WW/ UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation Report

Here is the report by the UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation:



http://winnememwintu.blogspot.com/2011/03/report-by-un-independent-expert-on.html

WW/ Listen to Granny

This is my precious Granny who took us under her wing and showed me how to walk this good path of life.

WW/ Livingstom Stone's report, 1872 and 1873

I purchased five photographs from the Benefit for the Winnemem Wintu to bring their salmon home. With these photos are report excerpts from the Livingston Stone Collection, Stone being the commissioner who made the reports. The reports were of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Most of the ones I purchased were from 1872 and 1873 and on from 1879. The reports talk about the Winnemem people, the Winnemem workers in the hatchery and the salmon. The following excerpts particularly caught my attention. The first reminded me of the Winnemem saying "Sawal Maiuma's Baales Bom" "Sacred is the teacher. That is the way it will be forever forever." Here is an eyewitness account witnessing the salmon, upon being confronted by a dam across the McCloud erected by the hatchery.

From the United States Commission Fish and Fisheries Report, 1872 and 1873 by Livingston Stone, Commisioner on the Salmon Breeding Station, McCloud River, California

"About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a few days after the passage of the salmon was obstructed and before the corrals were made, it was announced that the salmon were making their first assault upon the dam. The whole camp collected on the bridge to witness the attack. It was a sight never to be forgotten. For several rods below the bridge, the salmon formed one black writhing mass of life. Piled together one above another, they charged in solid columns against the bridge and dam which trembled and shook continually under their blows. Not daunted by their repeated failures, they led attack after attack upon the fence, one column succeeding as another fell back. Encouraged by their numbers, and urged by the irrepressible instinct, they entirely disregarded the observers on the bridge and struggled at their very best to pass the unwonted obstruction. Finding the fence impassable many fell back a little and tried to jump the bridge. This, several succeeded in doing, sometimes violently striking the men on the bridge in their leaps and sometimes jumping between their feet.

For an hour and a half, this force assault continued when, exhausted by their efforts and discouraged by many failures, they fell back to the deep hole just below the rapids, arrested, for the first time since the McCloud formed its channel, in their progress up the river.

The bridge and dam were completed and the river rendered impassable to the salmon on the 10th of August."


And in a report of operations at the US salmon hatching station on the McCloud River, CA, 1878, Livingston Stone reports:

"As soon as the dam was completed across the river, the salmon show signs of being very thick in the river below. On the 11th of July we made a haul with seine which confirmed our impressions of the abundance of salmon, the number taken at this haul being nearly a thousand. About this time, the Indians employed at the fishery did some very fine work under the water in repairing the rack. We discovered one day that the salmon, by their violent and repeated attacks on the dam, had at last forced a passage-way underneath the rack and were escaping."

And an excerpt from a report December 9, 1872, about the Winnemem.
"In the summer and fall, the McCloud Indians live mainly on the salmon and trout which they spear. In the winter, they live on the salmon which they catch and dry in the fall, and on acorns, which they gather in great quantities in the woods. They hunt with bows and arrows, with which they occasionally kill a bear, though a few have rifles. They trap very little, but the salmon of the river are so abundant that they are not obliged to resort to hunting and trapping at all.

I have made this digression about the McCloud River Indians partly because their presence here is so singularly connected with the abundance of the salmon in the Sacramento River. Had white men come here and required the salmon for food, this main artery of the supply system of the river would have been stopped; or had white men of the Feather and American Rivers, the spawning beds would have been covered with mud and ruined, as in those rivers, and in less than three years the salmon supply of the Sacramento would have shown a vast decrease. The presence of the Indians, therefore, as far as it implies the absence of the whites, is the great protection of the supply of the Sacramento salmon."

December 9, 1872 is another excerpt:
"They (Winnemem) first adopted the plan of ordering all white men out of their country, and were the last of the California Indians to yield to the encroachment of civilization. Even now, they are not slow to say to the white stranger, 'These are our lands,' and 'These are our salmon'"

WW/ The Salmon, the Maori, the Winnemem and We

Here it is January and we are working at fever pitch doing something which normally we avoid -- asking people to help materially, through their skills and gifts, donating. I wrote something which explains why someone (me) who has such aversion to asking, has grabbed onto the challenge full force. So in the last couple of months despite holiday madness, a small group of us took on writing a grant, and planning a fundraiser. But each of our plans grew into something bigger because so many good people joined to the point, I realized that we were sort of "riding a wave." It really wasn't totally in our hands. The grant led to organizations and individuals agreeing to make their alliances with the Winnemem Support Group more official by joining a board. We never had thought of ourselves in that way, embedded as we are with the tribe. Our meetings were with the tribal leaders, when they came up I-5 to help the support group, when we went down to ceremony to pray and to join the circle of environmental water and salmon activists from LA to Canada. But a board we are -- planning annual events in our own home town, connecting, so to speak, river systems, salmon, and human beings across those political state lines which separate us but do not separate lands, fish, water. With the grant we now have youth Water Warriors (Juventud FACETA) joined with Winnemem youth and a board which joins organizations.

The fundraiser grew into a plural. This weekend I will join many to celebrate Ruth Koenig as she turns 70 years old. She is marking this special day by throwing a benefit at Tsunami Bookstore. On the other hand today, we are in negotiations because suddenly our silent auction idea has grown into something beyond my imagination. My younger brother, not by blood but by heart ties, Marcus Amerman, name one of the top 33 Native American artists by American Indian Art Magazine, moved by the Winnemem Wintu's journey to New Zealand to do ceremony for their salmon, intrigued by the strong alliance with the Maori people, and fired up to do something not only agreed to donate to the Silent Auction we were planning, but began talking to his friends, talented artists, many already internationally established and all respected by their peers. We were taken aback by the response of the artists. I have found the greatest generosity as well as that strong hearted resistence in poets and artists, and this is an awe-inspiring example. Today, I called my artist friend, Lemuel Charley, Institute of American Indian Art in art mecca, Santa Fe, New Mexico. I needed help. We had asked a gallery to allow us to do the silent auction in their gallery on Eugene's big art venue, the monthly Art Walk, May 6. We were late. They were booked for a year. We're not part of their collective. Sounded too big for their staff, perhaps, but things cleared up and within mere days, they have agreed with stipulations and it becomes our decision. With trembling, as if I were buying a car or a new computer, something which I don't know much about, I handed the job to decide, to communicate, to design over to Lemuel.

Earlier, we were thinking a little silent auction with a nice piece from Marcus at a wild salmon party. But the idea out grew us. Not only in the art scene.

Kayla Carpenter is a Hoopa youth who responded to a giant fish kill in her people's river -- about 60,000 salmon dead -- by organizing a salmon relay. Her thoughts were to run for the salmon, the health of the salmon, and at the same time do it with the health of her people in mind. That wild salmon relay still goes on. I loved the YOUTUBE video embedded here:


This video inspired us to do a Wild Salmon Run bringing together the Juventud FACETA water warriors and the Winnemem. Others wanted to join. For one, Ahiru Daiko, a Japanese Drum group from the University Oregon. Ahiru means Duck. We decided to set the tone of the Wild Salmon Party Fundraiser with this run. As Kayla said "the salmon's struggle is our struggle so with this run we can take a part for a time in their struggle" The runners educate themselves about the salmon of their area, and as they run they bring awareness.

As it happened, it is very difficult to find a place for a run that is close to a hall which would allow fundraising, or which would allow music (they called it noise) or which would allow food. How does one throw a fundraiser which prevents donating? How does one party without music and food? But there is one place. It is called Amigos Multicultural Services Center. Living up to its name, the staff, Juventud FACETA teacher Patricia Cortez and Immigrant Justice Project Director Guadalupe Quinn responded to my request to use their space, how can we support the runners? Maybe Amigos can provide the water and refreshments. Do you need a kitchen? What do you need from us? These are questions that lead to more ideas, which create, which build relationships. The other responses, the rules and regs which were designed before there were Indians in the room, shut off any possibility for cross cultural ties, and prevents an organization from an opportunity which was not dreamed of at the time of organizing what their space could host.

The cool thing is Amigos is just up the street a few blocks from the bike path along the Willamette. From the cozy little playground at the end of North Grand you can see a footbridge across the river. That's where the runners will cross to the other side, running upriver as salmon do to the next footbridge by Alton Baker Park, cross over again to the downtown side and run downriver through Skinners Butte Park. It is a perfect 5K. A Japanese taiko drum made by national treasure Mark Miyoshi which carries prayers for Mt. Shasta, the Winnemem River and the salmon and all the sacred places in the world will drum the runners on their way. Ahiru, who uses that drum will not be drumming. They said they would rather run for the salmon. So maybe that means Mark Miyoshi might come and play his drum for them? The way things are going, I would not be surprised. So far a Native Drum, the taiko drummers, a Kumu and her dancers of traditional hula want to support the Wild Salmon party and will do so joining the runners when we honor them, and the Winnemem leaders, the video of their journey to New Zealand for their fish which I will embed here:

Dancing Salmon Home-Promo from Moving Image on Vimeo.

A potluck follows this, and then we party. We haven't approached the bands yet. It might be later that evening there will be a possibility to attend the opening night at a gallery of the art which will be auctioned a few weeks later during Eugene's Art Walk.

If you are interested in joining these fundraising events, the exciting factor amped up by the flow of generosity and "water warrior spirit" of all walks of life, they are:
Wild Salmon Run and Wild Salmon Party, April 16 from 1 pm - 5 pm Amigos Multicultural Service Center 21 North Grand Street, call 541-345-5739 for more info

A possible Grand Opening of Native American Contemporary Art at a gallery to be announced April 15 or 16 from 7 pm - 9 pm

A Silent Auction of Native American contmporary art during Art Walk at that possible gallery from 5 pm - 9 pm.

So you see what I mean by "totally out of our hands" and that we are "riding a wave."

Let me share with you what I think is our foundation -- a wave, not concrete -- and who leads us -- a fish, in fact record salmon runs for unexplicible reasons which baffle scientists around the world.

The Salmon, the Maori, the Winnemem and We


A small tribe brings back the War Dance Ceremony at the site of a high security government facility, September 13, 2004, to resist the further raising of the Shasta Lake Dam that would drown their remaining sacred places and further damage their sacred river. The Winnemem Wintu tribe of northern California lacked usual avenues of communication or material support from the US government to advocate that most Americans and Tribes take for granted. They could only resort to what was already in their hands -- their traditions and their ancestral way of life. (The US government had dropped 90 percent of the historic Native Tribes of California, including the Winnemem, from the “federal recognition list” in the 1980’s and from that time they were rendered invisible and silent and the ceremonies no longer protected by the law.) The Winnemem Chief put down prayers at the Sacred Fire the evening before the War Dance began and was told to “tell the world and the good people of the world will listen.”

How could anyone guess that rescue would come in the form of a fish. After all, the Winnemem salmon runs were exterminated by Shasta Lake Dam, the tallest dam in the world back in the 1940’s. When their veterans came home from the war, they came home to the family homes, their hatchery drowned. Heartbroken, they grew old knowing their fish could no longer come home.

Somehow the prayers reached across the oceans from the war dance at Shasta Lake Dam, curling along the lands bordering the Pacific to Aotera, or New Zealand. A scientist from New Zealand called the Winnemem Chief, “Say, I just read in the news about your war dance. Did you know we have your fish?”

The chief listened as he told them that back in the late 1800’s the eggs from the fish hatchery on the McCloud where many of her ancestors worked were sent all over the world, and died all over the world except in New Zealand where they still flourish. She remembered the stories from her father, her aunties about the War Dance prayers meant to stop the exporting of their salmon to far away lands, and how the warriors prayed a promise to the salmon that they could always come home. Sixty years later, the dam had put an end to that promise. And now, another 60 years later, with this phone call, the Winnemem Chief remembering the prayer she set down at the War Dance at the site of the dam, rejoiced in the miracle. Their fish still flourished across the Pacific.

In 2010, on a prayer, chili feeds, unpaid electricity bills and no heat or light, the Winnemem Wintu flew to New Zealand to see their Chinook salmon for the first time, and to conduct a ceremony along the banks of the South Island’s Rakaia River with their Maori hosts, the Ngai Tahu and Waitaha Mamoe peoples.

Did the salmon’s heart beat stronger when they heard familiar drumbeats, and songs that called them by their real name, Nur? Did they leap when they heard Hesin nur wilee “Whenever the salmon go upstream, let me see them.” When the dancers fasted and danced four days and three nights, and when one dancer raised his hands to the mountain, and then to his heart praying that their salmon would come home, did the Nur dream of home? Hesin yetcha wilee “Whenever they dream, let me see.” When the woman dancer, red sash hanging down, stepped lightly, the sash swaying rhythmically like the female salmon in her red stage, did it give the Nur strength. wai-o wai wi-lee. “They move swiftly and flexible.”

The Winnemem returned home to California with new alliances, good news and a new direction for their monumental work. The nation of New Zealand, the Fish and Wildlife Commission, the National Human Rights Commission and the Maori, Waitaha Mamoe people committed themselves to work alongside of them to bring their salmon back, something which supports the US government to fulfill their salmon initiative and should be welcomed by government salmon restoration project heads were it not for the federal recognition policy. The Maori can’t fathom “unrecognized tribal status.” Their leader laughed, “Are they blind that they can’t see who you are?”

The first piece to be undertaken is to complete the ceremony. The ceremony that began on the banks of the Rakaia must be finished at Mt. Shasta Ceremony, 2011, where the glacial springs feed into the McCloud River with Maori and Winnemem present.

Sustained by this ceremony the arduous task, not unlike the salmon’s journey back to its spawning grounds, the Winnemem must convince a government who does not see them nor hear them to accept a miracle. Blinded by the Federal Recognition policy that was designed to exterminate tribes, the federal government cannot see the miracle of disease free, DNA matched fish restored into the very rivers they want to re-introduce the salmon. The US government is deafened by its own Federal Recognition Policy from supporting the Winnemem plan of stream restoration bypassing the dam and a natural fish hatchery run by the tribe which would cost much less and work much more successfully than other plans. The Federal Recognition Policy prevents them from even feeling the good will of another nation’s governmental agencies. As the New Zealand Fish and Wildlife spokesperson said, “They (the Winnemem) helped us when we needed it. It’s only fitting we return the favor.”

The Winnemem, the Maori people and New Zealand cannot do this alone. They need more people who feel the prayer laid down by old War Dancers in the 19th century, promising their fish that they can always come home, the grief filled prayer of the veteran who believed his fish had been eradicated, and the prayers of his children, and grandchildren, and their children, who went to New Zealand to pray and sing so hard for their fish that unusually high salmon runs astounded the scientists in many regions of the world. All of nature is preparing for the Nur to come back to their Home waters in about three years. They need many more Good People of the World willing to listen to the call to action made by these salmon runs, willing to donate their talents and skills, contributing materially, willing to re-tell the story and to join their voices with the Winnemem and Maori voices to bring the salmon home. Hesin Winnemem wi-lee “Whenever they come to the McCloud, let me see” Sawal Mai-u-ma’s Baa-les-bom! "Sacred is the Teacher. That is the way it will be forever.”


“Dancing Salmon Home” 15 minute video www.dancingsalmonhome.com

Winnemem Wintu website http://www.winnememwintu.us/

_________________________
MISA JOO
mjoo@efn.org

Beedi Yalumina! Winnemem Wintu!

Holiday Blues

Mom's gone. This year that really hit home like Mom's gone, like the Kawai Clan is a thing of the past, like an era is over in one little AHA moment. I could have been upset and think the holiday got ruined by bratty behavior. But with that "lightbulb going off in my head" I realized what held the heart of a family holiday for me. It is the cooking together of women and girls of the family gathered around a table making food. For others, it may be making wontons, or tamales. For us, it was sushi or mochi. It was making lots of other things bustling together in the kitchen. When Will and I were raising our kids, it may have been a small bustle the two girls and I. When the girls were gone, it was Mom and I, she sitting, perhaps, but there was still this thin little line to the old days. Every other year we go to my sisters. There is a little bustle there for the big meal on the Holiday day, but for her, the holidays, as she says often is family RELAXING together and the love she puts in it is in her custom made stockings filled with surprises from Santa. But this year, my sister's family who came at Thanksgiving are visiting other family for Christmas, and we are on our own, and Mom's gone.

So in that AHA moment with our daughter spending her break from college in Portland with her boyfriend and changing plans of our getting stuff prepared for the holiday at the coast the three of us are preparing for, I became a crybaby. It didn't affect me when all our plans for cooking and taking food for ceremony suddenly landed on my shoulders entirely when she decided to go to Portland to MEET that boyfriend (she agreed to be part of the Portland film shootout. He acted in it.) Why now?

I've been meeting with a circle of Sisters (as we call each other), supporting each other every other week on a Saturday morning. All are very involved, actively involved in community. All are passionate about justice. All see their world as a rainbow of cultures and have love for the whole spectrum of emerging young leaders. All of us help each other. I am Amigos. They are Winnemem Support. We all support each other's work, play, and now we support the difficult work of taking care of ourselves, something we all also share, the multitude of ways we can back burner ourselves, a deeply ingrained habit we all had in our busy lives when we all ran into each other over and over and began to share a bond.

On the way to our Saturday morning together, my disappointment of not having a family holiday again, feeling sorry for myself our plans were ruined by our daughter, that AHA moment came. Just as I approached the exit a Flash/a voice/a nudge and I realized, it's all about preparing the food. And now Mom is gone. And in my whole family -- at least Mom's branch of the family -- I am alone seeing family holiday as women preparing food and talking, solving the world's problems, laughing and teasing one another, remembering family anecdotes, talk story while preparing food. Mom is gone.

By the time I came down the exit and turned right, I also honored the fact that for our daughter, holiday is filled with parties with her friends and cozy new evenings with a new boyfriend. What's wrong with that? And holidays for my husband, well, in our family the guys did something else at holidays, and Will does something else very well.

I brought this up in our Sisters Circle. The feeling has a name. Longing. And I have some work to do in my heart. It may take time but I'm a work in progress. Tonight I will go to Posadas with a different attitude. It won't be with the feeling of seeing friends and supporting Juventud FACETA, another busy night during a busy season where I've got so much to do for the holidays. It will be the family holiday. And I will begin to look forward to it in that spirit. And Solstice at the Longhouse. I won't be showing up at 6 pm to be with Longhouse community of friends. I will go at 11 and sit down and make tamales for the feast talking with the women and girls and men as we sit around big tables for hours, solving the world's problems, remembering old times, laughing and teasing each other. A string of parties up north on I=5 or a clan which went separate ways in America is still real and loved. But, I will be peacefully at home for the holidays. Something to look forward to. Something as predictable as family was to a little girl in Idaho, as predictable as the daylight will become longer every Solstice. Life is good!

Owing Henry

I'm in study circles. Study circles was designed by Euro-Americans and the topic of study and discussion is racism, specifically "white privilege." I've always resisted it, but now it is run by Henry Luvert, and he's a friend I can't say no to. He doesn't say no to me, even when he did not know me at all. I remember the night I met Henry Luvert -- new young "Angry Black Man" in town. I say that with tongue in cheek because that's how some people refer to him when they feel his strong personality. He's got a lot of things to be angry about, but within a short time fresh from Chicago, he had made his connections, alliances, extended family. He became so networked he could help and would help many people. And a man does not build those expansive networks with anger. He does that by caring and being keeping his word.

Back in the day when I didn't have a teaching job, I worked in a small closet-sized office coordinating the all volunteer Multicultural Education Committee, a group of committed Black and Brown teachers promoting a safe climate, inclusive curriculum and "liberation pedagogy" at a grassroots level. We had a tiny tiny budget. I was working for $100 a month. That's right. A month. That was bad, even in the 80's. The Assistnat Superintenden, Robert Newell, had let me know the school board was going to be discussing my budget at the board meeting that night -- that's right, they had not let me know. I should be there arguing to keep it was his advice He knew they were thinking of cutting it in half.

Robert Newell is someone I would like to write to thank him for all the times he stepped outside his responsibilities to check on me. He cared about multicultural education. He cared about our small volunteer committee. He cared about the right thing to do. And he didn't have to. I started typing away on the Smith Corona. He came by my cubby hole again to look at what I planned to say and made some suggestions. I took them all. I sent the word to the Multicultural Committee to come support the budget but being so last minute, when the board meeting came, I sat alone at the time our agenda item came up. I looked up -- way up -- at the board, all white men and then Jonathon West. Jonathon was a professor at Lane Community College and the only African American (make that person of color) on the board. And Jonathon was the only one familiar to me. I don't remember a word I said that night. I just remember that afte I stopped speaking, Henry got up, new in town and let the board have it. I looked at the board who looked unhappy, except for Jonathon, who had his "let's wait and see" look. Then a young mother stood up and in her quiet voice she said she had come to the board tonight to let them know what had happened to her son at school since the first day of school. That morning, she walked in to the bathroom and saw her son with scissors in his hand, bloody lipped, trying to cut it off with a pair of scissors. She had just barely stopped him from doing real damage. Every day at school her son was being teased for being Black. Every day he was being called "monkey" by his classmates, not by his name, and his teachers, no one, did anything about it. Her son said, "Mommy, I don't want to be Black anyore" and he was going to do something to himself to stop the teasing. She told the Board, "I came to you tonight to ask, what are you going to do for my son. I don't know where else to go. Who can help my son?"

One thing, you can always tell what white people are feeling because their color changes when they are really upset. The board no longer fidgeted. Each person sat stock still. Silence permeated. I will never forget their waxen faces, shocked into whiteness. I will never forget that sight. All the color was drained from their faces.

No one comforted Jeanne Drew (I remember her name). The went immediately into the business at hand, and doubled my budget. That was that.

As I look back, of course it's troubling that no one had a word of comfort for Jeanne. But back in the day, the silence was almost expected. It was the action which said everything. That night felt like a bitter victory -- once again at the sacrifice of a young boy and a Mother who brought the image of his self-mutilation to the board that night. I did go up and talk with her and also Henry another network connection for the long work ahead of us all. The work is far far from complete. Which brings me to Henry's request for me to join Study Circle and my not being able to say no.

It wasn't until yesterday's study circle that I found out that Henry had invited Jeanne to come with him to the board meeting. He was going to rile things up, and he needed someone to tell them a truth that would cut through the facade. Henry Luvert had been in Eugene only a short time, and he knew more about what was happening in the classrooms to Black children than the principals and teachers of the buildings in which they were being abused. He certainly knew more than I, the multicultural coordinator.

In my mind, I owe him and Jeane Drew, and Bob Newell "yeses" whenever they ask. If they ask me to step up it's for a good reason and I don't even ask "WHY?" I just say alright, I will. I could do no less than the Mother who was caring for a hurt and abused child to take some of her precious time to come to a meeting to speak up for a program which might be doing some good even if no help came her way during her time of trouble.

Although I resisted Study Circle for years, I go every week and sit with a group of European American people around a table at their work place. Study circles had been a volunteer only circle of people who came from many places, some retired, some students, some working people, some parents and they would talk. I stayed away. It felt like sort of a sick relationship to me, people like me spilling our guts to others and then what?

But when Henry and his wife Arbrella took on Study Circles, they took it to institutions and convinced those institutions to involve every layer of their organization, group by group, to engage in the conversation of "white privilege." And in the six week program, the final week is dedicated to "so what can you do about it?" That answered the "then what?"

From the first day one thing that becomes very evident is that our country is truly divided by a color line. Two very different Americas. For example, it is hard for me to write America with a "c" because that America went up in a puff of smoke, or tumbled like a house made of playing cards as lie after lie -- lies for no reason which served no good -- was exposed. As the historic lies, the foundation of America tumbled, then the work stood out clear in front of us -- Black Brown and anti-racist White. It's hard for me to say "our" country because at home Grandma and Grandpa or even my mom's generation referred to white people as Americans. That is the message immigrants with black hair, in dark skin, Asian eyes get. If you're not white, you aren't American, ever. It's hard for me to say "our country" because as a Winnemem, the land, the earth, is demarcated by lines formed by the true landlords of this land -- the salmon, the great Canadian geese, the deer -- marked by their rivers and mountains and unbound as the skies.

A question is asked on the first day of study circle, "when is the first time you encountered racism." It becomes so apparent that some of us encountered racism on our first day of school, our first time out of the protection of our home, when we were just little children. The other half, when they left town, the protection and control of their families, for college or for a new job, they may have witnessed racism if they were around people of color. And for they most part, it left them feeling ashamed and powerless. Others testified that when they visited Asia or went to Honolulu they felt discomfort because they were the only white person and people stared. Some may have mistakenly gone into a Black bar in Texas and left quickly.
(I can't help breaking here to say that Henry testified when he went to Japan, because he stood a bit taller than Japanese, the hundreds of Japanese coming out of the subway, that he was a head above everyone and all he could see was all this black hair like waves around him -- and looking out on the mass of black haired heads, he got sea sick. Please, give me a break!)

But is being the only white person anything like how it is to grow up in Amerika? If it were merely being stared out and standing out, that is one thing. Racism is deeper than that.

Study circle continues from that point, story shared after story. Stefan's experience as an African American at Sheldon High School where even his close friend can sabotage his day by calling him the N word showing off to the other friends. And learning to be tough "so people would respect him." Or Abas talking about when he went to school in Chicago as a youngster on foot, that meant he crossed three turfs and he'd have to fight his way through them to get to a day at school. Or Snake being asked to speak and in his understated way describing how it is to grow up in a small town, that when you saw a cop car it came from 30 minutes away from the city of K Falls and everyone knew as they saw the police cruise in, they were there to get Indians. Or to hear Paulette talk about her children not wanting to be Black and that day to even hear young Stefan when we were all tho share what it is about our race which we liked. Stefan said after a long pause, "I have nothing to say." Uncle Henry did though and Stefan was there to hear it "Black people endure -- no matter what, no matter if we're poor, if everyone is against you, we endure."

I am caught off guard every time at first at how differently people think coming from the two sides of America. The Euro Americans hear the same story and they feel very sad. Some cannot control their tears. They feel alone and somewhat anxious that now they know and they'll have to do something about it.

People of color hear the story and they feel mobilized. They feel the emotions too but it puts us on our toes to act.

During the confession of guilt because of inaction, I turned to one of our study circle colleagues and said "you never do it by yourself. There's plenty of people who you'll be doing the work with together. Your voice is necessary. Some people will listen to it when they won't listen to an of us. No one can do it alone."

That person felt such relief. It never occurred to him and others also agreed that they would not have to do it alone. White privilege is taught as individual power. It's about ME and doing it alone. I never thought how individualism keeps racism alive. I told my colleague, "You can call anybody here and say, 'This racist thing happened. I need some words.' " That rocked his world.

There are children growing up in this country who are going through and witnessing things no child should. There are other children whose parents use their privilege to prevent the truth to be taught their children mistakenly thinking they are keeping their children "safe" from having to see this discrepancy which white privilege causes. Then their children will grow up, get into the real world, and be angry at not knowing what to do. Some may be even more damaged and may never learn how to care about something humans can't help but care about. Some may even be so shut down that they don't know how to give a F*** really. No tools. But one thing, internally, they will blame and even hate the upbringing which kept them from the power of doing the right thing, from feeling for another person, from the creative power that comes from an expansive fully involved life.

This blog has a second Title besides "Owing Henry." It's "Study Circles: or How to Give a F***."

I'm stopping here for now. There is more to say. But I'll just say that it isn't mean to tell the truth. And truth will make us free.

Halloween in Ashland

Will and I took time off to go to Ashland to see a couple of plays and to watch the Halloween Parade we had heard about. Nothing prepared us for this annual Ashland community event. I suppose you could call it a parade, people in costumes coming down mainstream to the beat of drums and symbols led by two cop cars, lights flashing. But the similarity stops there.

For a couple of hours we saw people in costumes, all ages from those in baby rollers to elderly people going up and down streets not very different than from a high school hall at noon, back and forth, meeting in groups, excited to see friends in neighbors. Even when the cop cars with flashing lights and drum beats could be seen and heard, people continued to cluster and to take their time walking in the street to their destination, the starting place of the parade. Somewhere two streams met and became one, here and there along the route and became one flowing mass, about 14 across and about eight blocks long a continuous mass of costumes, some gleeful, some shy, some proud, some taking their parts seriously, some playing with the audience, high fives, growls. We spectators lined the parade watching, but as Will and I looked this way and that, we decided unless we wanted to stand out as turista, we definitely need to dress a bit for even watching a parade.

I counted about 18 ethnic stereotypes, Japanese kimonoed women winning hands down with 10. One was even Asian (poor thing. Finally something she could wear the yukata and happi her Obachan must have given her to something in Ashland.) Bumble bees were a clear favorite, with about 16. I didn't even bother to count dead people who came in all different categories. The knives, stakes, cleavers, swords etc through the heads were very popular. I liked the three Japanese guys costumed as their version of white tourists. I don't thing everyone understood their effort thinking they were lost and swept up by a parade just being themselves.

The parade was preceded by the runners who also came in all ages, many costumed -- a choo choo train trying to outrace a chef, followed by the bubbling sponges of the tv ad advertising shower and toilet bowl cleaner and a tailed, bright blue avatar.

The parade ended when the streets finally were made to be for vehicles, again signaled by two cop cars with lights going in both lanes down Main. But the festivities never stopped. All the shops were open giving treats out to trick and treaters, and we couldn't go anywhere without bumping into teens in costume circled up in cliques just like in the halls, with the same energy as they do in the halls. If you needed to get past them, you just had to make your way around sometimes ducking a hit or a trip meant for their friends but catching you instead.

It was great!

Halloween in Ashland is definitely something I'd like to do again!! The ex-hippy, retired middle school teacher in me loved it! Next time, bringing the costumes along!