News: MN Supreme Court upholds Bde Maka Ska name change, Alberta tar sands workers spread COVID-19, and more

In this blog:

• Minnesota Supreme Court upholds Bde Maka Ska name change
• Tar sands workers in Alberta spread COVID-19
• Pandemic closes casinos, causing economic harm in Indian Country
• Pine Ridge locks down after first two confirmed COVID-19 cases found

Kate Beane TED Talk: The lasting legacy of place names

Public historian Kate Beane, her twin sister Carly Bad Heart Bull, and their father Syd Beane played a central role in restoring the name Bde Maka Ska (White Earth Lake) to Lake Calhoun. They and others who supported this work spent years to restore the name, and they met resistance from some sectors of the community. They persevered and eventually succeeded.

Kate Beane gave a TED Talk in Minneapolis in May titled: The Lasting Legacy of Place Names, in which she describes why this work was so important to her, her family and future generations.

Here’s more background from a 2018 City Pages article: Kate Beane and Carly Bad Heart Bull: The Storytellers.

 

Duluth renames park in Ojibwe; Enbridge’s role in Line 3 front group exposed, and other updates

In this post:

• Duluth renames a city park in the Ojibwe language while opposition to restoring the name Bde Maka Ska continues in Minneapolis
• Enbridge’s role in Line 3 front group exposed
• Trump administration trying to crack down on pipeline protesters; protests continue in northern Minnesota
• Winona LaDuke’s excellent Op/Ed on Enbridge Line 3

Dakota History Walk Friday; Sacred Sites Tours Begin June 1; and Other Upcoming Events

Upcoming events, details below:

• Dakota History Walk, Friday, May 10
• Indigenous Women’s March, May 11
• East Side Study Collective: Discussion on Settler Colonialism and Decoloniality, Wednesday, May 15
• Environmental Ancestry Storytelling, Thursday, May 16
• Indigenous-Led Native Plants Walk, Friday, May 17
• Dakota Sacred Sites Tour, Saturday, June 1
• Bde Maka Ska Public Art Dedication, Saturday, June 8

White Fragility at the State Legislature: Full Blown Freak Out Over a Sign

The Minnesota Historical Society changed its “Fort Snelling” sign to read “Fort Snelling at Bdote” and some white legislators became unhinged.

“Bdote” is a Dakota word for confluence, or where the waters meet. There’s nothing controversial in the meaning; what’s controversial, apparently, is the use of a Dakota word on the sign.

Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, who chairs the Senate Government Finance and Policy and Elections Committee, slipped a $4 million (18 percent) cut to the Historical Society’s state funding as punishment for the sign, according to a WCCO news account.

Pro Line 3 Group Drops $247,000 on Facebook Ads; MN Senate Proposes New Felonies for Pipeline Opponents

A pro-Enbridge Line 3 pipeline group spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars since November on Facebook ads to sway Minnesotans’ perceptions of this unnecessary and risky project.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Senate today approved new felony crimes for those who trespass on pipeline property or damage pipeline equipment or property.

Bde Maka Ska Dedication, Mayo Clinic Apologizes for 1862 Grave Robbing, Indigenous Food Tasting, and Other News

Inbox is full with news and events:

• Dedication for restoring the name Bde Maka Ska set for Saturday.
• Belated Apology: In 1862, Dr. William Mayo stole the remains of Cut Nose, one of the 38 Dakota men hung in Mankato following the U.S. Dakota War. One hundred and fifty six year’s later, the Mayo Clinic apologizes.
• Indigenous Food Tasting Oct. 8
• Mindful direct action training set at Common Ground Meditation Center Saturday.
• Water protectors face felony trespass charges as they try to stop DAPL in Louisiana, an example of how states are trying to stifle protest with stiffer penalties.

Details below.

Mde Maka Ska Four Sacred Directions Water Walk this Friday

The annual Four Sacred Directions Water Walk at Mde Maka Ska (White Earth Lake, formerly Lake Calhoun) will be held this Friday, May 25, starting at 6:15 a.m. Here is the Facebook event, text is copied below.

You are cordially invited to join us upon the south shore of Mde Maka Ska (White Earth Lake), at South Thomas Beach, as we gather to walk for the health, vitality, and spirit of Mni Wakan (Sacred Water).

Our clockwise route around Mde Maka Ska will be in honor of and prayer for the sustainability and increasing recovery of clean, fresh water. The Four Directions Water Walk will respectfully embrace the fluid heart of the most populous community in Mni Sota (Land of Misty Water).

The water walk will precede and connect with the opening ceremony for the 10th Annual Mde Maka Ska Canoe Nations Gathering. Your participation will emit a resounding message to the world regarding our resurgent relationship with the sacredness of water now and for generations to come.

For questions, email wakinyan.lapointe@gmail.com

(Note: The lake’s name is Bde Maka Ska, but some prefer Mde Maka Ska, which has the same meaning.)

Predictable Push Back: D.J Tice’s Stale Arguments Against Reinterpreting Fort Snelling

Historic Fort Snelling

Star Tribune columnist D.J. Tice offered predictable and flawed push back against needed truth telling at Fort Snelling.

Tice’s opinion piece — Fort Snelling: New Vision, Old Wounds — focuses on plans to renovate and reinterpret the Fort, plans which would give a prominent place to acts of injustice and cruelty that were part of Minnesota’s founding and whose legacy continues today. Plans would bring forward stories about the brutal concentration camp below the Fort that held Dakota women and children following the Dakota War of 1862, a camp where hundreds died. It would talk about the Dred Scott case and the fact that Scott was held at Fort Snelling.

This new narrative would challenge the political correctness of a prior age.

Tice uses several common arguments to push back against such truth telling.

1. The Plan is Too Critical of the Past: Tice mixes the Fort Snelling debate in with recent efforts to remove Confederate statues in the south and to restore the name Bde Maka Ska to Lake Calhoun. He wraps them under the broad heading of the “new censorious spirit” of our age. (Censorious, according to Merriam Webster, mean hypercritical, fault finding, or carping. It’s basically a put down for those seeking change.)
2. The Plan Needs More Historical “Balance”: Tice seems to argue that it’s okay to add some stories of past injustices, but apparently we shouldn’t overdo it. History needs to be balanced.
3. The Plan Victimizes Veterans: Tice cites retired National Guard Gen. Richard C. Nash, raising concerns that the fort’s military history will be pushed aside and replaced with more painful stories.  This “zero-sum” thinking raises the fear that adding to the historical narrative unfairly diminishes the Fort and veterans’ stories.

Tice’s closing paragraphs argues for a blame-free and “balanced” historical narrative:

One might wish for an approach to history in which the very purpose is to try — not so much to condemn or to justify — but to understand the passions and motives of all peoples of the past. Yet maybe a truly balanced view of history has always been too much to expect.

It is, though, what Minnesota should strive for.

Tice’s narrative doesn’t go for balance. He prefers emotionally charged words, such as “censorious,” “score-settling,” “reproachful,” and “villainous whites and victimized minorities.”

Pushback Against “Bde Maka Ska” Latest Example of White Privilege

The Star Tribune ran a disturbing Op/Ed Monday titled: I asked 350 people who live along or near Lake Calhoun about renaming it — The breakdown is 20 percent for and 80 percent against. Equally interesting are the reasons.

The author is critical of the proposed name change from Lake Calhoun to its original Dakota name, Bde Maka Ska (or Mde Maka Ska). Here are four examples of how the Op/Ed embodies white privilege.

#1: White voices matter most: The author, a CEO of  a venture capital group, starts out by telling us he talked to his “Lake Calhoun” neighbors to gauge their feelings about the name Bde Maka Ska. As he describes it, he polled  “virtually every homeowner who lives directly along Lake Calhoun, plus another couple hundred neighbors who live within a few blocks.”

The result? Some 80 percent were for keeping the name Lake Calhoun. The underlying premise here is that the voices that matter most are those who live closest to the Lake, those who are predominantly wealthy and white. They see themselves as entitled to preferential treatment. Did the author think it was important to talk to anyone but his immediate neighbors, say some Dakota people? Apparently not. Apparently their opinions do not matter.

The author says his neighbors “were overwhelmingly disgusted that public officials were spending all of this time and energy on the lake renaming issue when there are so many other pressing problems facing the community that need to be addressed.” This world view ignores the fact that people in other parts of the city might have different pressing issues which are equally valid for the city’s consideration.