Hi Friend,
This mid-week note is to remind you of two upcoming opportunities:
To join us on Sat July 4th for a sharing circle about how you/we are understanding the implications of the Indigenous roots of democracy. Think of this as a cross between a circle and a 202 seminar - we expect that you know the basic information, both about the influence of Indigenous Peoples on the values of America and democracy in general and the influence of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy on the formation and the structures of U.S. governance in particular. In addition to our own offerings that many of you have participated in on this topic (such as the ReMembering Course and the 4th of July courses we have offered in the last three years), there are many resources out there, from documentaries to interviews to articles to books!
I am offering a “writing prompt”: Write a love letter to America on the theme of, “this relationship is really complicated”! Aka a moment to assess where and how your relationship to the country is doing. This is open to people from around the world. We will create some kind of publication of it for those who are willing to share their letters publicly (assuming we have enough submissions). There is space for an image as well. You can use this google form … or you can reply directly to this email. This form will be open for the rest of the summer - I’ll close it on September 7, which is the U.S. holiday of Labor Day.
Where this idea for this letter writing comes from:
A few weeks ago, I was discussing the state of the United States (a common topic of my conversations, though I don’t write about it a lot) with a colleague who is much more involved with politics, especially nationally, than I am. She said, “One of the things that MAGA and others feel is that we on the left, we liberals, have lost our sense of our love for our country.”
As soon as she said it, I knew that she was right: there have been so many people who have critiqued America that I could see how that criticism could pile up and be seen as not loving America. Patriotism (and with it the American flag) have become increasingly associated with an increasingly conservative (though not the conservative I grew up knowing) and libertarian (and what some are calling post-libertarianism) nexus… even as Gen Z (age 18-29) is, based on recent polls, becoming increasingly disillusioned (in the last 1.5 years, Gen Z's response to the question, ‘do you believe in the American Dream' has dropped from 50% to 36% (that's a large drop.) She herself is clear that she loves America - a country where the people govern themselves- and is working on communicating that more clearly.
I grew up in the tradition of Emerson and Thoreau: to critique one’s country is a form of loving one’s country. Patriotism entails critique. For a country to be ruled by the people means the people need to be able to critique their own leaders. That critique, that pressure, helps the country move towards progress (hence the 'progressive' movement) and the shared goals of dignity, liberty, equality, and freedom for all. I see this as a deep American tradition, one that mirrors, and in the last 150 years is reinforced by, for example, the Christian Social Gospel and the Black Social Gospel... as well as more contemporary figures, from Howard Zinn to bell hooks. And so I entered politics and theology from a place of critique-as-love: let’s change these institutions to make them better, to make a country and a world that lives up to its own stated ideals and works for more people - and the land and waters that we are responsible for.
And yet I have often seen how critique and pushing can yield not only to push-back/resistance, but to people feeling that love itself is absent. As someone who has spent a fair amount of my professional life critiquing dominant approaches to policy and revealing dis-membered traumatic and violent histories, and who actively wants to see a better future for all beings, one that is not ruled by codes of domination, separation and extractivism, I found myself wondering: given what I know about where we come from and where we are now, what does patriotism mean to me?
Here’s another version of that question: what’s the possible set of relationships to patriotism for those of us who are also engaged in multiple forms of rematriation?
I do not have a fast and easy answer to this question, but it is one that I am finding entirely worth engaging in.
So I started talking with people about this question. I raised it with a friend and long-time thought partner and occasional participant in our courses, Anna. She also found it interesting. A few days after our conversation, she sent me a link to a website that was, for the 250th anniversary, hosting a “break up with America love letters” - where people could write in their ‘break up letters’. Anna said that while she totally got where this was coming from, but was wondering about something more complex and nuanced: the “it’s complicated” love letter. As soon as she suggested it, I knew that could be a really cool initiative. Or at least a writing prompt. :-)
Hence this offering.
Now, I know that some of you might be past the “it's complicated” stage. Indeed, I have more than one friend who has chosen to migrate out of the United States in the last two years… and many more who have been seriously looking at it. And many Indigenous friends and colleagues who continue to pursue different strategies to obtain their own sovereignty. For over 250 years, the peoples who are now formed into the United States have continually promised them that sovereignty; and continuously broken those promises, for centuries.
For those of you who feel drawn to the “it's complicated” relationship status, if you want to write about that, you can either reply directly to this email or use the Google Form. The Google Form is easier on our backend.
For those of you who would be delighted to join sovereign Indigenous nations that listen to their own traditional grandmothers and enact governing structures that respect Mother Earth if that option was available to you - yeah, I see you too. I am unaware of that option being available right now. You can also write to me.
Regardless - I hope you find some time for some contemplation on the bigger questions amidst a lot of noise.
- Sara Jolena
