses, and claiming arable land that they transformed into plantations. They worked closely with the Ali'i, or sacred Hawaiian nobility closely linked to the gods. The Ali'i appointed missionaries to government role, where they helped establish Hawaii as a sovereign kingdom with a constitutional monarchy.

But once certain business opportunities emerged, namely the prospect of exporting sugar to the US tariff free, some of their descendants shifted positions. They formed a political group known as the Missionary Party, and began plotting to annex Hawaii. Bringing it under US control.

Lili'uokalani and her siblings were born into an Ali'i family.

In 1874, her brother Kalakaua ascended the throne; but 13 years into his reign, the emerging threat crystalized. The Missionary Party [00:03:00] called a meeting where an all white militia surrounded, and forced the King to sign new legislation. Later called the Bayonet Constitution, it stripped native Hawaiians of their rights, diminished the monarchy's power, and ceded control to this group of white businessmen.

Four years later, King Kalakaua died, heartbroken Lili'uokalani said, "by the base ingratitude of the very persons whose fortunes he had made". Prepared to fight, she assumed the throne. Despite death threats and rumors of insurgency, Queen Lili'uokalani was determined to restore power to her people; an estimated two-thirds of whom had lost their voting rights. Flooded with requests for change, she authored a new constitution. But before she introduced it the so called Committee of Safety, a new organization that consisted of many Missionary Party members, hatched another plot. Under the false [00:04:00] pretense that this new constitution endangered American property and lives, they staged a coup.

On January 17th 1893, more than 160 US Marines marched to the palace where the "Committee of Safety" removed Queen Lili'uokalani from office. Thousands of Hawaiian people protested, some wearing hatbands reading, "Aloha 'Aina" or "Love of the Nation". The alleged provisional government declared Hawaii a republic the following year. They proclaimed that Hawaiians couldn't vote or be government employees without signing a new oath of allegiance, many refused.

The following year some of Lili'uokalani supporters attempted a counterrevolution. The Republic responded brutally, jailing hundreds, and sentencing six people to death. In exchange for their release, the Republic made Lili'uokalani [00:05:00] sign a document that claimed to relinquish her throne, and they imprisoned her in the palace.

After eight months, Lili'uokalani was placed under house arrest. As soon as it was lifted, she traveled to Washington DC with Hawaiian nationalists, and over 20,000 signatures. There they successfully convinced Congress to halt the Republic's annexation treaty, but the following year the Spanish-American War began. Seeing Hawaii as a strategic military base, President William McKinley declared it a US territory on July 7th 1898. Breaking international law, and devastating Queen Lili'uokalani and her people.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Today, native Hawaiians make the extremely good point that there was never a treaty of annexation between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the United States. Making the annexation, and later statehood, entirely illegal. Bill Clinton even apologized for it, [00:06:00] sparking a renewed independence and sovereignty movement.

U.S. Apology Bill to Hawaiian People - EarthWorldSolutions - Air Date 11-02-12

PETER JENNINGS: Tonight, a most significant presidential apology. At the White House yesterday, President Clinton signed a formal letter of apology to the people of Hawaii.

He was apologizing on behalf of the US government for the government's involvement, a hundred years ago, in removing the independent Hawaiian monarchy by force.

REPORTER: Sovereignty now. To solve their problems Hawaiians are demanding the right to govern themselves, federal recognition as a native group, and compensation for past wrongs. As improbable as it may sound, they want their land and their country back.

ACTIVIST: Say it, in your heart. Say it, when you sleep. We are not American. We'll die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans.

REPORTER: The governor and the state legislature have recognized the right of Hawaiians to form a sovereign nation. And in Washington, the Clinton administration has signaled its openness to the idea.

Many Hawaiians predict they will achieve some form of sovereignty by [00:07:00] the end of the century. They have drawn a line in the sand and they insist there's no turning back.

Part 2

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Next we're going to shift our focus to the clearances of Scotland in the 1700 and 1800s. Now at first glance this probably won't sound too similar to the overthrow of Hawaii, but stay with me. The clearances were driven primarily by the idea that the land on which people had lived for generations would be more valuable if used to produce a commodity than to allow the people to continue to live there.

Does that sound more similar now?

The Highland Clearances of Scotland - Pilgrim Kat - Air Date 1-22-23

PILGRIM KAT: Throughout the 1800s, around 150,000 Highlanders were forced to move from their homes. These were under the guise of improvements by wealthy landowners. Which is to say that they deemed sheep to be more profitable than tenants.

These evictions were ugly affairs. With people being dragged out of their homes, no matter whether they were frail or elderly. And the rifts being set [00:08:00] ablaze so that people couldn't return.

Many people died during the clearances. Though here in Arichonan, they did put up a pretty famous fight; and it took quite a few tries before they could get them all evicted. It all came to the same in the end though. A beautiful community, a township, left in ruins abandoned. But the question is for those who survived, where did they end up?

Some traveled to the coast where they settled down as fishermen; a far more dangerous and less stable occupation than their previous work. Some boarded ships to go to America, and in particular Canada. Seeking solace in the new world. Others went to Australia and New Zealand, responding to the demand for manual laborers.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And so, even though the political landscapes between England and Scotland and that between the United States and Hawaii are very different. The tie that binds them together is this form of commodification [00:09:00] colonialism. The Scottish highlands were needed to raise sheep. And the land in Hawaii was needed to raise sugar, pineapple, and the like.

That clip about Hawaii didn't mention that the Committee of Safety that helped overthrow the Hawaiian government was led by Sanford Dole; but most retellings of that story do mention him. You may recognize his name on the next pineapple you buy at the store. And the economic impacts still persist to this day. Tourism and limited housing stock in both Hawaii and the Scottish highlands make it extremely difficult for natives of the area to afford housing.

Why Can’t Hawaiians Afford To Live In Hawaii? - AJ+ - Air Date 1-20-22

NARRATOR: The US never provided them reservation land, but they did sponsor a program called Hawaiian Homelands. Which is meant to provide land for them to lease. There's currently a backlog of 28,000 applicants on the wait list. Many applicants like Carol Lee Kamekona have been waiting for decades.

An average price for a home in Maui hit a record $1.1 million dollars this summer. Carol Lee would like to buy a home, but without government help, it would be impossible. Chanel lives with her elderly mother and adult son because none of them can afford [00:10:00] rent on their own.

CAROL LEE KAMEKONA: These homes can run about $850,000 and up to a mil. Not because of the houses and the way they look, because of the location of the houses.

So that's why Kanaka Maoli have a lot of multi-generational homes. Where you have two, three, possibly even four generations living in one household. Just so that we could survive and live here at home.

NARRATOR: Carol Lee has seven children and none of them are eligible to apply for Hawaiian Homelands. Applicants need at least 50% native Hawaiian blood quantum to qualify.

CAROL LEE KAMEKONA: I have the 50%. My kids don't have 50% because of an interracial marriage. So they're less than 50. So I cannot give it to them. None of my kids.

NARRATOR: Even if Carol Lee's name was called the lease offered her would only be temporary, with no pathway to actually own the land.

The plots can be expensive. With homes on them that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which she couldn't afford. [00:11:00]

CAROL LEE KAMEKONA: So I have to wait for them to give me a lot. When that happens in my lifetime, you think? Probably not. This probably means that my kids will never ever get a chance to buy a home here. Cuz once I die, once my mom dies, there is no more 50% blood quantum for my family. It's genocide. It's a way to get rid of the people.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now before I go any further, I just want to address a question you may be asking yourself. Even though there may be some economic parallels. Do the Scotts, citizens of the United Kingdom one of the most prolific colonizing countries in history, really deserve to be in the same category as Indigenous peoples in the story of colonialism? Well that is exactly the case made in the book White People, Indians, and Highlanders by Colin G. Galloway. The title of the book comes from a quote from an English general who described his force as consisting of quote, "white people, [00:12:00] Indians, and Highlanders". He offered no explanation for this comment as it seemed obvious at the time that both natives from the Americas, and Celtic highlanders were similarly not white.

Now of course race is not the determining factor for us and how we understand the world in 2023; but it does give some insight into the mindset of the colonizing culture at the time.

And there are more similarities, beyond their perceived non whiteness, between the indigenous American tribes and the Scottish Highland clans. From the book quote, "Just as Indian people thought and think of themselves in relation to their ancestors, and to generations yet unborn. So no Highlander ever once thought of himself as an individual. He considered himself merely with reference to those who had gone before, and those who would come after him" unquote.

And the way the two groups [00:13:00] were seen was also similar. Quote "Like 19th century lowlanders who portrayed famine stricken Highlanders as inherently backward, portrayed them as racially inferior; incapable of bettering themselves or their lands. Indians must make way for civilized white people who would put their lands to good use" unquote.

And finally both were often described in near identical terms. Quote, "Both peoples were treated as tribes in the original sense of the Latin term tribus". Barbarians at the borders of the empire. Gaels of the Scottish highlands and islands were described as proud, obstinate, and disobedient. Barbarous, irreligious, and headstrong people. 17th century New Englanders described Indians in identical terms. The Pequots, said Captain John Underhill, were an insolent and barbarous nation.

Part 3

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Of course, [00:14:00] economic domination isn't usually enough, and the colonizer also feels the need to either eliminate or assimilate the Native population in order to establish a new peace. This usually takes the form of abolishing the cultural norms and histories of the Native people. In North America, we're familiar with the phrase, "Kill the Indian, save the man," which was the rallying cry behind the genocidal attempt to break the connection of Native children from their heritage, through abusive residential schools. Native dress and hairstyles were banned.

Similarly, while the English were attempting to establish control over rebellious Scots, they even banned the tartan kilt.

And in Scotland, North America and Hawaii, there was an effective ban on using the Native language, or at least a soft ban by mandating that education be English only, and the children must be sent to it, while strongly discouraging the use of the native language.

The Banning of the Hawaiian Language - Noʻeau Woo-O'Brien - Air Date 12-07-19

SPEAKER 1: There's so many of our kupuna who have talked to me and tears [00:15:00] in their eyes about their experiences, punished for speaking Hawaiian language. My own father, although didn't go to public school, who went to [?] School, was punished for speaking Hawaiian.

It was not just a policy though in private schools; it was the official policy of public schools that Hawaiian language could not be a medium of instruction, not even tolerated in the classroom or on the playground.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Not that strict language laws aren't even always necessary when people like the Highland Scots were economically displaced and forced to move to a new area where they needed to assimilate to survive.

The Highland Clearances of Scotland Part 2 - Pilgrim Kat - Air Date 1-22-23

PILGRIM KAT: Others went to Australia and New Zealand responding to the demand for manual laborers. Still others were forced to move to lowland industrial cities such as Glasgow, where they found work in factories and shipyards.

With the dissolution of the clan system and all the evictions also came the diminishing of Gallic culture and language, as Highlanders were forced to adopt the language and culture and [00:16:00] customs of the places that they moved to.

Though Gaelic is currently an official language in Scotland, it's an endangered one, with just under 60,000 speakers.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And then Hawaii, they were perfectly clear about their intentions regarding the native history. This is from the Hawaiian kingdom blog. Quote: "In the record of a council of state meeting of the so-called Republic of Hawaii in 1895, Samuel Damon, who served as the group's vice president, stated, quote: 'If we are ever to have peace and annexation, the first thing to do is to obliterate the past.'" Unquote.

And the article continues: "American indoctrination of the people of Hawaii had profound negative consequences, not only on Hawaiian culture and identity, but also on the island's historiography. As soon as the missionary party -- or, as loyalist newspaper editor Edmund Nori called them, the American mafia -- had taken the reins of power,[00:17:00] they began to systematically rewrite the country's history and obscure and discredit the achievements of the Hawaiian kingdom." Unquote.

And to give just a small sense of what can be lost when language is lost, there are a couple of vocabulary words we all need.

First from the Scot's language -- and I apologize for my mispronunciation -- there's the word dùthchas. It relates to having a right to land handed down through family or clan ties, but it is far more than that. This is from the article "Dùthchas, the word that describes understanding of land, people and culture," quote: "The idea of unity existing between land, people, all living creatures, nature and culture. The Gaelic word for this is dùthchas. The importance of this concept, of the connectedness and the interrelationships between land, people and culture held in the word dùthchas cannot be overestimated. It [00:18:00] prefigures our 21st century idea of the need for ecological balance and care." Unquote.

And in Hawaii, there are similar concepts that amount to, not an exact translation, of course, but nearly the same thing -- concepts that, I should point out, effectively don't exist in English.

The first we actually already heard mentioned in the clip about the annexation of Hawaii.

The dark history of the overthrow of Hawaii - Sydney Iaukea - TED-Ed - Air Date 2-17-22

NARRATOR: thousands of Hawaiian people protested, some wearing hatbands reading Aloha ʻĀina or Love of the Nation.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Aloha ʻĀina, or "Love of the Nation." But again, that's really only scratching the surface.

Aloha Aina - Indigenous Life in Hawaii - Captain Potter - Air Date 11-26-21

SAM POTTER: What is Aloha ʻĀina? What does that mean?

KAINA MAKUA: Aloha ʻĀina? Sometimes it's hard to understand. The very literal translation is "love for land." I would say Aloha ʻĀina is, the feeling of Aloha [00:19:00] ʻĀina is when you first get your first baby. I remember when my oldest was born, there's nothing that I wouldn't do to ensure her health and that she was always safe. And that feeling, that is what the feeling should be. And that's what I felt. And I still feel that daily here. I'm not gonna give nothing up. You know, I'm not gonna let me, being a little bit tired, stop me from coming here, and always giving without thinking that I'm gonna get something back from you. Giving, because that's how it should be. Aloha.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: The other Hawaiian word that's important to know is kuleana. It's a bit like dùthchas in that it relates to having a right to land, but of course there's more to it than that. Tied into a worldview as just expressed with the understanding of Aloha ʻĀina, it's easy to understand that kuleana isn't just about having the right to land, but also, [00:20:00] pulling now from the Hawaiian Language Dictionary, quote: "The privilege, concern and responsibility." So, not just the right, but the responsibility, but not a responsibility that's a burden; one that's a privilege.

This is the feeling Native Hawaiians have connected to their land. Not identical, but not too different from dùthchas. And when you change the way people talk, the very language they use, you literally change the way they think. If one doesn't have the word dùthchas or kuleana, it is much less likely that they will understand as intuitively that land, people, all living creatures, nature and culture are all inextricably linked, and our responsibility to care for.

I know it took me close to 40 years to figure out what just about any Scottish eight-year-old with sufficient training in the Scot language would have been able to [00:21:00] tell me.

And the impact of this? This is the really important part to understand about the loss of culture and language. It allows the encroaching culture and language to not only become dominant, but also to be seen as superior -- which was the intention, by the way. And when the dominant culture is thought of as superior by a majority of people, it creates a dynamic of shame of native heritage in complicated ways. And it may be natural to think that the way this manifests is through internalized shame that comes from fully embracing the new culture and then, in turn, looking down on one's native culture. And undoubtedly that would have been part of the process.

But that's not where it ends. Listen to this comment I found written on a message board. Quote: "I am ashamed of being Native American. I hate my last name and everyone laughing at it. More often than not receptionists [00:22:00] laugh or don't believe me and give me a hard time. I don't leave the house anymore unless necessary. I have anxiety making appointments or telling people my name. What's worse, is I love my culture. I love dancing at powwows. I love our language. I just hate my last name, because I don't live on a reservation anymore where it's normal. I don't want to change my last name. I want to be proud of it .But it gets to be too much." Unquote.

There is so much going on there. And a similar feeling was expressed in a question sent to a native YouTuber.

Two Worlds - weRnative - Air Date 11-22-19

UNCLE PAIGE: So the question we have for you this month is, "I'm embarrassed to share my native culture. Can't I keep two different worlds?"

Absolutely not. What I mean by this is, yes, you can. I have seen Natives keep two different worlds their entire lives thinking it will be easy. But it can be confusing, [00:23:00] too. Where I see the struggles in this dual approach is that by keeping two different worlds, Native and other, you are really splitting yourself in half. You are never truly your real self.

With this question I'd ask yourself, what's embarrassing about sharing a culture? Society makes it so difficult already for us to be our true self. We shouldn't have to contribute to that.

You are proof that forced assimilation, termination, and attempted genocide failed. You are your ancestors', dreams, hopes, and what they fought for. Your struggle in preserving our culture is shared throughout Indian Country and Alaska.

Thanks for the question. Either way, I fully support you. We are Native.

Part 4

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: So the goal to obliterate culture that began with attempting to convince Native youth that their culture was backward and shameful, ultimately failed, and has just morphed into a sort of sad phenomenon of weak teasing [00:24:00] from members of the dominant culture, based on ignorance.

It's not an ideal outcome, but it is better than if the White Christian supremacists had really succeeded. But why didn't they? Well, it's not much more complicated than the fact that there were always people who refused to let that happen.

What is the Red Power Movement? - Fusion - Air Date 6-2-17

NARRATOR: Ever heard of Red Power? The movement dates back to the 1960s and it laid the roots for modern indigenous resistance. Here's what you need to know.

In the sixties, a new generation of Native activists inspired by the Black freedom struggle came together. They were sick and tired of government policies that forced Indians to assimilate into White culture. Red Power called for indigenous self-determination: the right to be left alone to govern ourselves.

In 1969, Richard Oakes led a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz, the site of a former federal prison. Dozens of activists reclaimed the island in the name of the broken Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. They [00:25:00] wanted Alcatraz to become a cultural and spiritual center for indigenous peoples.

ARCHIVAL INTERVIEW: The Alcatraz used to be a prison for our people, you know. Originally, before it was a federal prison, it was a prison for Indian warriors, warriors that dissented against the United States government.

NARRATOR: In the end, the government didn't grant their request, but the occupation got the attention of the media and the American public. The Red Power Movement was born.

In 1972 the movement expanded and a cross-country caravan, known as the Trail of Broken Treaties, traveled to Washington, DC to present a 20-point manifesto to the Nixon administration. The paper was designed to forge a more equal relationship legally and politically between native communities and the US government.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And a year later in 1973, 50 years ago, this past week, the Red Power movement descended on Wounded Knee.

Wounded Knee siege - BBC World Service - Air Date 2-27-23

NARRATOR: It's February, 1973. The prairies of the western [00:26:00] United States. And a group of American Indians are about to make a stand at a site that is, to them, deeply significant. The place is Wounded Knee.

RUSSELL MEANS: That first morning it was very cold. I went outside with Edgar Bear Runner and Severt Young Bear, and we were looking to the east. The sun hasn't come up yet. We just stood there looking east. I said, we're never gonna get outta here alive. And Severt Young Bear said, "Just like our ancestors."

NARRATOR: The ancestors were the Sioux Indians massacred at Wounded Knee by the US Cavalry in 1890. And the men gathered there before that dawn, more than 80 years later, were members of the American Indian Movement. They'd already staged a series of publicity-grabbing actions. Their aim was to air their [00:27:00] grievances over the management of Indian reservations and draw attention to what they regarded as the wider injustices inflicted on their people for generations. Among the most seasoned activists was Russell Means.

RUSSELL MEANS: At that time, our people were ashamed to be Indians and I and the American Indian Movement rose up.

NARRATOR: And so the activists storm the symbolic settlement at Wounded Knee, which lies on an Indian reservation in South Dakota.

RUSSELL MEANS: Well, when we first went, we went to the trading post itself and took that over, and gave out all the food to the locals, whatever they could carry. They had a museum there for tourists. So that was emptied out. We repossessed all the grave-robbing articles they had stolen from our graves, and then would sell to the tourists.

And then we went up to the top of the hill where the church was. We figured that would be [00:28:00] our last stand. So we fortified our places around. We put all the cars surrounding the church, so when they, if they came, we would throw on the headlights as a form of protection. And that was gonna be our last stand up on the hill where the mass grave is, of the over 300 Indian people buried in a mass grave by the United States Cavalry.

NARRATOR: US Marshals and FBI agents poured into the area and surrounded the activists. Military jets roared, overhead and helicopters circled. A siege had begun that would last for 71 days. Media interest was intense.

REPORTER: This is where the television crews await the hour-by-hour events in Wounded Knee. This privileged position is protected by the Indian Chiefs. Clearly the Chiefs are anxious that this rebellion and its outcome receive as much [00:29:00] publicity as possible.

NARRATOR: Vince Harvey was one of the spokesman.

VINCE HARVEY: The attitude is one of willingness to give the supreme sacrifice in order to bring a change about in the federal government's handling of Indian affairs, both socially and judicially.

RUSSELL MEANS: Almost daily they love firing their munitions with those tracers. You know, there's something like seven or eight shells between each tracer. Yeah. We saw that.

NARRATOR: Two government agents were wounded. And on the Indian side, 13 were hurt and two killed. But for Russell Means, those dangerous days at Wounded Knee were a time of liberation.

RUSSELL MEANS: Free. It was totally free. It was a walk in freedom. I didn't care. Nobody in there gave a damn how many people were surrounding us, firing at us. Man, we [00:30:00] were free for the first times in our life. We were free, man.

NARRATOR: The government forces were blockading the activists, and they began to run desperately short of food. On the 50th day of the standoff, a peace campaigner, Bill Zimmerman, flew a light aircraft over Wounded Knee and dropped supplies to the Indians. Why does he think the siege lasted so long?

BILL ZIMMERMAN: it would've been very simple for the federal forces to go into Wounded Knee and take over. There would've been some casualties, but probably the government would've considered them tolerable.

What made it so interesting was that the Indians existed underneath a protective bubble of publicity and shame. Because everybody knew that this was the site of the last massacre of the Indian wars, and the last thing the government wanted to see was a massacre on the same site.

NARRATOR: After long [00:31:00] negotiations, an agreement was reached and the siege finally ended on May the fifth. But Russell Means believes his people took much from the stand they made at Wounded Knee.

RUSSELL MEANS: Something you can't measure. Self dignity and pride throughout the Americas. And we lit a spark, man. And that spark ended up with Indian people throughout the Americas being recognized, being paid attention to. We have people now struggling to preserve our languages, and we are internationally connected and continually are at the United Nations, exposing the crimes, the illegal crimes of the United States of America, and its subordinate nations.

The spark that lit the flame was Wounded Knee in 1973.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Somewhat ironically, I think, the most influential book on Native history in the U S ever written, [00:32:00] Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, was written in 1970, just as the Native renaissance was taking shape and Native pride was re-emerging. But the book seems to have completely missed that, with the author being so steeped in history, perhaps, not realizing what was happening all around him, just as he was finishing writing.

In 2019, David Treuer, an Ojibwe Native, published somewhat of a rejoinder titled The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee.

DAVID TREUER: Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, is the best-selling book about American Indian history ever written. It was published in 1970. It's sold over 5 million copies. It's been translated into 17 different languages. And in it, he kind of captures the prevailing sentiment about Native people, which is that, as amazing as we might have once been, we are no more.

And he says in the very first [00:33:00] page of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, "I started in 1860 and I go to 1890 and I ended the massacre at Wounded Knee where the culture and civilization of the American Indian was destroyed." And he goes on in the introduction to say, "And if you happen to travel to a contemporary reservation and see the poverty and hopelessness and squalor, perhaps by reading this book, you'll understand why."

And when I read that when I was in college, I felt contradictory things. I felt lifted up by him, because he's devoting so much time and attention to talking about our past. And I felt cut down at the same time, and silenced, that we were gone, we were dead. And if we were alive, it was only as sufferers. And if native communities still existed, it was only in a state of perpetual suffering and pain.

And I thought to myself when I read it -- and I'm 20, 21 -- I thought, well, no. Our lives are more than that. I love my reservation and my community and my tribe because there are important things happening here. Not because of the poverty, not because of the squalor. [00:34:00] And I wanted to write this book as a follow up and counter narrative to Dee Brown's book, and as a counter narrative to the prevailing narrative about us, which is Native American life is necessarily a tragedy.

We're not simply victims of history, that we have been historical actors in our own right, and we have made our own history, not always with tools of our choosing.

And not only that, we have shaped this country as much as it's been shaped by us.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The importance of language and rediscovering the language of Native America for Native America?

DAVID TREUER: Yeah, so one notices an inward turn starting in the eighties and the nineties and the two thousands, whereas my brother puts it, he says, the government has spent many hundreds of years trying to just take away our lands, to take away our religion and to take away our culture. Why would we look to them to restore those things? We should look to ourselves. And it's an interesting turn. We are going to do for ourselves these things. We are going [00:35:00] to make a strong community. We are going to attend to our health. We are going to attend to our languages and our cultures and our ceremonies. It's an interesting moment.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You mentioned AIM, the American Indian Movement, and you write also extensively about this. Talk about that kind of activism and what it meant in the 1970s.

DAVID TREUER: AIM was a really complicated movement. It resulted in many, many good things, but in some bad things too, to be perfectly honest. And part of what I try to do in the book is, if I'm going to write a different narrative, if I'm gonna try to get away from a tragic telling, the opposite of tragedy is not hope, in my opinion. The opposite of tragedy is context, texture, nuance, and depth. So to tell the opposite of tragedy is to tell a complex story and AIM was a complex movement. It had some lasting, important, profound, positive effects. But some of its leadership was violent [00:36:00] and engaged in violent rhetoric and tactics and was destructive in some ways. But after the American Indian Movement, it was impossible to ignore our continued existence. We were front and center at that point, and for that, I'm very grateful.

Part 5

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Which brings us to my favorite stories to share. They're not the ones we usually tell of resistance against oppression or fighting for rights against powerful governments. These stories are of enacting purely positive visions that are regenerative to the soul and inspirational to others. I'll start with my favorite story of its kind and bring our focus back to Hawaii. In the 1970s, with inspiration and energy at their backs, from the Black freedom struggle and the American Indian Movement, Native Hawaiians set out to recapture one of the most integral aspects of their culture that was almost lost forever.

NARRATOR: The 1970s was a significant time for Hawaiians. Struggles were erupting when we made efforts to correct [00:37:00] longstanding injustices. Abuses of land and cultural rights were at the forefront of our awareness, and we were determined to stand our ground. We had awakened to the vision that our political voice and the struggle to keep our culture relevant in contemporary times were the most important things for our people.

NAINOA THOMPSON: There was no hope, there was no dreams prior to stuff like the seventies. Fundamentally, if you're Hawaiian, your expectations to society we're not as good as other people's expectations. You're expected to die younger. You're expected to make less money. You're expected to do worse in school. You're expected, more of you will be in prisons than others. All that whole stuff.

NARRATOR: History has shown in many Native cultures that the path to a better future comes by following in the wake of the ancestors, Polynesians had migrated to Hawaii, traveling vast distances of ocean in strong voyaging canoes, using [00:38:00] ancient traditions of celestial navigation. The art of canoe building and navigation had been nearly forgotten in Hawaii and Polynesia with the introduction of modern ships and instruments. During the period now known as the Hawaiian Renaissance, a few men decided it was time to resurrect this ancient knowledge.

HERB KANE: My own personal interest was in rebuilding what I thought to be the central object of Polynesian culture. Why central? Because were it not for that object, there would be no Polynesians today. Right? So that, how central can you get?

BEN FINNEY: What we have to do is rebuild the canoes, relearn the navigation, and then sail navigated voyages between the islands.

NARRATOR: Herb Kane, a Native Hawaiian artist, Ben Finney, a California anthropologist, and Tommy Holmes, a renowned waterman, formed the Polynesian Voyaging [00:39:00] Society.

HERB KANE: I zeroed in on those features of canoe design, which by their wide distribution throughout Polynesia must have been the most ancient. So using those particular features of design, I did a drawing for Hōkūleʻa and then, uh, finally, when everyone agreed on my third drawing, I sat down and did the construction drawings. [In] 1975, uh, we launched, and summer I took it around the islands on its maiden voyage.

NARRATOR: While they had a vessel that reflected the design of the ancients, they could not sail in the way of the ancients. There was no one who could teach them the art of traditional celestial navigation. The traditional navigators had a sophisticated system of sailing by the stars using the heavens, the waves, the winds, and other natural clues to fix positions and determine which way to [00:40:00] sail.

An exhaustive search through Polynesia was frustrating and turned up no viable candidates. Eventually, they learned about a navigator from the tiny atoll of Satawal in Micronesia, named Mau Piailug. He was considered an exceptional navigator who came from a culture of navigators dating back hundreds of years. In his tradition, he was recognized as a master, a "pwo" navigator.

In Satawal, navigators were chosen at birth. The young boys were tutored by their grandfathers according to oral traditions that came from generations before. Their maps to new lands were found in the skies, and they were guided by a compass of stars found only in the heavens. They learned the stars, the currents, the winds, developing an intuitive understanding of the cosmos and a deep trust, respect, and understanding [00:41:00] of the sea.

BEN FINNEY: I told him about the project. I could hardly finish talking and he let go of a barrage of words. He said, You have to do this. Of course, you have to do this. How can Polynesians live without sailing?

NARRATOR: Mau Piailug agreed to navigate the Hawaiian canoe Hōkūleʻa on her maiden voyage to Tahiti. Mau would navigate in the traditional way using only his knowledge of the heavens and the ocean. There would be no compass, no maps, no Western navigational instruments.

CHADD PAISHON: Mau was that one that was able to come back to our culture and help us to remember that these things that were magic to us, to watch him do all these things, and it's still magical to us, to be at the level that he's at, he's helped us to reconnect again.

CREW MEMBER: If I [00:42:00] wanted to know anything about anything about the stars, the ocean, about wave, and he would just, like, he would be, he would just do, he would just like gimme the answer right there. It was just like, and it went right through him to me, and then it represented who he was and everybody he learned from all, you know, in the past and everything. So it's like a living ancestor that you could finally talk to.

NARRATOR: On May 1st, 1976, Hōkūleʻa began her epic voyage, a 2,500 mile journey from Hawaii to Titi. After 31 days at sea made landfall in a glorious arrival witnessed by more than 17,000 Tahitians. It was as if Hōkūleʻa had breathed life into all of the Polynesian myths and legends about ancient seafaring. The pathway to Tahiti had been reopened and something long dormant began to stir in the hearts and [00:43:00] minds of all Polynesians.

NAINOA THOMPSON: To be honoring the traditions, to be true to the required sacred knowledge and skill base that's needed, you gotta go back to the source.

NARRATOR: Mau had retreated back to his quiet life on Satawal, but he too was haunted by failure and the sense that he had left his job in Hawaii undone. He had been unable to share his sacred knowledge beyond his shores.

NAINOA THOMPSON: We sat on a white sand beach on a driftwood log, you know, I just had a comment and the question was, uh, you know, Mau, we don't really need you to navigate and find Tahiti for us, you need to help us find it for ourselves.

NARRATOR: Nainoa and other crew members spent two intense years learning the body of knowledge Mau had to offer. They learned the way young boys of Satawal learned, [00:44:00] observing and feeling the subtleties of nature while on the ocean. They learned what it felt like to have their sailing vessels come alive, how to read a canoe's moods, and to intuit interaction with the winds and the sea.

In 1980, Hōkūleʻa set sail again for Tahiti.. This time the navigator was Hawaiian and he carried with him the hope and pride of his people. Mau sailed not as a navigator, but a teacher. The voyage was a success. Landfall in Tahiti set the stage for the expansion of traditional voyaging throughout the Polynesian Triangle. It was a wonderful time, inspiring the training of new navigators and the construction of more voyaging canoes across Polynesia.

For the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it was a time to realize dreams. 25 years of relearning navigation and voyaging reunited the great nation of Polynesia [00:45:00] and inspired renewed interest in other cultural practices: language, dance, traditional arts. This expansion of voyaging throughout Polynesia brought newfound respect for Hawaiians. Once viewed as culturally lost, Hawaiians were now at the forefront of cultural revival. Literally and figuratively, the art of traditional navigation is helping Native people throughout Polynesia find their way in a modern world that does not always value traditional practices.

HERB KANE: The thing about culture is that the people who have lost their past become a lost people. In complete acceptance of the modern culture, they should not lose the cultural past that has given them the guidance that has made them successful. And [00:46:00] without that past, we are simply rudderless.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now for the story that, when I first heard it, forced me to make the connection between the history of Hawaiian annexation and the Hawaiian Renaissance that bloomed in the wake of the building of the Hōkūleʻa, and the eerie parallels I was beginning to learn about Scotland in the wake of the clearances. Because it turns out there were Scots who were similarly interested in rediscovering and reconnecting to their ancient culture.

This story actually begins with Scots taking a trip to South Dakota, home of the Lakota Sioux, where the Scots began to see the parallels between their lives and those of Native people in the United States. And ends with them building, of all things, a boat: a traditional "birlinn" used to navigate the islands of the west coast of Scotland between the Highlands and Glasgow.

DON: In the late eighties, Colin and a friend from Pollag, Tom Elliott, they went on a trip to America, [00:47:00] I think it was funded by the Scottish Tree Trust to learn about environmental concerns in America, in particular South Dakota, where, uh, there was an Indian reservation.

TOMMY ELLIOT: Well, it was a massive culture shock to begin with. We'd done a lot of ceremonies with the Sioux, sweat lodges, powwows, sundances, and we went to college every day to learn more about their history. Which changed both of us profoundly, especially Colin.

DON: Colin could see the links between the Lakota and the reservation and almost like people in reservations in Glasgow. And it really affected them and it made them see, you know, the big picture as it were, you know,

TOMMY ELLIOT: They lost their identity as a people, completely and utterly. And you can't do that to people who have thousands and thousands of years of cultural history. You know, you learn from people like that. You don't take it away from them.

COLIN MACLEOD: When I went to North America [00:48:00] and stayed with a Lakota Sioux, I went into a prefab house. The kid running a boat could only speak English, and his granny could only speak Lakota Sioux. Within one household, there was a death of a language. My granny could speak Gaelic. And what we're seeing is we're seeing the bleaching out of our own culture.

PETER: He doesn't speak Gaelic himself, but he knew a phrase. [You speak a Gaelic? I do, aye. {Gaelic conversation}.] Set him off on a trip to regain some of her Gaelic heritage, you know?

GEHAN BEAN CHAILEIN: And I think some of that was also part of his way of understanding what communities like Pollag were experiencing and been lost when the traditional structures of community and uh, traditional society were broken down.

COLIN MACLEOD: And the Native Americans have created a [00:49:00] college where they teach people to be proud of who they are and their history and their language, their music, and their beliefs. And when I came back to Scotland, I thought, Well, you know something? We could do that here, rather than feeling like we're second class citizens in we own nation, living in impoverished schemes.

ALASTAIR MCINTOSH: And I vividly remember the time that Colin said, We've shown them what we're against. Now let's show them what we're for.

TOMMY ELLIOT: In the ninth century, like the Norse came, they invaded, they settled, they were assimilated in Gaelic culture. They adopted the Gaelic language, and Gaelic way of life. However, they brought their own culture with them. Scottish culture evolved. They coined the term Gal-Gael.

ALASTAIR MCINTOSH: There were strange or foreign Gael. Gal, the stranger, the foreigner. Gael, the heartland people. And Colin said, Right, we are now going to be [00:50:00] Gal-Gael.

COLIN MACLEOD: It's not enough to have the great dream. We are interested in people who want to wrestle in a reality, and that means getting your sleeves rolled up and dealing with the rough as well as the smooth.

GEHAN BEAN CHAILEIN: There was some trees that came down in the local park, so we put our gyros together, had that milled into to timbers to build a workshop. That was our first project. And then people who heard what was happening and just came down out curiosity and ended up getting involved in building this workshop alongside people from different backgrounds. The idea to build a boat had been around since the days of the free state. Because birlinns were associated with the Gal-Gael of history. Colin saw involving people, uh, working alongside to build a boat as being a means by which we could achieve some of our early vision around [00:51:00] social and ecological, cultural renewal. We were approached by a local addiction project to, uh, put together some activities for people who were in recovery. And so that kind of came together in building a 12 foot model birlinn with John McCauley

JOHN MCCAULEY: And that was an act of defiance in itself because the birlinns were outlawed in the early 17th Century by King James VI. And then all these, the clans of the west coast were using them. The people in Govan have lost their identity twice over, once when they were cleared from the Highlands and Ireland, and then again when the shipyards closed.

The boat was phenomenal because it kind of focused their attention, the people of Govan, who were at that point in time, the history of Govan, it was a challenging time. There was no industry. People struggled. So [00:52:00] that focus for young and old, it was a great relief. You know, this idea that we were creating something traditional, you needed skill, tremendous skill about that, and we're doing it collectively.

DARREN MCGARVEY: And what Gal-Gael does is they say, you are now a part of your community. And they have an intuitive understanding from the moment they begin to the moment it's finished, that this is a journey of learning, of connection with other people and they start deriving a sense of purpose from that.

COLIN MACLEOD: We've got to take responsibility. Gal-Gael is trying to do. We just want to help create a better community for everybody.

JOHN MCCAULEY: Do Kun had a big square red sail. She's the biggest boat we've built so far and none of us had any idea how to sail, and uh, so we built it anyway and splashed right out into the sea. You can imagine if you have a [?] and it's [00:53:00] suddenly you're out in this ancient boat and there's dolphins jumping at the water and things like that. It was amazing. Do you know, it was just a bit of your dream, you know? We're getting an invite to go to the Magnus Barelegs Festival, which is, it was a Viking. It took us 18 hours to row and sail. It was a long shift there. It was really disparate in seeing the ferry pass new but 20 times, you know. It was, it was great though, it was a real adventure.

We came to look on the boat as both a reality and as a metaphor. About the journey of life. This is where you build the courage to face life and to walk on, and then you come down to the sea. The peace of the ocean. You become an elder in your community, able to help others go on that same pilgrimage of life.[00:54:00]

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And from those inspirational actions, sprang more action, with a focus on educating the next generations.

The Highland Clearances of Scotland Part 3 - Pilgrim Kat - Air Date 1-22-23

PILGRIM KAT: Though Gaelic is currently an official language in Scotland, it's an endangered one with just under 60,000 speakers. However, that is not all that there is to the story. This is the Gaelic Center in Glasgow where Gaelic culture and language continues to be promoted. Glasgow is the most populated and diverse city in Scotland and, with a heritage of Highlander migration, it's no surprise that it's here that Gallic culture continues to thrive. At the moment, there is a five year plan in place to make Glasgow the most Gaelic city in the world. So it's mainly in the Highlands and islands where Gaelic language is still spoken. Here in Glasgow, there is steadily increasing attendance at a number of Gaelic schools. Gaelic culture also thrives in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland in the form of folk music, ceilidh dancing [00:55:00] and literature, which is really at the heart of the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance. Overall, the number of young speakers in both Scotland and Canada is steadily increasing year on year. So it looks like there's a hope for a culture that, though dispersed, refuses to be destroy.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And in Hawaii, there is a similar focus on education.

The Fight To Take Back Hawaii - Foreign Correspondent - Air Date 5-11-22

NARRATOR: Kanaka Maoli Hawaiians are looking to themselves for solutions. The classroom is ground zero. Kalehua Krug Kalehua Krug Is the principal Ka Waihona o Ka Na'auao, a charter school that focuses on reviving Hawaiian culture.

KALEHUA KRUG: When you give history to them at a young age, when you give the culture and ceremony and language to them at a young age, they don't have to feel the loss like we did. You know? They don't have to take that punch in the gut that we had to take as a generation of Natives in this time period. For them, it's hopefully lessening the load, or the intergenerational trauma, that they have to bear. We still believe in the sciences. We still [00:56:00] believe in physics and engineering. We still believe in mathematics as long as the ethics that come from the wisdom of our ancestry are attached to them.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And the impacts are evident. Hawaii has gone from English-only schools to this.

Hawaiian Language Ban - Barry Shell - Air Date 5-17-08

SABRA KAUKA: There was a law that required you to send your children to school, English speaking school. So all of that has turned around now. We have from preschool through university, you can get your doctorate in Hawaiian language. You can defend your dissertation in Hawaiian language, you have a board of people, a panel of reviewers who can understand and question you in the language. That's how much it has come back.

Part 6

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: So, what are we to make of all of this? I have two remaining clips that attempt to add a bit of analysis to the state and purpose of what they call re-indigenization. The first is from Alistair McIntosh, who we heard in the story of the Gal-Gael [00:57:00] community and the building of the traditional Scottish sailing ships. Macintosh is high on anyone's list who is trying to make sense of all of the connections that we are making today. He speaks of it in terms of humanity's need for embededness and how this is at odds with the sort of cultural commodification we usually think of in relationship to the effects of modernity driven by neo-liberalism.

Alastair McIntosh - The Lesley Riddoch Podcast - Air Date 1-3-23

LESLEY RIDDOCH - HOST: What is it that you think is happening with this disembeddedness that, I mean, younger generations of politicians, you specifically were focusing on, are somehow lacking the ground sense of the past?

ALASTAIR MCINTOSH: Well, you use the perfect expression, Leslie: the ground sense, um, a Kenneth White-type expression, of being grounded in the, literally, in the geology all the way through to the poetry, the geopoetics, as Kenneth White would have it, of reality, [00:58:00] of place, of community, of our inner, deep connections. And I think of the general thing in the modern world of the general condition of modernity, which Anthony Gibbons, Tony Gibbons, is talking about in the consequences of modernity here. As a general aspect, as he puts it, we become disembedded from space and time connections. So, space is geography, it's a horizontal dynamic, if you like. Time is history, the vertical dynamic. We become disconnected from that and whereas when I was growing up in the Isle of Lewis in the 1960s, the older people would constantly be connecting us into that, with their stories, with participation in work, with the rhythms of nature, the tides, weather, and all the rest of it.

In our modern world where so much is [00:59:00] virtual reality, we lack those anchorage points. And what troubles me with a lot of green politics today, is it's great in the urban stuff, but it has little understanding in an embodied sense of the wider green environmental physics and chemistry and all the rest of it, of how the world really works. And this is why we're getting, I think, so much unconnected policy coming through and this is what we're lacking in the modern world.

This is what Giddens calls the "consequences of modernity". And he says that when this happens, embodied relationships, by which he means community-embodied, relationships of people and place, unravel and then commodification kicks in. Indeed, commodification is often the driving process because commodification is what disconnects people. And what we see now going on in a place like Eigg is we [01:00:00] see people in the grassroots making this reconnected. And the reason it's so important, we have to begin with being able to stand our ground, to know how we are connected, to be competent in what we are doing, to be of service to the community, in that democratic intellectual sense of testing education, testing knowledge back to the community. We have to dig from where we stand, and this is why land reform is so important because it gives the strengths we need to be a people. And we have to become indigenous, again, to where we are. So Gal-Gael is about reindigenization. Right here. We're building boats and such like, in Gal-Gael, we get people out in the river, down to the sea, reconnecting hard-pressed people with nature, with one another and, most deeply of all, and this is where so much of my work is about, was the deep spirit, was that of soul.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And the last thing I want to play today is the [01:01:00] same sentiment being expressed and reaching the same basic conclusions about the nature and needs of the human soul, but coming from a completely different culture, halfway around the world. This is part of the same discussion we already heard explaining the idea of Aloha ʻĀina, the deep love of land and the deep privilege to having the responsibility to care for it, Kuleana. And to bring this back to where I started, I see this conversation as describing the feeling of alienation that I think is so widespread right now, while providing an antidote.

Aloha Aina - Indigenous Life in Hawaii Part 2 - Captain Potter - Air Date 11-26-21

KAINA MAKUA: I'm not gonna let me being a little bit tired stop me from coming here and always giving without thinking that I'm gonna get something back from you, giving because that's how it should be. Aloha. Once you initiate that relationship and build upon it, the spiritual will come out, [01:02:00] emotional, and connections going to be made, not just with you and ʻĀina, but really with other people.

SAM POTTER: I think that's a big reason why I wanted to make this series because I find that people who are connected to ʻĀina, to Kupuna, to the land, ocean, whatever it is, they have that thing in life that a lot of people seem to miss when they don't really know why they're here.

KAINA MAKUA: Yep.

SAM POTTER: And it comes with a lot of heartache, a lot of confusion, a lot of wrong paths. And I think when people take the time to connect with the earth, it changes everything.

KAINA MAKUA: Yeah. I agree a hundred percent. To those who probably gonna watch, that would be my message. If you're not connected somehow to ʻĀina, get connected. There's a lot of places like this, not just in Hawaii, but all over the world, [01:03:00] that are waiting for you.

SAM POTTER: Aloha ʻĀina, and this is just my opinion, is to be indigenous to the land you live on. And when I say indigenous, I don't mean any specific race or bloodline or culture because to me, well, for me, indigenous is a practice. It's a love for the land and a life in service to it. It's to follow in the footsteps of our indigenous people who have been living this way for thousands of years, it's to recognize our kuleana as kānaka. Our responsibility is humans, to care for this earth so that they can care for our keiki, our kids. It's to live in reciprocity with our natural world so that this Earth and our people may flourish long after our [01:04:00] time is done. Aloha ʻĀina is not a word, but an action.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And so, that is the story I wanted to tell you. The single story of colonialism, dispossession of both land and culture, renaissance and re-indigenization, spread out on opposite sides of the world. If you'd asked me a year ago about these stories, I would have said that they were very similar, part of a pattern that repeats, perhaps, but separate because the people involved were so separate. Now, I prefer to see them as literally the same story, simply with chapters that take place all over the world, because it's not the people, but the system of ideology at play that matters. The thinking and, more specifically, the values behind colonialism [01:05:00] have always been drawn from the same well. So, it's not multiple stories of different people. It's a single story of a single basic set of destructive values that didn't just dispossess and decimate indigenous communities around the world, because the commodification didn't stop with the Native land. We now live in a world of total commodification, disconnection, and alienation brought about by the same destructive values that hit Indigenous peoples first and hardest. But now we're all feeling the pain. And the only way back is to rediscover the values we've forgotten. And to be clear, this isn't primitivism. When I say back, I don't mean to the hunter-gatherer era. There's no room for 8 billion people there, and I don't want to hunt and gather anyway. But I do want a deep enough understanding of Indigenous values that we can begin to apply them to the world we have today.

There's a chance that the descendants of colonizers, which is most of [01:06:00] us, having our own cultural Renaissance, shedding the ideology of commodification and tapping back into more human values, could help save the world. But what is a much more achievable goal? Is that it would probably make us happier in the meantime, regardless.

 To help tell our story today. We heard clips from a range of sources, all of which deserve a deeper dive, if you have the time TED-Ed provided the history of the overthrow of Hawaii. There was archival news footage of Bill Clinton's signed apology to the nation of Hawaii. Pilgrim Kat, on YouTube, created the short documentary about the Highland clearances and their aftermath. There was archival footage of a local TV show discussing the Hawaiian language being banned in schools. Captain Potter, on YouTube, created the excellent short documentary on the concept of Aloha ʻĀina. We Are Native is the Native YouTuber we heard giving advice about maintaining two worlds. Fusion explained the Red Power movement. Witness History [01:07:00] from the BBC reported on the siege at Wounded Knee. Democracy Now! spoke with David Treuer about the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and his book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee. The documentary about the building of the Hōkūleʻa sailing canoe and the quest to rediscover ancient sailing techniques is called Papa Mau: The Wayfinder. And the documentary about the creation of the Gal-Gael community in Glasgow, Scotland is called The Birdman of Pollok. Foreign Correspondent visited the Hawaiian school that focuses on instilling Hawaiian values into modern education. And the Leslie Riddick podcast spoke with Alistair Macintosh about modernity and the need for re-indigenization. Links to everything are in the show notes and I do hope you'll go check those out to dive deeper.

As always we welcome your comments. You can leave us a message or send us a text to 202-999-3991 or email me to [01:08:00] [email protected]

That is going to be it for today. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian, and LaWendy, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patrion page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny bonus episodes in addition to there being extra content, no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player.

So, coming to from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors [01:09:00] to the show from bestoftheleft.com