“I don’t share this to belabor suffering … Yet at the root of reparation is repair. My tooth will not grow back ever. The root, gone.” -Layli Long Soldier, in Whereas

photo by Andrew Harnick / AP

Layli Long Soldier is a writer-poet, artist and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Her award-winning collection Whereas was written in response to the U.S. government’s Joint Resolution “To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.”

The Apology was a step. As State Sen. John McCoy, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes who lives in Washington, said in an interview with National Public Radio: “…it’s time to correct the record and to show exactly what happened… Indian boarding schools were primarily set up as military boarding schools… The students were punished if they spoke their own language. Their hair was cut. And they were beaten. They were abused. The girls were sexually abused. And it was just a horrible life.”

But the Apology was half-hearted.

First, it did not apologize on behalf of the U.S. government. Rather, “on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.” It also did not offer reparations. Instead, it “commends the State governments that have begun reconciliation efforts with recognized Indian tribes located in their boundaries and encourages all State governments similarly to work toward reconciling relationships with Indian tribes within their boundaries.”

Second, the Apology was not announced or publicized. An article in The Atlantic describes how the Joint Resolution was quietly tucked into a defense appropriations bill and was (again, quietly) signed by President Obama in December 2009. Robert T. Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center and citizen of Potawatomi Nation, explained to Indian Country Today that there was an “overwhelming silence… no public announcements, there were no press conferences, there was no national attention, much less international… What kind of an apology is it when they don’t tell the people they are apologizing to? For an apology to have any meaning at all, you do have to tell the people you’re apologizing to. I have had my doubts on whether this is a true or meaningful apology, and this silence seems to speak very loudly on that point.”

Third, the Apology’s twenty preamble ‘Wheras’ clauses included this language: “peaceful and mutually beneficial interactions also took place… the founders of the Republic expressed their desire for a just relationship with the Indian tribes, as evidenced by the Northwest Ordinance enacted by Congress in 1787, which begins with the phrase, ‘The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians’… Native Peoples and non-Native settlers engaged in numerous armed conflicts in which unfortunately, both took innocent lives, including those of women and children… Native Peoples are endowed by their Creator…”

Long Soldier’s poetic response, Whereas, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist. Specific to the Apology, these fragments are in the collection:

WHEREAS I query my uneasiness with the statement, “Native People are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” … Whereas I remember that abstractions such as “life,” “liberty,” and “happiness” rarely serve a poem, so I have learned it best not to engage these terms anyway. Yet I smash head-on into this specific differentiation: the Creator vs. their Creator. …

WHEREAS I tire. Of my effort to match the effort of the statement: “Whereas Native People and non-Native settlers engaged in numerous armed conflicts in which unfortunately, both took innocent lives, including those of women and children.” I tire Of engaging in numerous conflicts, tire of the word both. Both as a woman and a child of that Whereas.

She also includes “grassesgrassesgrasses,” referring to August 1962 when the U.S. government did not pay the Dakota’s annuities, and a store owner would not allow credit for food until the payments arrived: “Let them eat grass.”

Curated by The Circle’s Creative Director & Editor, Lara Herscovitch (Cohort 10). To reach Lara directly: thecircle@clpnewhaven.org or Lara@LaraHerscovitch.com

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