by Melvin Martin
(Melvin Martin is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota)
Now, with this week's jury decision on the Ward Churchill case, hopefully a great deal of the hoopla and hysteria will die down, and Churchill will descend back into relative obscurity--to at some point soon either be reinstated as a professor at CU or to obtain employment in teaching elsewhere. And as gun violence in the United States increases, Churchill's bitter enemies on the far right will focus their energies and efforts on ensuring that the Obama administration does not confiscate their vast arsenals of assorted firearms.
What really ruffles my own personal feathers about Churchill is not so much the controversy that he has engendered since 2005 when word came out about his 9/11 essay, but an old picture of that asshole that was taken where he was all decked out in a very cheesy imitation of a Che Guevara wannabe, replete with dark shades, an AK-47, a camouflaged jacket and the obligatory leftist radical's black beret. The only word that comes to my mind every time I happen to see this picture is phony.
The photo bothered me because I know how phony a lot of these AIM members, AIMsters, and AIM-groupies are; they all seem to believe that they speak for the totality of Indian Country with their miserably burnt-out, pseudo-traditional Indian, now-fat-and-wrinkled-ex-hippie, Sixties-era, "meaningful" rhetoric.
Churchill's preposterous picture was intended to make him look like the ultimate American Indian nihilist, armed with that much-favored and legendary weapon of global national liberation struggles, the AK-47 assault rifle, and ready to fight and die for his beliefs; ready to go out in a major blaze of glory for all things Indian--even me as my own ass was on the grand chopping block of corporately driven genocide according to Comrade Ward.
Back in the '80s, in the Denver, Colorado area, Churchill headed up an "intellectual clearinghouse" for high level AIM members so that they could bullshit the media into believing that they possessed extensive knowledge of philosopher-thinkers like Hegel, Descartes, and that old standby Karl Marx. Churchill volunteered his services to coach these boys into sounding as though they actually knew what they were talking about when they gave lectures to university crowds across the country that consisted mainly of adoring white females with unshaved legs and armpits, tie-dyed t-shirts, BO and dreadlocks.
As I recall quite clearly then, since I was but a poor, hard-working (I worked the graveyard shift as a night manager at a residential drug and alcohol treatment center), full-time student at CU Denver--Churchill was well within my periphery as he often hung out at the Indian students association office. I saw on one occasion how Churchill was really no more than a whipping boy for AIM in Colorado when he was totally reamed to pieces by an AIM leader who was extremely unhappy that Churchill had ghost-written an essay for him in words that were well out of the leader's range of vocabulary.
It was clear to me then that Churchill was being sodomized by those self-appointed Indian radicals who were more than ready, willing, and able to totally use a white man in any way that they could. Churchill was all-too-eager-to-please then as his complete silence in the face of such horrendous verbal abuse made him no more than a passive recipient for the vitriolic onslaught of people who had less than a high-school education, and who were just plainly jealous of his exceptionally verbose nature. He was the kind of guy who would simply hang his head in absolute deference to his AIM masters, jot down a few notes and enthusiastically promise to be much more on the ball in the future.
But it was all an act, it was all fake--away from his AIM caretakers, Churchill was a mean fucker with a lot of anger and pent-up rage. He reminded me of this dog that I had when I spent my fifteenth summer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1968, a blue-gray German Shepherd and bull terrier mix that I named "Oonche." I whipped Oonche back into shape after he had been almost torn apart by a pack of wild dogs. Oonche was extraordinarily passive around human beings, never giving me direct eye contact and always milling about with his head lowered to the ground. Then, one day, my friend brought his dog over to our house, and into the front yard where Oonche was stationed. As soon as Oonche saw that this other dog, a big Rottweiler, had entered his domain, Oonche came out of downtrodden mode and almost killed the Rottweiler.
And insofar as Oonche would have protected me against any combative behavior by man, unlike Churchill in his guerrilla get-up, at least Oonche was for real.
Below: The Imam of Indigenism?
And don't forget AIM's relationship with IRA terrorists.
ReplyDeleteY'know, it's interesting, Churchill kind of embodies a debate I often have with people about "authenticity."
ReplyDeleteBefore I knew anything about Churchill's background -- this would be way back in 1990 or so -- maybe 1992? I read his "Indigenism" piece in his book "Struggle for the Land."
Honestly, at the time I found a lot to agree with, and his proposals for a "buffalo commons" weren't off-the-wall either. If anything, he sounded like anything except a fire-breathing radical.
Now that I know a bit more about him I look at his stuff in a different light. At the same time though, I have to ask myself, is the truth (or not) of anything the man says so dependent on whether he is a "real Indian" or not? r is that just a way of not engaging what he says?
Here's a little exercise I suggest: put together a few paragraphs of something you may or may not agree with -- better, have a friend do it. You don't get to see who wrote them. Evaluate them. Tell what you think.
Then do the same thing, and have the friend tell you a little more about the people who wrote the words. (It's easiest if you use stuff that is a retread by the same author -- the indigenism piece would be a good candidate). See if your opinions changed.
I did this myself a while back, and it gave me pause, I can tell you. I couldn't do the double blind, but I found it interesting how I looked differently at many writers then and now.
It makes me always ask myself, am I pissed about what the person says or who is saying it? Why?
Churchill has so much baggage these days, and one of the great ironies is his takedown of Carlos Castaneda.
The pic of Churchill in the beret is priceless, by the way. Man oh man.
"of Indian Country with their miserably burnt-out, pseudo-traditional Indian, now-fat-and-wrinkled-ex-hippie, Sixties-era, "meaningful" rhetoric.
ReplyDelete"
Mr. Martin,
I found your article very profound and deep. There are many "fat, pseudo-Indians" in Gen. X that wear two masks.
This "guy" who calls himself "angryindian" for example, who claims to be of the Mohican band, is this benign, jolly submissive almost woman like man in front of the white people he caters too.
His other face is that of a ruthless, dishonorable, back-stabbing pig. The "guy" excels at spreading misinformation and hate about of all people, REAL INDIANS!
Call Churchill what you wish, but at least he has the balls to say it to one's face and not in some white run "indian-z" website.
I call it the "cyber-balls factor". You see, everyone in the relative comfort and security of their internet crib says things they would not say to certain people if they were face to face in the real world.
The net is full of ball-less little injuns.
J. Kills Straight
Santee, Sioux
I agree with you, Jess. And I didn't need a double-blind test to come to this conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI read Churchill's writings before I knew much about him. I liked a lot of what he said. Now that I know he's a phony Indian, an arrogant so-and-so, and an academic corner-cutter, I still like a lot of what he's said. His transgressions don't affect the quality of his writing or thinking.
For more on the subject, see Cook-Lyn: Don't Rehire Churchill.