Learning from a Child

First published in the "Spiritual Perspectives" column of the Gallup Independent on August 31, 2014

The May 31 issue of the Gallup Independent, my hometown newspaper, contained a highly inflammatory, racist letter to the editor, one that many readers will have seen. The letter was quickly posted and reposted on social media. I read it there with dismay, along with the angry and injured comments of several of my friends who live in Gallup and in the Navajo Nation. Purporting to respond to panhandling in Gallup, the writer identified himself as a racist and Navajos as “drunken panhandling redskins.” He then went on to castigate Diné who express pain about the US genocide of indigenous people. He incorrectly parodied historical events at Little Big Horn as something Navajos need to stop crying about, when in fact the battle at Little Big Horn represented a victory for Native peoples—for the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. His parody also referred to Colonel George Armstrong Custer as a general, which he was only temporarily during the Civil War, but not at the time of Little Big Horn.

            My Navajo friends did not only react with anger and pain. They also offered some perceptive and even compassionate comments that could well have put the author of this letter to shame, had he read them. One person recognized him and other racists as insecure and fearful. Another person said he felt sorry for the man who carried such a heavy burden of anger and hatred. Others recognized his ignorance. Surely insecurity, fear and ignorance lie at the root of hatred and racism.

Having grown up in Gallup, and as I return often to visit family, I have witnessed time and again racism and violence against Navajos. I have seen the devastating effects of genocide and generational trauma on Diné friends, as well as on the general populace. I have seen how profiteering, especially in alcohol sales, has resulted in death and destruction.

Because of this long history of racism and violence in Gallup, I was deeply disappointed in the Independent. Many readers were outraged that the Independent had even chosen to run this letter. Some accused the editors of publishing the letter because controversy results in more newspaper sales. I was concerned that the editors had chosen to publish such an inflammatory letter in a town already beset by racial division and violence. I was even more deeply troubled that the Independent had missed such a valuable editorial opportunity to stand firmly against such racism.

As a regular contributor to “Spiritual Perspectives” in the Independent I felt even more distressed than if I had just been a reader. My initial response was to say that I would no longer continue to contribute my column. I didn’t want to be associated with a paper that kept editorial silence when they published something so damaging.

Two things happened to change my mind. A friend who reads the Independent more regularly than I do told me that the paper has often stood up against racism in Gallup in their reporting and editorials. Then, to the editors’ credit, they asked me to reconsider ending my columns and to address the issue here. I had to put my money where my mouth was, and so I agreed.

            Many spiritual teachers, from the Jewish prophet Micah to Jesus to the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man, Sitting Bull, have called upon people to respond to injustice, to right the wrongs in our society. In the end, it was a child whose example I knew I must follow. When I was a middle school counselor in Cuba, NM, my daughter was a student there. One day I overheard a boy put down another child. My daughter immediately spoke up. “That’s mean,” she said. It was so straightforward and simple to her. There was no question about whether to respond or not. At the same time, she respected the student who said those malicious words by indicating that she expected better of him. I could not have been prouder of my daughter in that moment. Her way of responding to vindictiveness has been a reminder to me many times over the years. Often our own children are our strongest teachers, and that day my daughter taught me the importance of standing up against injustice. I learned from her that it can be done simply and without questioning the utmost necessity of doing so.

I still wish the editors at the Independent had chosen to stand up against that racist letter. It would have been very powerful. I’m grateful that they encouraged me to write about it.