“As we take on these labels, we must remember that they describe what we do, not who we are. We are the People—we are human beings—that’s who we are. We have to accept all the parts of us as being part of a whole. When I called myself a ‘political activist’ and started saying that’s who I was, then that’s all I saw. I didn’t see a lot of important things, and I missed a lot of things. I was locked in there and looked at only a part of me as being the total. It’s the same with the label ‘writer’ or any other label. It limits us if we confuse what we do with who we are. At the basic core of reality, we’re human beings. If we don’t forget that, it will help make our way a little better. We are the People. Our ancestors and the ancient ones were the People. And I am just one of the People, doing the best I can with the best I’ve got.” – On being labeled a radical, militant, political activist, visionary, subversive, poet and writer.
INTERVIEW
E. K. CALDWELL: People responded really well to hearing Tribal Voice again after such a long time. How did it feel being Tribal Voice after being accustomed to being with the band?
JOHN TRUDELL: Yeah, it’s been a long time since Quilt and I did any Tribal Voice. Actually, it felt pretty good. I’ve been thinking about maybe doing more.
Are you thinking about doing any new tapes of Tribal Voice?
That’s interesting that you should bring that up because I was just talking to Quilt about [how] maybe we should make a new Tribal Voice tape. I would really be interested in doing that.
In coming to this gathering with new writers, and in doing the Peace with Earth tour that benefited Oregon Native Youth Council and in other communities on that tour that are working with youth in the community— well, is this a beginning in this phase of your evolution? Are you going to other parts of the country and talking with writers and students and young people?
I’m not really looking at any of it as a starting place. I’m glad that young people are relating to my work, and it’s good if there’s any positive influences that this has upon them. I’m glad the young people are amongst the people that I’m working with because I’ve been wandering around for many years now doing things. And this is really the first time I’m seeing the results of people in the community working with young people and therefore giving me an opportunity to do it. The thing that I try to be careful of is that, you know, I’m just me. And I’m liable to do anything at any given time. So I don’t look that I’m a “role model,” or that I’m someone to be pointed out as being the better person. I’m just another person. Whatever good or coher-ency I have to contribute, if people can be influenced or communicated to by that, then I’m glad. But it’s very important to me that the community allows me to just be a person and not to set these unreal standards on me [laughs] that even the community can’t live by. I’m doing the best I can with the best I got. But if I allow people to say, “Well, he’s the role model” or he’s something he’s not, then these are the people in the end who will attack me when I can’t fulfill their expectations.
One of my nine-year-old nieces asked her mom about why so many of your songs are about women and how they feel about things. I think that’s an interesting observation coming from a nine-year-old girl, and would like to ask your response to that.
It is interesting that one so young would notice that. Well, I don’t know. One thing I would like to say is that women have been much better to me than I have been to them. And maybe in some way, it’s like an apology. It’s just that at some point it came into my mind to try, because that’s the best thing that I can do because I am a male, but to try to express how women feel. And either I would be able to do it or I wouldn’t be able to do it. So any ability I have to do it, I have no explanation for. I do know the basic reality that the women are done wrong and have been done wrong by more than the males—by a mind-set, by a perception of life and that we’re all trapped in it. And maybe, in some abstract way, it’s a way of trying to make penance. [Laughs] But I don’t know. It may be that I’ve worn too many black hats, and like I have to say it now, because I’ve been wearing the black hat too long. I’m a good person, but I don’t always do good things, whether it’s in relationship to women or men or whatever it is. It depends on what kind of attitude I have or [laughs] who’s taken control of my mind for the day or the moment. And I’m really not all that good at it—about women I mean. [Laughing] I know that I live by myself, whatever it is, [still laughing] so I have to keep that reality in mind.
How do you feel about other poets or musicians using the kind of format that is associated primarily with your work?
Yeah, I have no problem with it. When I started to do this, they were looking at the high-tech “sound” as being innovative. Well, I think I saw this point where I thought, “A new human energy is what it’s going to take to change this.” So, that’s where I decided to enter into it with what we call the poetry, the spoken word. My intention has always been to get as far as I can with it, and maybe others will go after it, too. I’m not threatened by it. I’m glad for it. Anytime it means I’m not out there by myself, [laughs] well, then that’s a good thing, right?
Some of the younger writers who are poets equate you with “rock ‘n’ roll star” status and assume they can make a lot of money putting their work out there. Some folks seem to be getting the impression that you are becoming very affluent.
[Laughing] Well, it is definitely a mistaken impression. Don’t expect poetry to make you rich in dollars. Don’t write poetry because you think you’re going to make money out of it. I would say about the money part of it is that, if they write what they feel and they make the writing about that, then money may come in various forms and ways for different ones of them because that’s the kind of world we deal with. I have reasons to do this other than the money I’m going to make. If my reasons for doing this are fulfilled and I’m effective, then there will probably be money. But money would be a result—it’s not the goal. Right now, [laughing] it’s not a result, either.
Two of your daughters have been performing with you with the band and with Tribal Voice. How are you feeling about working with them?
On that Children of Earth tape, my daughter, Star, was about six, and she had some children’s tape she had gotten, Snow White or something. I was listening to that, and I thought we need to have some children’s tapes that talk about reality, and use the children’s voices to say it. So I set out to write some lyrics to that effect. I have three daughters, so I picked which ones would read each part. I want them to understand the process without having too much placed on them and becoming overwhelmed by it. That way all they have to do is relax and go in there and do it the best that they can. And I think that they did a really good job considering our working realities. When we got ready to go out and perform it, I was very pleased with how they handled that. It’s not like they don’t get nervous, because that’s natural on stage at first. But when they’re on stage and performing, it’s like, well, if you forget a line, don’t worry about it. Another thing that’s coming out of this [is] that they are learning how to deal with very public situations. So, I think that it’s good for them and healthy for them.
Are they writing?
[Smiling] Yeah, they’re starting to— I want them to write some of their own lyrics. We have maybe two or three things that they’ve written that will really work. The way I’m approaching it is that they write, and after enough time passes, we’ll pick what can be used. I figure the next album we make with the girls, they will have some of their own writing on it.
Would you talk more about encouraging writers to write the truth of their experience?
As writers, we need to say the truth about how we feel. I don’t mean express or say things we think other people want to hear. We should express the truth of how we feel. I think that a part of that is we need to look at or analyze the words we use. Especially as writers. How we use the words has a lot to do with it because every word has some kind of a concept that goes with it. Sometimes we use words where the concept doesn’t fit what we’re really trying to say. Knowing what we’re saying ourselves is what makes the communication. That’s what is going to connect with other people. For me. I just started writing these things down, and I think that any value people have found in my writing has been around that feelings got communicated. It. was more than just making sense. To me, it’s just to write what I feel and to look at these words that I’m using. I don’t try to get people to agree or disagree with me. If I write something and put it out there, and people say, “Well, you’re really nuts, and I don’t agree with that”—then that’s their problem, not mine. If people say “Well, we really like this, and we really relate to this,” then there is no problem. But, either way, I’m still going to write what I feel.
And what would you suggest to the younger, newer writers in terms of maintaining their sense of the truth?
Be as real as you can be. Do the best that you can with the best that you have. And that’s all we can do. But you see, it’s enough. When I say that’s all we can do, I don’t mean it in a context that it’s minimal. I mean that it is enough because we all have that ability. And if we would all do that, I mean in the grand scheme of things, it’s enough. Question our own truths. We should always question our own truths, too.
In terms of our relationship in the world, you talked about the influ-ence of the patriarchal religions imposed on us and how this discon-nects people from the earth as mother. Do you think that because people, particularly in America, don’t have ties to their own ancestral land base that this contributes to the acquisition and domination of the land base of others? Do you think they’re “motherless” because they don’t have connection to the land of their ancestors?
No, I think it’s just because they don’t have connection to the land anywhere. Maybe you’re right that when you get way down into the roots and the causes of things that they don’t have a relationship to their own ancestral land and that contributes to why these problems exist. But I think that, at this time, it’s not having a connection to the earth. Anywhere. I have seen people from the tribes, “Indians,” that don’t have that connection. Somehow it got taken from them. They may have certain blood degrees, but they don’t have the connection. So it has to do with being separated from our relationship to the earth entirely.
You mention about “regardless of their blood degrees.” There seems to be an acceleration lately in the controversy about who has the Certified Degree of Indian Blood [CDIB] cards and who are the “real Indians.” What do you think about all that going on?
About the cards and stuff, right-well, the Jews didn’t go running around Europe quarreling with one another because they didn’t have a number tattooed on their arm. You know, reality. Besides, none of us are “Indians” so it’s a meaningless quarrel about who’s the “most Indian” or who’s the “best Indian.” We’re the People—we come from the tribes, and that’s who the ancient ones were and who the ancestors were—the People.
Do you think that this quarrel going on is just a continuation of the original genocide plan?
Yes, it is. It’s just a continuation of divide and conquer, right? I look at it as a sign, a symptom. When people will spend all their time to quarrel about these things, then I look at it as a fear, that people are afraid to deal with what the real problem is. It’s a classic system among the oppressed to take it out on each other, among yourselves, while your oppressor continues to have his way with you. And I think that to some degree, that applies here. And then there are those people who try to identify and take what little economic services that are to be provided to the tribal people. There are people there who are saying they are from the tribes or they are “Indian” because they think they can get a free ride. All these things are mixed in there, but I think the community knows who the People are and who they aren’t. Because I know to me, as one person, I don’t want to deal with any Nazis—and I don’t care what color they are or what their cultural affiliation is, but if they carry that Nazi trip, then they don’t get it. Another thing that I find interesting about it is that there are many, many mixed-blood people now, right? I mean, I’m a mixed blood, and I accept who I am, and I have a role to play in this world and in this society, and my identity is my identity, and I don’t want to fight with my own people. I don’t have time to quarrel with them. And I see them quarrel amongst themselves about who’s the “real Indian” and who isn’t, and to me that’s a meaningless quarrel.
What do you think this quarrel does to our young people?
It confuses them. Because what it’s saying to the young people, especially the mixed-blood young people, is, “You have no validity.” It says to them, “You’re not real.” It’s a form of attacking our young, based upon the prejudices and the bitternesses of an older generation. Sometimes people don’t really understand what they’re doing. And I think that it’s time to sort a lot of this out in the sense of, “Well, look, things need to be made better for the People, and that’s what we should be looking at,” right? To make things better for the People, not to create new dictators who say, “Hey, to be an ‘Indian,’ you’ve got to be like this—to be a traditionalist, you have to be like this.” The practical reality of this quarrel is there are more tribal people that are unrecognized by the federal government than are recognized. That’s a deliberate policy. I know “Indians” who live in cities because they were placed there a generation ago through relocation and things, and it doesn’t make these people any less People—it’s just that they were raised somewhere else. But the government’s not going to recognize them as “Indians” bec9use they’re not on the tribal rolls somewhere. And it’s a form of termination. Controlling our identity.
When you spoke to the writers, you spoke about how we can limit our identity with labels, whether that’s “writer” or “political activist” or whatever. Do you think that CDIB cards can do that, too?
Yes, the whole concept does. Because then you can’t be a total person, you can only be a part of a person, and that’s the part that fits the image of the things you say you are.
[Some of the] things you talked about were some of the realities of AIM and the quarrels about who the leaders were and quarrels that have been carried over into these times. A lot of people have a tendency to romanticize those struggles, especially the media. It seems that in coverage about you, people have a tendency to concentrate only on the past. Like your life stopped in 1979. How do you feel about that?
In relationship to me and when it’s happening to me, I think that these are people who don’t want to face the realities of now. A lot of times people will write an article about me, and they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. In their quest to be “objective,” they become very nondescript, or in wanting to be what they call “creative,” they want to lay this “angry Indian” thing on me. They take up what they think is a unique thing, but it’s really just a repetitious, redundant story that’s been done in a lot of places. They try to lock me into all that angry, restless, militant this and that and my lifestyle to that point. To me it’s a lack of creativity, and if one is truly a journalist, then it’s an irresponsibility as a journalist. Basically, to me, it’s really a sign of laziness.
In terms of the work you are doing now—how would you put that into words for those PR packets that go out of the office in California?
I’m not sure how to do that. [Laughing], Basically, I’m really uncooperative with them. That whole idea of bios and publicity and things, well, I would say as little as possible. My bio would be my name and my age. [Laughing] Like this name survived this long, and that’s the history. I don’t want to praise myself, [laughing] and I sure don’t want to condemn myself, or expose myself, and it’s a fine line. So, I do have to take responsibility for that, too, in terms of what the PR people put out there.
Who do you read?
Nobody.
Nobody at all?
Once in a while I may find something that I can really get into reading, but it takes a certain focus for me to sit down and read. [Laughs] It seems like my attention span just gets shorter and shorter. If [it] isn’t short, I don’t really read it anymore. I used to do a lot of reading when I was in college. I read a lot of Black Hawk and Handsome Lake, and the things that they said made sense to me and were true to me. At that time I read many things. The Autobiography of Malcolm X had a profound and tremendous influence on me. Malcolm X influenced me about honesty in a way that no one else has because he was not afraid to say who he was. And I remember reading that book and thinking, “I wish I could do that—to just say it and not try to cover it up—and if you don’t want it known, then don’t say it. And not be afraid to say the truth.” And that had a tremendous amount of influence on me—that one particular book. Through the course of the 70s I read a lot of what we would call political publications. My initial choice, I guess I would say, is to read the things that have a different view of what’s going on than what we’re being told in the newspapers and on the television.
In terms of music, who has influenced you there, especially since AKA Graffiti Man and the new release Johnny Damas and Me are contemporary in their musical aspects?
I like a lot of kinds of music. My real interest is in what the singers are saying. I listened to Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Kris Kristofferson and John Prine. People that were story tellers — people that said things that were real. At some point in their careers, they made this kind of music. These things had a tremendous influence on me because that’s where I first picked up on some realities. People of our generation came of age in a time when the music was about the people, and you had songs like “Universal Soldier” and people like Buffalo Springfield singing “For What It’s Worth.” These lyrics were addressing certain realities. The young people were out there, and we were active, and we were making ourselves visible. This is the advantage that we had, right? At that point in America, the insiders who controlled the business side of it said, “This music is too dangerous, so it’s got to be changed,” and then they led it into acid rock and heavy metal and disco and things that would take it away from that lyrical content. I would suggest that people listen to all kinds of music, especially if you want to put your words to music, because the music has its own feel, too. Also, listen to the writers—to the ones who really say things. For the young people today, I don’t know how they would relate to John Lennon’s coherence. But I think it’s worth listening to, because an album that had the equivalent effect on me to The Autobiography of Malcolm X was an album that John Lennon made with the Plastic Ono Band after the breakup of the Beatles. And his song “Working Class Hero,” that really turned my head around—it really did something —that one particular song. What I admired about him was when he got in there and [big smile] he screamed and he yelled and he didn’t hold any of it back, and I thought, now here’s a level of honesty I can relate to—I mean, I don’t have it, but I can relate to it—the same way I could relate to what Malcolm X was saying. It reflected the truth to me.
Do you think rap music accurately reflects the truth of the urban youth and their experience?
No. I don’t think it reflects their reality—I think it’s programming their reality. I think it started out reflecting a reality, and they were saying what they had to say. Now the suits have stepped in, the insiders in the suits, and now they say, “You’ve all got to sound like this and be like this.” So it’s a way of trapping it and limiting it within that context. There are more realities going on in the communities of young people than what the rappers sing about. But because they want to “make it,” now they have to stay within the confines of the realities that have been defined for them. And that programs them in a way that’s not good for anybody.
The concluding thing that I’d like to ask you to speak to is, how does it feel to hear all these young writers’ words? Your generosity in coming to participate in Wordcraft Circle brought out a full house of people to hear Tribal Voice, and that resulted in many student writers being heard by those people. How’s that feel?
It makes me feel good. Really good, actually. Some people misunderstand, you know, what it’s all about for me. In many ways, this is what it’s really all about. It’s not about money. And it’s not about fame. It’s about being a part of a larger group. When I first started writing poetry, it wasn’t something that “men” did, especially coming out of the militants —it just wasn’t. It isn’t that people raised hell with me or anything, but there was a certain awkwardness about it in certain places in the community. It’s good to see that whole notion has been set aside. Let’s take it beyond writing poetry or writing —it’s about expressing how we feel, and I truly feel there has not been enough of that going on in our generation. We’ve been expressing our anger, but we haven’t been expressing how we feel. Basically when life revolves around just venting the anger, then that’s about emotional reaction. I’m glad that I can be a part of where people are saying what they feel now, and not just emotionally reacting. It takes me back to the very beginning when I first entered the activism—it was about us expressing how we feel. But it became something else. And then we could no longer express what we felt. We had organizations and political thought and political structure and the realms of that. It’s like we’ve come back now to where we started, but this time it’s with a younger group of people, a more open group of people. And that, to me, is a good feeling for our future. ~