Following is a response by Suzan Shown Harjo to Andy Rooney's statement.
This is published with permission from the Lakota Times, March 25, 1992:
COLUMNIST SPEAKS FROM IGNORANCE, NEEDS TO UNLEARN
By Suzan Shown Harjo
Andy Rooney was waiting to "tomahawk chop" the "Washington Redskins" to
Super Bowl victory when he was asked about the demonstration outside the
stadium. Indigenous people and friends from some of the largest equity and
justice organizations were protesting the use of derogatory names, mascots
and activities in the sports world that targets only one group of living
human beings for public ridicule.
With a typically odd leap of logic, the "60 Minutes" blab-spot regular said
the protest was "silly" because "American Indians have more important
problems to worry about" Lots of folks let Mr. Rooney know that invidious
discrimination is neither silly nor good clean fun.
Most grown-ups can figure out that name-calling and fighting words and
gestures have something to do with the problems of any person or group
singled out for derision. Even Mr. Rooney -- never closely associated with
subtlety -- should be able to understand that stereotyping and pejoratives
in popular culture are the measure of what is socially acceptable in the
human condition. Protesting their use helps focus attention on injustice
and emergency situations and need not await resolution of all other
important problems before being undertaken.
The offense-du-jour was in the sports arena, carried on national television
daily during the interminable season from the World Series to the Super
Bowl. Only dummies would sit on their hands while fans chop their way into
millions of homes for the "Atlanta Braves", "Kansas City Chiefs" and their
ilk. Just as it is the offended class that gets to state the nature of the
offense and the remedy, the timing and content of the statement are not up
to those doing the offending, and no starting signal is wanted or needed
for Mr. Rooney or anyone else.
Mr. Rooney has had considerable experience in the areas of public
ignorance, arrogance and apology. CBS-TV has taken him off the air in
recent years because of his offensive remarks about other segments of
society. No doubt sensing a re-run of his past time in the penalty box, Mr.
Rooney penned a column, "Redskins, Whiteskins: Should Indians be preserved
like the redwoods?"
Mr. Rooney's column is a stunning example of the need for an education
system that instills knowledge, rather than one that promotes a
good-old-white-boys' pride in a past that never was and a
stick-to-your-guns attitude that confuses opinion with fact and principle.
Sadly, Mr. Rooney probabl meant well. In his best I-think-therefore-it-is
school of important little thought, he says if Indians are "truly offended
by these names and symbols we use for fun, we'll drop them." But, he says
-- now follow this carefully if you can, dear reader -- "someone should
tell the Indians living on reservations that the United States isn't a bad
country to be a part of."
Someone should tell Mr. Rooney that Native Peoples have fought and died for
this country, as well as for the United States, are are a part of it as no
other people ever can or will be.
His so-what bottom-line point is supported by an amazing collection of
stereotypes, wrong-headed conclusions and racial slurs that take Mr. Rooney
fully across his usual iconoclastic line into the
red-queen-talking-backward realm of david-dukism. He offers up a disturbing
teaser of the nightmare-on-main-street, cowboy-and-Indian movie that a
great many people have running through their heads in place of history,
understanding of the real world and respect for cultural and religious
differences.
For a well-educated opinion-maker, this guy certainly has a lot to learn,
and even more to unlearn. The "impact of their culture on the world has
been slight," he says with no indication that he knows much about the
world's food supply, 75 percent of which was initially cultivated by Native
Peoples in this quarter of Mother earth. Mr. Rooney might try tracing the
impact of the lowly potato on the very survival of his own people and their
journey from famine in Ireland to freedom from hunger in this land before
making unsubstantiated cultural comparisons.
A good point to keep in mind about ancient cultures is that they got a lot
right by virtue of trial and error over a long time within a traditional
continuum. Morgan, Franklin, Jefferson and others of the Founding Fathers
were smart enough to recognize this when they encountered confederation of
nations for peace-time purposes, inherent sovereignty of all individuals
vested temporarily in selected representatives and other governance and
jurisprudential models that were adopted as new concepts and goals for the
United States.
>From grand notions to irrigation systems and medicines in current worldwide
use, Native Peoples have not been slackers in contribution to betterment of
the globe.
Even in modern technology, the only gizmo that does anything about the acid
rain problem is patented by the Passamaquoddy Tribe, which developed the
recovery scrubber through a larger commitment of its G.N.P. to
environmental security than that of any other nation to date, including the
United States.
This advance was made possible through a 1980 settlement, which returned a
small part of their country.
Mr. Rooney maintains that the "real problem" is that Indian people want
stolen land given back and we're not going to give it to them." A greedy
cat burglar could not have said it better, but the more real problem is Mr.
Rooney's brand of myopia that distorts visions of a future that could be
improved for everyone by providing some small measure of justice in the
form of land to its rightful owners. Returning Black Hills lands, for
instance, could make the difference between poverty and wealth for the
Lakota People and society generally, just by settling the spirit in
religious sanctuary so long denied.
Mr. Rooney most likely thought he was balancing things and making it all
better by throwing in some positive images - bravery to offset
blood-thirstiness, for example -- apparently without realizing that a
stereotype, pro or con, is still a stereotype and never useful. But his
true colors are revealed in a shockingly ill-informed and eurocentric
series of claims that there are "no great Indian novels, no poetry," there
is "no memorable Indian music." "Their totem poles do not rank with the
statuary of Greece," he says, "and there's no Indian art, except for some
good craft work in wool, pottery and silver."
The Pulitzer Prize won by N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and the National Book
Awards to Michael Dorris (Modoc) and Louis Erdrich (Turtle Mountain
Chippewa) should convince Mr. Rooney, who has won neither, or anything
comparable, that his opinion is not shared by those he would like to
consider his peers. Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) is known for
his excellence in political, policy and religious analysis. Joy Harjo
(Muscogee), Simon Ortiz (Acoma) and many others are widely recognized for
the power and beauty of their poetry. All have won a healthy share of
awards and honors for their work, and myriad Native writers are just
hitting their stride.
No Indian art? This is the thinking that brought us the disgraceful
practice of melting down magnificent works in gold to fill the coffers of
church and state and save Europe from economic self-consumption and
destruction. The remaining art in gold is prized by every museum in the
world lucky enough to have any. Totems are the largest single-piece wood
sculpture ever produced anywhere and are the showcases of the great museums
of Europe, where most of this art was carted off to in past times.
Congress decided in 1989 to commit the last remaining prime land on the
Capital Mall to Native Peoples' art, past and present, also setting aside
the Custom House in Manhattan as a part of this National Museum of the
American Indian. Where Mr. Rooney has been is a mystery. A walk in the
United Nationas, the Russell Senate office Building, the National Portrait
Gallery or The Pompidou Museum of Paris would bring Mr. Rooney in touch
with the sculpture of Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache), whose list of
exhibitions and honors over his 50-year-plus career rivals that of any
world-class artist. Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne) is among the top
conceptual artists of this time. His work has been exhibited in the Museum
of Modern Art -- which Mr. Rooney may consider an obscure storefront for
art in New York City -- and can be seen in public places throughout this
country and others, including Northern Ireland.
The contributions of Jesse Ed Davis (Kiowa) to rock and roll, of Maria
Tallchief (Osage) to ballet, of Muriel Miguel (Cuma & Rappahannock) to
modern theater are significant and lasting. No memorable Indian music? Most
Native Peoples today still remember and perform traditional music, despite
the outright prohibition against it for nearly a century until 1978. Mr.
Rooney, of course, means that he would be hard-pressed to remember any. He,
of course, reveals that he doesn't know much about art of any kind, that he
knowns what he doesn't like and that most of he does know is wrong.
Mr. Rooney's disdain and disrespect for Indian Peoples' religions is
perhaps the most troubling of all, and the real punchline of his column.
"They hang onto remnants of their religion and superstitions that may have
been useful to savages 500 years ago but which are meaningless in 1992. No
one would force another religion on them." Mr. Rooney is wrong on all
counts. The U.S. government specifically outlaws the Sun Dance and "all
other similar dances and so-called religious ceremonies" in Regulations of
the Indian Office of 1894 and 1904. These prohibitions were never formally
withdrawn, but were obviated by the policy of 1978 contained in the
American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
The U.S. Regulations imposed stiff penalties on the "usual practices of
so-called 'medicine men'", including any use of "the arts of a conjurer to
prevent the Indians from abandoning their heathenish rites and customs."
Give-aways were banned and the Regulations stated that "it shall not be
considered a sufficient or satisfactory answer to any of the offenses set
forth in this rule that the part charged was at the time a 'mourner' and
thereby justified in taking or destroying the property in accordance with
the customs or rites of the tribe". Any violation of the rules would cause
the Native religious leaders and practitioners "to be looked upon and
treated as hostile Indians, subject to arrest and punishment."
Mr. Rooney describes "an Indian belief, involving ritualistic dances with
strong sexual overtones" that demean and degrade Indian women and children,
asking if "they" should "be encouraged, with government money, to continue
that."
Mr. Rooney sounds for all the world like a principal author of the U.S.
Regulations of the dismal past. The United States never gave money to
encourage any Native religion, only confine, punish and murder those
engaged in worship. The United States also committed large sums of money
for the Army Surgeon General's "Indian Crania Study" of less than a century
ago, a savage and barbaric practice of digging up graves and beheading
Indian people to weigh their brains and measure their skulls to determine
if they were smarter than the white people.
As for the religious dances with sexual overtones, Mr. Rooney is obviously
referring to the recent Super Bowl half-time ceremonies he attended. The
woo-woo-woo and boom-boom-boom-boom "music" and chicken-feathered, painted
hog-faced celebrants all rhythmically chopping away in union was the
closest thing to group masturbation ever allowed on television in polite
society.
Mr. Rooney should use his remaining talent to put a stop to the demeaning
and degrading activity he has so aptly identified. He should also keep
better company, read a good Indian book and get out in the world more.
[Editor's Note***Ms. Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president
of The Morning Star Foundation. she also is co-chairwoman of the Howard
Simon Fund for Indian Journalists.]