John Trudell
The American Indian Movement (AIM) struggled to maintain momentum in the wake of Wounded Knee. The organization gained national and international attention, compelled members of Congress and representatives of the Nixon administration to meet with them, and contributed to the declaration of the Independent Oglala Nation. The last of these spoke directly to the inadequacy of the federal government’s attempts at promoting self-government through the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA). And yet the controversial IRA government not only remained in place, but tribal chairman Dickie Wilson also launched a campaign of repression known as the “Reign of Terror.” Meanwhile, AIM’s unity faltered due to internal discord compounded by judicial harassment and FBI infiltration. In the midst of the crisis, AIM national chairman John Trudell (1946–), who rose to prominence during the Alcatraz occupation, called for a renewal of commitment and purpose. Consider how his use of concepts such as colonialism, capitalism, freedom, whiteness, and power compares to the rhetorical and strategic approach taken by Lili‘uokalani, the National Congress of American Indians, and the Chicago conference. Did Trudell have anything to say about “honest Americans,” American values, and adjustment to the “modern world?”13
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 the 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. And 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—they planned that. They wanted that to happen.14 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. . . .15
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. . . .
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. . . .
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!!!” . . . 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. . . .
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. . . . Our number one priority must be the brotherhood of the native American sovereign people.