A Choice To Be Human...

I would be at risk of losing my own humanity if I turned a blind eye to what is happening...

I choose not to get political. For me this is an issue about our own personal humanity as it plays out on the world stage.

It is not the California Gold Rush of 1859. But the consequences are more real and all-encompassing... What is happening currently in the Ecuadorian Amazon with indigenous tribes and the rush for black gold is this same mentality we have suffered under for several hundred years...

In 1996 I received a degree in Native American studies from Humboldt State University. I was asked again recently why I chose this program - if I had no native blood in me that I knew of. After some deep and meditative soul-searching a voice from somewhere came through me and stated, "To understand what it means to be human."

Conversely, the reality of what indigenous studies brings is an incredible dialogue with what it means to lose one's humanity through the process of dehumanization.

Vacuum Domicilium, Requirimiento, Manifest Destiny, genocide, paternalism, domestic dependent nations - the list goes on and on with words and definitions that have helped create a climate where dehumanization can take place... When you study this it can be massively depressing because you realize just how white-washed history has been because it is written by the victors - since childhood so many of us have been lied to about so much of what took place in the land-grab by imperialist European nations since 1492. It took until college and dialogue with natives that had lived through the boarding school era and whose parents were legally banned from practicing their religion, and great grandparents that had been indentured servants (slaves) - or murdered methodically for gold or land, to gain a comprehension of this incredibly dark history. I can no longer use the excuse that I suffer from the delusions of politically warped written histories or historical amnesia.

The past can inform the present - but are we learning? Are we capable of applying what we have learned?

I will say 'living history' because our history still has sway over current realities. It is not merely the open wound of memory that still bleeds out on the reservations across the United States - a wound that still lives in the minds and hearts of much of the population. Dehumanization is alive and well as is the intentioned process of it. Short-term profits by way of resource extraction at any cost are still with us. We are living our bleakest history. Resources are still worth much more than cultures and human lives - autonomy to choose is taken away, lives are still being destroyed and snuffed out for profits. I am confident that the repercussions of turning a blind eye and allowing wholesale resource blowout to commence will resonate and ripple across the globe as one more dangerous step we will collectively take toward loosing our humanity...

As I rambled across the blog-o-sphere I came across a post that literally shattered my somewhat insulated and comfortable Boulder Colorado existence. It brought 10 years of the maelstrom of academia flooding back at me in just seconds... This blog post is perhaps more relevant/immediate/imperative today then it was two years ago when it was posted... Caroline Bennett (great last name, which by the way means "blessed" which is a nice sentiment) is a storyteller with her camera and with her words... Her personal experience with the people and players in the Ecuadorian Amazon make this piece particularly transcendent...

Caroline Bennett's work reminds me that we all have a choice - to be human, or not...