Some responses to a recent post about the Seeding Sovereignty event HEY! Come Get Your Racist Uncle, Remove Monuments to White Supremacy, were objections to removing Confederate statues because of their (possible) historic value.

I know many White people don’t like the expression “White supremacy”. But we have to be clear about what White supremacy is and where it was/is practiced. So we can learn from those mistakes, do what we can to address those wrongs, and stop those practices now. But as explained below, using public monuments to White supremacy is not the way to do this.

There are nuances in the discussions about monuments to historical figures who accomplished great things for the land called the United States, but who also engaged in practices like the enslavement of Black people or atrocities against Indigenous peoples. The Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial are recognition of what these men did for the country, not for their acts of White supremacy.

On the other hand, statues to Confederate soldiers are monuments to White supremacy. These White men committed treason by seceding from the United States, and going to war to preserve the institution of slavery. They were clearly saying White culture is superior to all others. They may have a place in museums, but not in public places.

Another campaign of White supremacy was the theft of Native peoples lands and the cultural genocide from forced assimilation of more than 100,000 Indigenous children. This occurred in White run boarding/residential schools and was the epitome of White supremacy. Forcing native children to give up their ways, and try to learn how to fit into White society. Research has shown that the trauma related to forced assimilation affected the children and their relatives at the time the kidnapping occurred. And those traumas have been passed from generation to generation, passed to and felt by those living today.

Systemic racism in the U.S. today is the interconnected web of ways White supremacy continues in our society.

White people often don’t realize we are harmed by White supremacy. We are ignorant of the truths of history when we unquestioningly accept what we are taught in school, usually by White teachers. We try to ignore it, but we are also hurt, knowing of these violations of human rights.

As I have learned more about Indigenous peoples, it is clear to me we would not be in this rapid spiral into deepening climate chaos is we had lived within our ecological boundaries, as Indigenous peoples have always done. Another way we are all suffer because of White supremacy.

The following video is from the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March in September, 2018. The purpose was to create a community of Indigenous people and White settlers working on ways to learn about each other. Begin to trust one another so we could work together.

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Besides the Confederate statues, pioneer monuments are also displays of White supremacy.

The earliest pioneer monuments were put up in midwestern and western cities such as Des Moines, Iowa and San Francisco, California. They date from the 1890s and early 1900s, as whites settled the frontier and pushed American Indians onto reservations.

Those statues showed white men claiming land and building farms and cities in the West. They explicitly celebrated the dominant white view of the Wild West progressing from American Indian “savagery” to white “civilization.”

Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments by Cynthia Prescott, The Conversation.

My friends Christine Nobiss and Donnielle Wanatee organized the event at the Iowa State Capitol on July 4th regarding removing the Pioneer statue on the grounds there.

Following is a lengthy video of that gathering. I hope you might listen to the first few minutes, at least. You can hear Christine talk about the purpose of this gathering. And you can hear the wonderful prayers of Donnielle. When we were on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March together, mentioned above, we stopped for prayers every time we walked over the Dakota Access Pipeline. Often it was Donnielle who gave the prayers. They were some of the most significant parts of the March for me.

Seeding Sovereignty
July 5, 2020
We’re proud of the work being done all around the country and by our collective members. Christine Nobiss, organized a powerful event where 250 Iowans showed up. We thank all who attended and spoke. It wasn’t an easy job, considering there were around 100 white supremacists and nationalists who showed up and who also threatened us before the event.

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My experience is that we must follow the lead of those who are experiencing injustice, those suffering under the practices of White supremacy today. That is why I find this video from Seeding Sovereignty fascinating.

Following are notes I took from the video.

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