On Raising the Muwekma Flag at Foothill College

 

I have class assingment to consider what benefit the Muwekma Flag Raising on the Foothill Campus will have to the Muwekma Tribe. However, I’d first like to answer another question; what benefit will it have to us?

In America, we are standing at a crossroads.  In the news and in social media, we are constantly bombarded with pundits screaming about “The Death of Democracy” and “Preserving the Ideals of our Founding Fathers”. I ask myself two questions; first, is this rhetoric just hyperbole to gain clicks and sell ads – is the situation really this dire? Secondly, how great have we done up until now with Democracy and the ideals of our Founding Fathers? My response to these questions are: Yes! The situation is pretty extreme and so far, our track record with Freedom, Democracy and the purported vision of our Founding Fathers is awful.  But we can do better. The idea of America is worth striving for and there are things we can do to make it closer to reality.

Consider the attempted genocide of the Native Californians by the American settlers and government; erasure  from the landscapes they had inhabited for more than ten thousand years prior to contact with western colonial powers.  While the treatment of California Indians under the Spanish Mission System was brutal and traumatic, it was survivable. In defense of the missions, the intentions of the Spanish Colonial powers was not to remove the Indians from the land.  Their actions were based on self-interest, power and profit and were ultimately catastrophically damaging, but their motivations (possibly self delusional)  did ,at least in part, consider the California Indians to be human beings with some level of human rights. By contrast, between the 1840s to 1880s American miners and settlers aided by the US Government unapologetically and systematically acted to remove the California Natives from existence. No efforts were made to accommodate for the welfare or benefit of the Native inhabitants of California. In all legal situations, all benefit was given to American Anglo interests and literally no legal status provided to the indigenous population. At every opportunity of advantage, the US Government reneged on treaties with the California Indians. There was no pretense of fairness or treating the California Natives as human beings deserving of “inalienable rights”. 

When we read of actions like this conducted by Nazi Germany during WWII, we are shocked and gasp “How could the people allow this to be done? How could they stand by and watch?”.  When we hear about tribal genocide in Uganda, we muse “Why didn’t somebody step in and stop this?” But this was AMERICA!  These are not actions that we should be proud of and these are not actions that are consistent with what we see as the ideals of Freedom and Democracy. Notwithstanding their being slaveholders, this is not what we imagine being the vision of our Founding Fathers!

What can we do about it?  We can recognize these actions and acknowledge the generational guilt and responsibility.   that is ours. Speaking as a white, upper middle class professional in the Bay Area, I have to personally own up to the fact that my way of life can only exist because of this history.  It is not abstract. My house is built on the bones of the Native People that inhabited this land.

Furthermore, the Native People are still here. And I still owe them.

What can I do to make amends? How can I repay the debt?  There is nothing that I or anyone else can do that will ever repay or repair the damage that has been done. However, we can start by acknowledging the presence of the Native People and the Land they have lived on.  We can begin by acknowledging the many unspeakable injustices and atrocities that have been done to them.  I should reword that from the impersonal tense.  We can begin by speaking the unspeakable injustices and atrocities that WE have done to them.  The raising of the Muwekma Flag at Foothill College is a part of this extended Land Acknowledgment process. 

So back to the original question. What benefit will this have to us? If the US is at a crossroads, this single action will help us bring into focus the question “What is Democracy and why would we fight for it?”  It’s a place to positive place to start and understand that we can be better and there really is something important at stake.

What is at benefit to the Muwekma?  The ceremony itself is not a great benefit. The flag raising is symbolic and a small step along the road of bringing their continued and continuous presence in this landscape into to the immediate consciousness of the people around us.  There is much to do. The ultimate goal is to establish a reciprocity that recognizes the rights and relationships between Native Californian Tribal Groups, non-native people and the government.  This process certainly includes Federal Recognition of Tribal Groups divorced from big business and inter-tribal power politics.  It may include reparations and LandBack programs.  However, and most importantly, this is a process, long overdue that can only begin with the acknowledgement of the true historic context and a change in consciousness that accepts that an individual rises only when all rise.