Kidnapping children for Jesus

The Missionary Impulse

By Timothy EganSilsby and her live-in nanny, Charisa Coulter, are still in a Haitian jail, where they have denied charges of child kidnapping. A judge there has agreed to release the two this week, but the case shows once again how easy it is to manipulate people in the name of an all-loving God.

“Kidnapping for Jesus” is what many, including outraged Idahoans, have called it in reader response to newspaper stories about the missionaries. Silsby says it’s all a misunderstanding, and her intentions were good.

At the least, the curious case of Laura Silsby raises questions about cultural imperialism: what makes a scofflaw from nearly all-white Idaho with no experience in adoption or rescue services think she has a right to bring religion and relief to a country with its own cultural, racial and spiritual heritage?

Imagine if a voodoo minister from Haiti had shown up in Boise after an earthquake, looking for children in poor neighborhoods and offering “opportunities for adoption” back to Haiti. He could say, as those who followed Silsby explained on a Web site, that “the unsaved world needs to hear” from the saved.And:Of course, no one moved by genuine concern should ever be discouraged from acting. And in Haiti, we’ve seen some of the best impulses of the human heart at work in life-saving triage.

Still, the damage by zealous amateurs has been done to legitimate adoption services, and to relief agencies with long and noble histories of helping the desperate, the poor, the unloved. Blame it on the missionary impulse, a lingering personality disorder of Western culture.

Most Native American tribes have three basic stories: a creation myth, a trail of tears out of the homeland and indignities suffered at the hands of Christian missionaries.

Some of the worst damage was done, the tribes will tell you, long after the Indian wars were over, when missionaries moved in. They broke up families, shipping children off to boarding schools where they were shorn of their language, their hair and their culture. They banned tribal customs like the potlatch—where Indians compete to give away gifts—and spirit rituals that had been passed on for centuries.

Edward Curtis, the photographer of American Indians, was so happy to find native people in the far north of Alaska whose lives had not been overturned by outside do-gooders that he wrote, “should any misguided missionary start for this island I trust the sea will do its duty.”Comment:  For more on Haiti and Indians, see Blame Indians and Haitians for Problems? and Haitians and Indians Cursed? For more on missionaries, see Whites Show Indians the Way? and Missionaries Considered Indians Animals.

Below:  "Laura Silsby has been held in a Haitian prison since January after she and others attempted to remove children from the country for adoption."

Blame Indians and Haitians for problems?

Paul Shirley:  (Donated) food for thought?

By Gyasi RossSee, I hear “intergenerational trauma” arguments over and over and over. I hear that the reason why Natives consistently serve as the poster children for FAS, teen suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence is because of what happened to us in the distant AND not-so-distant past…ok, I can dig that. That makes some sense (and I’ll hold any questions regarding whether ALL people have gone through some trauma in the past).

Still–like in Haiti–at some point we have to ask the question, “Despite the intergenerational trauma, how much of our pain/suffering is of our own creation?” I venture that the answer is “more than we like to admit.”

Thing is, if we use that intergenerational trauma rationale as the reason for our continued struggles/destruction, exactly where does it get us? Dead, but with a great excuse for our demise?? Drug addicted, but with a great excuse for our addiction?? A people filled with teenaged mothers, but with a great excuse for why we simply perpetuate the same cycle? See, we can continue to use, like Haiti, colonial mistreatment and governmental antipathy as an excuse for every failure under the sun–but it doesn’t help any of our kids to get college degrees or any of our teens to get out of the suicide-laden rut that we’re in. Excuses will not help us to escape our rut–they only provide our children another reason to believe that they are not equal with non-Natives.

So yeah, we can ramble on and on about how Natives have been screwed historically and that some poverty is a by-product of that; we wouldn’t be lying. Still, we can also say, since we’re being so honest, that we really don’t use condoms nearly enough and we create more acute poverty because of our lack of self-control. Further, yes, we can honestly say that Natives got the short end of many sticks. But can we can honestly say that Natives, collectively, do a good enough job proactively teaching teaching drug and alcohol prevention?

I think that if we were to answer that question honestly, the answer might make us mad. It would be one that we wouldn’t want to agree with. But the answer would be there, looking us dead in the eye.Comment:  A few thoughts about this posting:

Explaining a problem isn't the same as excusing it.

Does Ross think Indians are happy wallowing in an environment of poverty, crime, substance abuse, depression, and suicide? Why would they be? Because they enjoy a "primitive" or "savage" lifestyle?

Ross doesn't identify which tribes he thinks are wallowing in self-pity. He doesn't distinguish tribes that are doing everything they can with their limited resources from tribes that aren't.

This is probably a wise move on Ross's part. If he identified which Indians he thought were lazy, good-for-nothing slackers without self-control, they'd probably ream him for his ignorance. I'm guessing Ross doesn't have a clue about all the tribal programs fighting poverty, crime, and other social ills, and why they may or may not be working.

Are Indians just stupid, or what?

If "intergenerational trauma"--i.e., historical forces--isn't responsible for the plight of Indians and Haitians, I wonder what Ross thinks is responsible. I gather he believes Indians enjoy being poor and hungry, sick and addicted, vandalized and victimized. But why do they enjoy it?

If this self-destructive attitude doesn't come from some external source, it must be internal. So what is it, Ross? Are Indians lazy? Stupid? Mentally ill? All of the above?

Why haven't Indians, Haitians, and other minorities learned what every white man supposedly knows? Namely, that pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is the road to success. That hard work can overcome any problem. That the only people who are sick and poor are people who choose to be that way.

Ross says making excuses doesn't help. I say blaming the victim doesn't help either. Spare us the content-free condemnations of entire nations and races.

Unless you can tell us exactly what the problems are and offer concrete solutions to them, don't bother opening your mouth or pointing a finger. All you're doing is contributing to the widespread belief that brown-skins are less human than white-skins. That these people choose to live like animals because, well, they're animals.

For Pat Robertson's attempt to blame the victim, see Haitians and Indians Cursed? For more on the subject, see Trimble to Indians:  Get Over It and Why Indians Remain Poor.

P.S. Ross touts the Paul Shirley column that blamed Haitians for being earthquake victims. Check it out for its not-so-veiled racism against minorities.

Haitians and Indians cursed?

“Pat Robertson Made A Deal With The Devil” or “I Know Why The Hunted Pig Squeals”

By Gyasi RossI went to this little tiny very conservative Christian school. I actually enjoyed it, but I remembered the day that I checked out of “ol’ time” religion mentally and spiritually–the pastor/principal and I had a discussion, and I said that I thought it was a good idea to separate the message and the messenger. He asked me why would I do that? I told him that the messengers of Christianity have been horrible and hypocritical toward Natives–killing, raping, and plundering. He told me, in response, that Natives should be thankful for any and everything that happened. He said, “before Christianity Induns were worshiping the devil and different spirits, and in my opinion, anything that happened was worth it because y’all got to hear the Gospel of Jesus. Induns were cursed, and the Gospel lifted that curse!” Like Marion/Pat, this redneck thought that the killing, raping and plundering was a “blessing in disguise.”

Ouch. Wow.

But his viewpoint is not original. My mom tells me of when she began to be interested in going to church, when I was a teenager. She tells me about how she quickly stopped being interested in those churches because she found the same ignorance and judgment in nearly all of them. “Pow-wows are evil.” “Native ceremonies are witchcraft.”Even when Westerners don't call Natives devil-worshipers, they still consider them uncivilized savages. As Ross explains:I recognize what that Pat Robertson’s doing when he says that Haiti had to make a deal with the devil to defeat a white Navy. He’s doing the exact same thing that many white conservatives do when they cannot explain or understand or are not invited to some fly and beautiful people of color stuff. That’s why they develop these stupid theories of aliens helping Egyptians and Central American Natives make pyramids or of black Haitians needing deals with devils and voodoo to defeat a white Navy.

This stuff isn’t new.

And what happens is that, because Marion/Pat Robertson is corny and cannot understand that people of color are perfectly capable of amazing things without the assistance of white people, Marion/Pat Robertson and people like him demonize what they do not understand. It’s not just him, by the way–there are a lot of people, Christians and otherwise, who do that. But a WHOLE bunch of them are the “ol’ time” Christians who haven’t figured out that the world is not flat anymore.Comment:  Given the number of conservative Christians who don't believe in global warming and do believe in creationism, I wouldn't be totally surprised if they also believe the world is flat.

Note: Robertson's given name is Marion, not Pat. He presumably calls himself "Pat" because Marion is a name for girls and other sissies, not a white male Christian American who considers himself God's crowning achievement.

For more on Pat Robertson, see Targeting Born-Again Christians and Navajo Nation on 700 Club. For more on conservative Christian bigotry, see Jack Chick's Crazy Wolf and The Evidence for Teabagger Racism. For more on Native religion, see "Primitive" Indian Religion and Hercules vs. Coyote:  Native and Euro-American Beliefs.