Episode 4: Liberation

Makia Martin (00:04):

Welcome to The Light Ahead, a fiction podcast that investigates the question: what would 2030 look like if the US had an economy that truly worked and cared for everyone?

Makia Martin (00:22):

the US has an imagination gap when it comes to the economy. We generally think that we have to choose one -ism or another, like capitalism or socialism. But the reality is, our options are as diverse as those who can dream them, because we continually create the economy every single day with our actions and choices. This podcast is designed to help us all practice expanding our economic imaginations, to take us out of the what is, and help us dream what could be. A production of Avalon: Story and Beloved Economies, each episode was co-created by a Hollywood screenwriter and a change maker at the cutting edge of transforming our economy. For this project, we didn't ask them to tackle the question of how, but rather to dream using the magic of storytelling, to help us all imagine possible futures.

Makia Martin (01:25):

I'm Makia, your guide as we venture into future timelines built with possibility. In this episode, we'll bring you along as a journalist visits with the Oglala Lakota Nation during the 2030 opening of their new Lakota Language School, where students learn of a liberated Lakota nation and where learning and teaching is done from a Lakota perspective. We'll hear about the Lakota community and way of life in a future where indigenous culture and history is not only recognized, but honored. For now, make sure your pre-conceptions are powered down and your mind is unlocked in the expansive position. This is Liberation.

Robin Marina (02:43):

Hello. Hi, I'm Robin Marina from the New York Times.

Speaker 6 (02:55):

I'm [inaudible 00:02:56] Left Hand Dressing with the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation and the Executive Director.

Speaker 4 (03:03):

Hello, my name is [inaudible 00:03:06], I'm one of the elders in the community.

Speaker 7 (03:10):

I'm [inaudible 00:03:11] Standing Bird, Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation and Youth Board member.

Robin Marina (03:19):

Well, I wanted to start first by thanking you for inviting me to witness your celebration and opening up the school. [foreign language 00:03:34].

Speaker 4 (03:34):

[foreign language 00:03:34].

Robin Marina (03:35):

Yes. Well, I appreciate you opening your community and granting me this interview.

Speaker 4 (03:44):

Part of our work at Thunder Valley is about narrative shifting the fact that indigenous people have historically been so invisible in the world of media. Having reporters here, speaking with you, maybe it will help.

Robin Marina (04:00):

Well, any questions first? Or shall we dive in?

Robin Marina (04:06):

The word I've heard most often today is liberation. Last year, in May of 2029, the President offered the first official apology to you and all the indigenous people on behalf of the US government. I know that was devastatingly, long overdue, but has that and the first reparations the US government has begun paying, among other legislative acts, has that gone towards helping you achieve your vision of a liberated nation?

Speaker 6 (04:39):

Our liberation is really not dependent on anything, not on your government. We're able to do all of these things on our own. Being oppressed people in the past, we couldn't wait for anybody else to bring us out of that. It doesn't matter what everyone around us says, we are still going to be working towards liberation. That's true freedom.

Speaker 4 (05:02):

If we waited around for your government to give us what we were owed, we could have been waiting forever. We had already been waiting for over a century. Our relationship or lack of with your government, we're definitely very untrusting. So when the government said we're were sorry, that doesn't mean anything to us. There had been some actions taken that were more meaningful. Reversing the [inaudible 00:05:32] decision, which was the Supreme Court decision that single handedly took away any type of criminal jurisdiction over on Indians that commit crimes, rescinding the Marshall Trilogy that established the formation of racist court law jurisprudence in this country, repudiating and rescinding some of those destructive laws, policies, and court decisions that have adversely affected our inherent sovereignty and our liberation. The US government finally agreeing to honor the treaties that should have been upheld by the US constitutions, but were trampled on for generations. All of that is a start.

Speaker 7 (06:19):

And the land. The acknowledgement of our people always being in this area, and the overdue recognition of treaty boundaries. Our sacred sites, which the government had turned into national parks, until last year, even for us as Lakota people, to get into these places, we had to pay money. Like Black Elk Peak, that's my great-grandfather, it's named after him. It's a place he went to pray. It's a place our people always use in the springtime and for ceremonies, but for my whole life until just two years ago, to go up there as a Lakota person, [inaudible 00:06:53], I had to pay $38 or something to get in.

Robin Marina (07:00):

It's interesting to me that those treaties weren't broadly known about in the US population until the point that they were finally officially honored. Even 10 years ago, I think if you had asked most Americans, they would have had no idea that the US government actually had outstanding signed treaties with you, acknowledging your land rights, that as you say, they flagrantly ignored for centuries.

Speaker 7 (07:30):

I think a lot of people when they heard of us getting reparations and they thought about it before it happened, they would assume a check, a one time check, and then it's done. But it's never been about that for us as Lakota people. That's actually been the furthest thing from our minds. For us having the treaty boundaries honored for the land of our grandfathers and people was always more important.

Robin Marina (07:47):

What would you like readers to know about your community here?

Speaker 4 (07:52):

[inaudible 00:07:52], would you like to talk about our community?

Speaker 7 (07:55):

Well, we have a community that's definitely based on our Lakota [foreign language 00:08:00], our own Lakota life ways. It's including everybody from our babies, our young adults and our elderly, all living together with a sense of kinship and all the responsibility that goes along with that.

Robin Marina (08:12):

What does go along with that?

Speaker 7 (08:15):

That includes being self-sustaining. Our own food, our own water system, all those things we had a long time ago and now are on our way to having again. It's being able to have our own information and traditional knowledge. It's a local knowledge. For community members, that's guided by our values, our culture, our creation stories, our star knowledge, but also local observations about the environment. As we have regathered that information, we work to incorporate that into every facet of our lives and learning.

Speaker 4 (08:46):

And living alcohol and drug free. We call that [foreign language 00:08:52]. Really modeling those healthy behaviors on every level so that our community can thrive.

Speaker 6 (09:00):

The thing I would most like people to see is what you said earlier, how we are constantly moving forward toward liberation, toward a liberated mindset. It took us many years to define for ourselves what our own personal liberation is. Going through that process in our community to decide what we're building, what we're implementing, how we're treating each other. Economic, political, health, education, all those different things come into play when you talk about liberating your people. And more broadly for our nation, and then for the greater Lakota society, over the past 20 the years, we have been arriving at that clear and collective definition.

Robin Marina (09:40):

Have you achieved that?

Speaker 6 (09:43):

Well, 20 years is nothing. It took several generations of genocide, oppression, and colonization to get us to this point, so it will take longer than that to rebuild. Our people always think of things in seven generation planning. So in the work at Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, we're planning that our organization or some form of it will still be there, and the community building will still be there seven generations from now, still working for our liberation.

Speaker 7 (10:15):

To work at a place where that's the mission and the vision is really awesome, because it's what our grandfathers have prayed for. We always pray for seven generations ahead, and so our great grandfathers prayed for this and prayed for us, and now it's our turn to envision that seven more generations. What are we leaving for relatives? We want to leave a liberated, healthy community where we don't need English language, we don't need Walmart, we don't need the church and nuns and priests. It's really beautiful to think of that healthy community, thriving seven generations from now.

Robin Marina (10:49):

Could you talk about how you achieved such progress? My family and I drove through South Dakota on a road trip when I was a teenager, and I remember driving through here. What I saw was a very different place than I see now.

Speaker 4 (11:03):

It's a tough thing when we've been oppressed by systems and by policies. By so many laws, by the church, by [inaudible 00:11:13] that were back in the 1400s that dehumanized people of color. Those are all things that we fight against. And because they held us down for so long, they had become our reality, being oppressed and become normal. Having inequality in our communities had become normal. That is something that to an outsider, you would have seen. The inequality we lived with for so long. And so then we begin working at bringing our people together and showing those things, educating our relatives. And then once that awakening started to happen, there were traumas that began to come up. Things arose within our people, issues. As those wounds opened up, the pain of so many years of being oppressed, of having things stolen from us, of being lied to, by our government. And so a big part of our work has been the healing of that. We had to be there for people to take that on. We couldn't just walk away when that occurred.

Robin Marina (12:25):

How did you take that on?

Speaker 4 (12:28):

I think that [inaudible 00:12:29] could probably talk a little bit more about that.

Speaker 6 (12:33):

Yeah. That's been our Life Ways and Wellness Equity Initiative. So that might be teaching ceremonies, kinship roles, all of those things, educating our people on our own history, our own internalized oppression, and then the healing, the healing from our perspective and our own ways.

Robin Marina (12:52):

How do you approach about healing?

Speaker 6 (12:55):

The way we've always done it for hundreds and hundreds of years before anybody else was here with us. Primarily through our spirituality, our ceremonies. We have seven sacred rights and our sacred pipe [inaudible 00:13:08] that was given to us by the White Buffalo Calf Woman, [inaudible 00:13:13]. And that's the foundation. We've always had that, we've always had our own way of healing. And that healing has to be at the forefront of everything because that is going to create the really systemic change of our children not having to grow up with carrying that trauma. They're going to be able to flourish because their parents and grandparents will have healed from that. So that is a vital piece in liberation.

Robin Marina (13:37):

Switching gears, there has been quite a lot of controversy about the taking down of Mount Rushmore since the Black Hills and other sacred sites were returned to your nation in 2028 as a step toward full recognition of the existing treaty boundaries. Some see it as provocative that you've built this new school right where that monument used to be. Are you interested in commenting on that?

Speaker 6 (14:03):

Those Hills were sacred to our people a long time before somebody carved faces into them. There are images of Mount Rushmore before it was carved, and our people called it the grandfathers, because actually the actual rocks themselves already symbolized that to our people. It was the rocks themselves, not pieces of grandfathers carved into them.

Robin Marina (14:24):

To be clear, on a personal note, I think you should be allowed to do whatever you want with them. They weren't ours in the first place to carve.

Speaker 6 (14:33):

No.

Robin Marina (14:35):

I will admit that I was a little more surprised that you took down the Crazy Horse Monument.

Speaker 6 (14:40):

I found them equally offensive. When it was there, I wouldn't go to the Crazy Horse Monument. The actual idea of it is repulsive to me. One of our most respected and prestigious leaders was carved, when he wouldn't even take a picture because that's how humble he was. And then they carved him, and what did they carve? They carved a generic image of what they thought an Indian warrior looked like, how racist. Nobody asked us if we wanted our people carved into the side of our mountains. That is something we would never want. The mountains were sacred to us as they were.

Speaker 6 (15:21):

[foreign language 00:15:21].

Speaker 4 (15:23):

[inaudible 00:15:23].

Robin Marina (15:26):

They need you back?

Speaker 4 (15:28):

For the speeches.

Robin Marina (15:30):

Before you go, if you have just a few more minutes, I want to make sure we talk about the reason for today, your school. [inaudible 00:15:39]?

Speaker 4 (15:42):

[inaudible 00:15:42].

Robin Marina (15:42):

Could you tell me a little bit about how it came to be, and the significance of this moment of its full opening for you all?

Speaker 4 (15:53):

[inaudible 00:15:53] would you like to speak about that as the youth here?

Speaker 7 (15:58):

Today is a big step in our Lakota language initiative. We started with our youngest children first in building the school in 2015, taking children as young as six weeks old into our childcare and they're immersed in the Lakota language. The vision that has always been at the forefront. Our thinking has been to have a high functioning school that focuses on Lakota immersion and that utilizes our traditional teachings. We've been building on grades each year. And of course, as of today, 15 years after we began, that school now goes all the way through high school.

Speaker 4 (16:33):

We have a tribal college, Oglala Lakota College. And our next vision is to continue on building until that college is also all taught in Lakota. All of the teachers, all of the faculty, all of the workers will speak Lakota. So Lakota will be our language and we utilize English as a foreign language. That role will be reversed back to what it was originally. The language is first and foremost in everything, and we realize that. And so being able to revitalize that is going to bring back a lot of traditional things. Imagine eventually every business, every sector speaking Lakota. That's really sovereignty.

Robin Marina (17:22):

And today is a big step towards that.

Speaker 4 (17:24):

Yes.

Speaker 6 (17:26):

And this school is not just for Thunder Valley. Today also marks the school opening for our entire Oglala nation. For a long time, each tribe has been separated, but we have now come back together as a greater nation, as we used to be. This school is for all of us.

Robin Marina (17:43):

It seems as though the school is becoming a real beacon of hope for not just indigenous communities around the country, but for everyone. I was reading that you've had educators and school administrators visiting from all over to learn what you're doing. You seem to be at the forefront of challenging people's thinking about what is possible for education, period.

Speaker 4 (18:04):

Yes. Except that it's funny to hear people say that we're at the forefront, because we're really returning to the way things used to be done. This is old knowledge we're drawing from. While we welcome other communities to learn from and replicate our model and approach, we respectfully ask that those components of our school design and curricula that are specific to Lakota, not be appropriated by non-Lakota people.

Robin Marina (18:37):

Is there anything else you would like me to include in the story? Anything you'd like people to know?

Speaker 6 (18:47):

I'm thinking.

Robin Marina (18:50):

Sure, take your time.

Speaker 4 (18:52):

I'd like people to know that even today, our story has never been told in a comprehensive way in the Western society. There have been anthropologists and people from academia, and they come into our communities for a short amount of time trying to learn about our culture, and they collect information. They leave, they write their dissertation, they get their accolades. But the story is still told from their perspective, which totally devalues the traditional knowledge that we have because it's not authentic, because it doesn't come from a first-person point of view. I'd like people to remember that they still have not heard our story as we would like to tell it.

Robin Marina (19:40):

I want to tell you, taking off my journalist hat for a moment, sitting here, listening to you, seeing what you've built, it's beautiful and inspiring and moving. I'll do my best to honor what you've shared.

Robin Marina (19:58):

Well, I should let you get outside for the blessing and speeches. Thank you for allowing me to interview you. I feel humbled.

Speaker 4 (20:05):

Well, we requested Megan Kelly, but she wasn't available.

Robin Marina (20:15):

Please. After you.

Speaker 4 (20:20):

[foreign language 00:20:20]

Makia Martin (20:55):

As you heard one of the characters speak about in this episode, indigenous people have too often been made invisible by mainstream media. It's vital for there to be far more opportunities for indigenous peoples to tell their stories on media platforms directly, to a broader audience. In this episode, we work together to make space for just that to happen.

Makia Martin (21:22):

Next, you will hear from a member of the Lakota nation, and Deputy Director of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, Lynn Cuney. Lynn will read a short piece of fiction that looks ahead, painting a picture of flourishing Lakota life that is in the near future.

Lynn Cuny (21:41):

2051, 30 years from now, [foreign language 00:21:46]. As the morning star [foreign language 00:21:50] warm yellows upon [foreign language 00:21:53], mother earth [foreign language 00:21:55] family began our morning. First, a drink of water for everyone, as it's our first medicine. [foreign language 00:22:01]. Next we [foreign language 00:22:03] to smudge ourselves and our home using sweetgrass to invite all positive things in. Now [foreign language 00:22:10] to pray as a [foreign language 00:22:13] together, connecting to each other, our relatives, our environment, and our spirits. We open the windows and the doorway facing east into our Thunder Valley Community, happy to live here with my [foreign language 00:22:25] amongst the Lakota Oyate. Comfortable and content and with my role as [foreign language 00:22:31], an elder woman, protected by [foreign language 00:22:34] the warriors, with humble [foreign language 00:22:37] leaders chosen to be of service to the people, healing guided by our medicine carriers, and to see our [foreign language 00:22:44], our sacred children free to be Lakota.

Lynn Cuny (22:48):

[foreign language 00:22:48] Our four-legged relatives are being watered and eating. The air rings with laughter and conversations on Lakota [foreign language 00:22:56], our own language. Long hair is braided and reminds us to stay rooted to the earth. Everyone has on their [foreign language 00:23:05], their moccasins, to remind us to walk in a good way, and everyone is beautifully adorned by their family members to show that they are beloved. You can smell soup cooking over the fire in a Buffalo stomach. The aroma is [foreign language 00:23:19] and [foreign language 00:23:19] and produce from our community garden. Our regenerative food systems are sacred and keep us healthy because everything we eat, we are related to, and they are prepared in prayer. You can see the people are thinking ahead, preparing for the winter months by the meat hanging on the drying racks and hides being scraped. Each person in our Thunder Valley Community has a role and a lot of responsibility that comes with that kinship system. As the day progresses, you can see that liberation of oneself radiates into the true sense of Oyate, the people.

Makia Martin (24:00):

Thank you to Lynn Cuny for sharing this beautiful vision for an economic future of care and wellbeing in her community. And thank you to everyone from the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, and the broader community for contributing to the episode that shows us how our past can connect with our future. I hope you enjoyed your trip into the future and can now see the light ahead a little more clearly.

Makia Martin (24:30):

The Light Ahead is a production of Avalon: Story and Beloved Economies. Based on six years of research in collaboration with over 100 groups across the US, the Beloved Economies campaign is sharing stories, practices, tools, and tips to expand imaginations of what is possible for our economy.

Makia Martin (24:51):

Avalon: Story is a center of practice facing Ketchum, Idaho to help birth the future of story by investigating two questions: what does story need to be to build us a bridge to a more beautiful future? And what does the business of story need to be to serve as a vehicle for the same?

Makia Martin (25:14):

The Light Ahead is a Beloved Economies and Avalon: Story production made in partnership with FRQNCY media. I'm your host Makia Martin. The Light Ahead was co-created by Jess Rimington and Naomi McDougall Jones, who is also our show runner. It is executive produced by Naomi McDougall Jones of Avalon: Story, Joanna Saya and Jess Rimington of Beloved Economies, Lila Yonto, and Michelle Corey of FRQNCY media. It is produced by [inaudible 00:25:49], and co-produced by Lauren Wrestler and Sonya Sarkar of Beloved Economies.

Makia Martin (25:55):

The fictional portion of this episode was produced by Avalon: Story, written and directed by Naomi McDougall Jones based on conversations with, and the ideas of Lynn Cuny, [inaudible 00:26:10] and Kyle White of the Thunder Valley Development Corporation, featuring performances by Naomi Last Horse, Doyle Pipe on Head, Trenton Old Horse and Lauren Salwa. Production coordinated by Marley Newman, sound design by Juliana [inaudible 00:26:30]. Sound mix by Rick Schnapp and our sound intern was Alan Lindsay.

Makia Martin (26:36):

The honor song in this episode was performed by Brian Thunder Hawk. The story was written and performed by Lynn Cuny with a reading of the Thunder Valley mission statement in Lakota by Doyle Pipe on Head. The nonfiction portion of this episode was produced by FRQNCY media, with dialogue editing by Sidney Evans and mixing by Matthew Ernest Filler. Our theme music was written and performed by Alicia K. Hall, Jeffrey Archie, and BIG Patty.

Makia Martin (27:09):

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever podcasts are found.