‘Raise Your Voice’ Archives
Raise Your Voice Indigenous Day Dialectics (Negation of the Negation)
By PETER MOLENAAR From Howard Zinn”™s A People”™s History of the United States: “Columbus tried again for gold, but this time he and his men didn”™t go looking for it. They ordered all Taino* people 14 and older to deliver a certain amount of gold dust every three months. If they didn”™t, their hands would be cut off”¦. In 1500, Columbus wrote: there are many dealers who go about looking for girls; those from 9 to 10 are now in demand.” Recorded scenes of slaughter will not be rewritten here. Suffice it to say, “a nexus of slavery, overwork and famine” produced diseases which took millions of lives. Thank goodness, Minnesotans will never again honor Columbus. Dialectics? In October”™s “Raise Your Voice”, in reflecting on the local indigenous arts scene, the expression ”˜dialectical tension”™ was deployed. This created a number of “teaching [...]
Raise Your Voice: Changing horizons
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar Those of us who have connected over the years with All My Relations Arts and Two Rivers Galleries were privileged to receive invitations to the recent opening receptions. These “Changing Horizons” events commemorated the 100th birthday of George Morrison, the Ojibwe artist who graduated from the local Minneapolis College of Art and Design, before viewing much of the world through the eyes of an abstract impressionist. To which I will add: Neighbors, these art openings offer a splendid opportunity to mingle with bright young faces who have significant lives awaiting. Some questions: Did Morrison violate his heritage, as some have suggested, by immersing himself in the modernist art movement? (Conversely, did some “modernists” violate the past when they took inspiration from Navajo sand paintings?) Moreover, how does Marxism resolve the dialectical tension between ”˜formalism”™ and [...]
Raise Your Voice: The world within us
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar From the passenger side window of the adjacent vehicle, an elder Native man called out: “Hey! Where are you from?” At the time, I was fetching 30 Alley papers for deposit at the Native American Community Clinic, after having dropped 30 at the Ancient Traders Market. Detecting the sleight of hand humor, I quickly decided not to delineate my four original nations of northern Europe. So, I responded, “I grew up in Cannon Falls, Minn., if that”™s what you mean.” Then to clarify, “It”™s upstream from Prairie Island on the Cannon River.” In the span of about 15 seconds, the elder Ojibwe pondered the not-so-ancient conflict with the Dakota, then registered delight that a white man would place his origin relative to Native Americans. Note: The “cannon” of Cannon Falls is an English mumble of the French word for canoe. Then a Somali woman walked between us. He quipped, [...]
