Prior to the International Treaty Conference, the American Indian Movement held a meeting in Cumberland, Wisconsin to work out its directions, internal strengths, and to set priorities. There, John Trudell, national chairman of the American Indian Movement, spoke on changes which must take place within the movement and AIM if change was going to come about in the lives of native peoples. This is an excerpt from his speech.
When we talk about discipline for the American Indian Movement, commitment is just about the number one thing to think about. We’ve got to have commitment so strong that when we get mad at each other, we overlook it. We’ve got to have commitment so strong that we don’t take no for an answer. We’ve got to have commitment so strong that we will not accept their rhetoric and lies for an answer. We’ve got to have commitment so strong we will live and we will die for our people.
We’ve got to start thinking in terms of love. We get caught up in hating the white man for what he’s done to us. And that hate shows; it shows internally in our own organization. We start playing the white man’s games. We say we’re out for the good of Indian people, but internally if we don’t like what someone does we start backstabbing, we start calling names, we start criticizing. We never come out in the open and talk to the individual or to the people we’re displeased with and confront them with how we feel. We go around and agitate and try to build support amongst ourselves. Sometimes I question, does the white man oppress us, or do we oppress ourselves? I wonder about “respect”. We speak of respect, we use the word many times, but then we go and pour alcohol in our bodies. We don’t respect our bodies when we do this. We slip ourselves some acid. We don’t respect our minds when we do this. We rip off from each other. We don’t respect our brothers when we do this. We do not respect our brothers when we talk about them behind their backs. These are things we have to start thinking about. We have many complaints and many grievances against the white man and against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and against the state. We’ve got to understand things like colonialism. We’ve got to understand the processes which the white man uses to exploit and keep us under his thumb.
Colonialism, that means that the white man came to our country and he took our land away from us and put us into reservations where he continues to exploit our resources and our lives. That’s colonialism. It’s where we have white bosses and white landlords who come down to our communities and look good while we sit there hungry and sit there without our rights. That’s colonialism. Colonialism is when the Bureau of Indian Affairs is run by white people up in the Interior Department and they get fat and they get rich and they keep us disoriented and they keep us at each other’s throats. They keep us from gaining the working knowledge and the working experience we need to control our lives again. That’s colonialism. Our enemy is not the United States. Our enemy is not the individual white man. Our enemy is the collective white man. Our enemy is the American state. The American state is the corporations and the corrupt politicians that are selling us out. These are the enemies. The collective white man sits back and allows this to happen. He is our enemy. You know, when we’re going to deal with the truth, the white man is going to have to accept this, because if there is ever going to be peace, love and understanding between the races, he’s got to understand that he is in the wrong. It was white people who created capitalism. It was white people who created communism. It was white people who created mission schools. It was white people who created jails. It was white people who robbed our land and it was white people who sat back in the corner and allowed their government to do it. Then they come to us and talk of love and brotherhood. They sell us guns and make money off us. They use us. It’s something to understand, they’ve got us set up so they can play on our fears, they can play on our emotions. You know what happened in South Dakota in the courtroom [during the Custer trials in Pierre in May], they planned that. They wanted that to happen. That was not a spontaneous thing. They wanted to teach us a lesson. They think they can still teach us a lesson with their clubs and their guns and their Bibles. But you look at the overall strategy, they are using our spirit and our determination because they want to isolate us. They want to make us like the SLA. They want to make us like the Black Panthers. They want to make us like the Weathermen. They want to make us like the SDS. It was white people who sent us guns, guns that get us killed. It is my feeling that when Wounded Knees happen, and the white man is on our side, he should pick up these guns himself and he should go into the communities and he should fight the white man himself. They want to isolate us from our communities, and they do this by calling us names. And they do this by coming in with their clubs and beating us and they come in with their guns and their fragmentation bombs and they shoot and they cause destruction, and they make our communities afraid of us because they want to isolate us. They do not want us to talk about freedom. They do not want us getting white people to talk about freedom. They do not want black people to think about freedom. They don’t want our own people to think about freedom. So they use violence, they use destruction, they intimidate, they try to tell us that they have power. They have no power. They have guns, they have bombs, they have their laws, they have methods and tools for destruction. But that is not power. Power comes from the people. Power comes from knowledge. Power comes from love for the people. Power comes from solidarity. Power comes from not fighting each other. Power comes from standing for the issues that we believe in. Power comes from believing in our right to live. That is the power. We have the power. All we’ve got to do is put it together. But we do not have to take this crap from these white people. But we’re going to have to continue to put up with it until we can put ourselves together. That’s the biggest contradiction that I see in the American Indian Movement, that we don’t respect each other. We say we do, but we don’t act. There’s two kind of languages. The language that comes out of our mouths, and the language of our actions. In the white man’s world, these two languages have been separate. Sometimes I see it happening to us. We seek one thing, and then do another. You know, as long as we do this type of thing, we’ll always be disoriented. I hear a lot of talk about legal aid, and about laws. I don’t see much hope depending on the white man’s laws. I don’t see much hope in depending on the white man to be understanding. He is not going to change. His technology has changed, but his civilization hasn’t. The white man’s civilization always has been creating a government, and making the people subservient to that government. That has always been his civilization. Now they come here. They no longer use cross bows. They no longer wear iron suits. But the corruption is the same. The violence is the same. The manipulation of the people’s minds is the same. Anytime they come out and tell us these things take time. Well, I tell you in 1876, when the American Government was celebrating its first one hundred year anniversary, they had problems with the blacks. They had problems with the Indians. They had corruptions and graft in administration. They had women out seeking their rights. The difference between 1876 and 1974 is that now you can see it on TV. Now you can come to a microphone and tell us about it. The technology has changed, but the system is the same. We must not be fooled by them. We must condition our minds and our souls and our spirits to say “No!” The loud collective voice of “No!” from the people. That is the only way we are going to be able to reason with them. We must tell them “No! No!! NO!!!” And when we tell them “no” we can’t be drunk. That’s the biggest damn problem we have is being drunk. How much money do we take and spend on alcohol? How many times are we helpless to defend someone because we’re drunk? They kick our kids out of school, but we cannot collectively deal with that because too many of our people are drunk. Alcohol, that’s the number one weapon against the Indian people.
A hundred years ago, seventy years ago, they started pulling the soldiers out of sight and started pumping the alcohol to us. They have used it against us since the first white man set foot on this land. They have taken our religion, they are taking our children, they are taking our culture, they are taking our land, they are taking our language and they’re giving us alcohol and we’re accepting it. Alcohol is becoming the new god of the Indian people. Alcohol is becoming the new way of life. It is only we who can change this. We oppress ourselves. Maybe we listen to their lies because we don’t want to deal with the truth. If we want to talk about revolution, if we want to talk about freedom, if we want to talk about humanity and people’s rights, we’re going to have to deal with the truth. The truth is the truth and we’re going to have to recognize it. We’re going to have to understand it. We’re going to have to learn to work with it. And when that truth hurts us, then we’re going to have to sit down and evaluate ourselves. No one is above the truth. No one is above being criticized. Too many times within our own organization, that’s the biggest problem we come up with. We’re too good to be criticized. We’re too good to be humble. We’re too good to express love. We want to show that we’re free, but we want to fight each other. You know, that’s getting us nowhere. I don’t like to see name calling and accusations. I don’t like to see people shooting at each other in the movement. You know, we’re only helping one race of people when we do that. We’re helping the white man. And he likes to see it. You know, I don’t buy this crap that Indians have always fought and can’t get along. This has been our land for thousands and thousands of years. We lived here and we survived. We couldn’t have lived and survived and been in harmony with nature if we were as warlike as they say we were. Too many times we listen to them. I’d like to see all the white nations of the world sit down and form one way to communicate. You see, they can’t. English has to be the dominant language. That shows that there is a warlike philosophy, a violence in their humanity. We had the sign language. They call it primitive. But it was more advanced than anything that they ever had, because it respected the individual languages of the individual tribes. And warlike people would not have devised a language that the people used to communicate from coast to coast. They tell us things, and too many times we get sucked into believing them. When Europeans first came here, we showed them how to live. We showed them how to survive. We gave them their economy, and they were peaceful to us. They were nice, because they did not know how to live here. Once they found out how to live here, then they started killing us. Then they started stealing our land. Then they brought the black man in to get him to farm and cultivate their land. Then they started their lies and their history of repression and oppression of the native indigenous people of this land. Now they take us and pump us through their schools to listen to this and they tell us we are free. They say we live in a democracy. They tell us we’ve got human rights. And they get us to believe it. They create the illusion of freedom because they create a civil rights bill that says you have certain rights. We know we have these rights. But why can’t we send our kids to school with long hair? Why can’t we put our people in to decide what our education is going to be? We cannot decide what our religion is going to be. We can’t get our religion recognized. There is no freedom in this country unless you are extremely rich, or unless you have liberated your own self. That’s where freedom comes. They want us to be intimidated. They want us to be overwhelmed by their numbers, and by the tools of violence and destruction that they have. But these are not our concerns at this time. Our concern is our own selves. What are we going to do with ourselves? Are we going to be able to accept criticism? Are we going to be able to stop ripping each other off? Are we going to be able to stop spending all our money on booze and a good time? Are we going to be able to stop stabbing our brothers in the back because we don’t agree with what they say? We should express our opinion. When we express our opinions, we should not be mad and want to jump on each other’s backs. We should accept the fact that we are all together, and we all believe the same thing. Our number one priority must be the brotherhood of the Native American sovereign People.
The Government couldn’t shoot us down in the streets like they did the SLA. Last year the Gallup poll showed we had more support than Richard Nixon. So they take us and call us names. They use the law against us. The Government doesn’t care if their case holds up in court or not, they’ve got nothing to lose. They use this as a means of tying us up in court, of destroying our credibility in our own communities and in the white community. We’re talking about treaty issues. How come the press hasn’t sat down and analyzed the treaties? How come the press hasn’t examined the economic status of Indian people today? How come the press hasn’t analyzed the corruption that goes on in tribal government? The press responds to sensationalism when we try to bring an issue out. Why is the press here today? Looking for sensationalism. The press has enough work to do if it just looked at the issues the American Indian Movement has brought up in the past. But how many press people know anything about treaties? How many press people even know about the Constitution of the United States, if you want to get right down to it. The Constitution says that all treaties will be held on the same level as the Constitution. The press should be exposing why the Government is trying to commit genocide on us. If the United States Government was made to honor all treaties, what jurisdiction would the town of Rapid City fall under? Pierre? The treaties are law. There are five kinds of law: common law, criminal law, statute law, constitutional law and treaty law. Treaty law is the highest, because it is between sovereigns. The treaty is an international thing. It is higher than the United States law. And yet the United States keeps breaking it. How does that fit into strip mining and the so-called energy crisis? How does violating the treaties fit into that kind of system? How does corruption through the political system of America affect the Bureau of Indian Affairs? No one questions these things. The press gets too interested in saying, “The Indians had four 22s and an AK-47 and a sawed off shotgun.” Like at Wounded Knee, we had a lot of press there. But after AIM was gone, after we moved into the courtroom situation, there is no press there. The oppression is the same in Pine Ridge, the corruption is still there, but you don’t see the press there. Every time AIM gets together, the number one question we get from the press is, “Is there going to be any violence?” Like we can control that type of situation! In the media, it is insinuated that we are the violent ones. But I’ll tell you right now, we didn’t invent no tear gas, no napalm, no hydrogen bombs, no Tac squads. We didn’t invent the violent tools, we react to violence. We get manipulated. I know one of the questions raised about Wounded Knee was, “Did AIM manipulate the press?” But I have yet to see anyone sit down and analyze how the Federal Government is manipulating the press. Radio and TV are supposed to be serving community interests!, that’s FCC law. But whose needs do they meet? The needs of the people, or the needs of the sponsors? The whole thing has been corrupted and turned around. The media has a job and duty and obligation to expose what the facts happen to be. See, all these things that affect us will sooner or later affect the white man. The same way the FBI is lying about us in the courts will be the way they will lie about American citizens in the future, because they got away with it with us. I’d like to see the press devote some time to understanding the issues we’re talking about and forget about the sensationalism for a while. Hell, we can’t build our whole lives around your sensationalism. You’ve got natural sensationalism in a case history about strip mining on Indian lands. You’ve got natural sensationalism in the resources taken from lands illegally taken from us. The media has a duty, as far as I’m concerned, to inform the public about what is going on. It is not the media’s duty to write on one sensational issue after another. That’s one of the biggest problems in America today, you use things like radio and television for the wrong purposes. It doesn’t serve anybody but sponsors. They use radio and television to destroy people’s own values in themselves. They use radio and television to tell you you can’t get a woman without using some roll-on deodorant or driving a new GTO. I would like to see objectivity. We don’t care if the press criticizes us, but we would like to see the press criticize the other side too, the side that needs criticizing. We don’t have any reason to lie. The truth stands out on its own. Truth is the greatest weapon the American Indian Movement has got. Truth is spiritualism itself. I felt bad after the Wounded Knee thing because I felt we had been sold out. We had been manipulated by the feds, and the press had been manipulated by the feds. But we recognized that, but the media never did. Even now, the only way we can get coverage on the trials in St. Paul is if they think something sensational is going to happen in court. Look at what happened when some cop got shot over here in McLaughlin [South Dakota] the other day. Immediately, what we hear in the media is, “There is no definite link between the shooting and the American Indian Movement.” That’s your link right there. What kind of objective reporting is that? If an Indian gets shot by a white man, you never read, “There is no definite link between the shooting and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.” That’s all I’ve got to say. ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes. p. 10 Vol. 6 No. 3