Red Lake In Our Hearts

By William Copeland

(Reflections on the school shooting in Red Lake, Minnesota and on ways that communities can come together to build a new world)

William Copeland is a Detroit poet composing to manifest a more creative and compassionate culture in the United States. He is a Program Director at University of Michigan, advising college students in community service, learning, and social justice projects. Copeland's works have been published in Drumvoices Revue, Critical Moment, and MSU Press's The Offbeat. He is a member of Motown's emerging collective Write Word, Write Now, an organizer for Detroit Summer's Poetry for Social Change Workshops, and has toured nationally as a founding member of the Long Hairz Collective. William Copeland is just one example of Detroit's volcanic eruption of artists and activists passionately building networks and connecting post-industrial Detroit with the worldwide movement against globalization.

His "Sidewalk Preachin" spoken word oratory explodes triumphantly with lush "images and beat (to) capture the hope that drives our struggle." (Grace Lee Boggs)

3/22/05

The second day of spring

"As a result of cultural dominance and interracial mixing there is barely any full blooded Natives left. Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run ramped. We have kids my age killing each other over things as simple as a fight, and it's because of the rap influence. Wannabe-gangsters everywhere, I can't go 5 feet without hearing someone blasting some rap song over their speakers." Jeff Weise

I was slightly shocked last night when I read about the shootings that took place: ten killed and thirteen people injured, immeasurable fear and suffering scattered in the air. I was just checking my email, and the front screen pops up with the quote-unquote news. The top feature was a Minnesota shooting. I scanned the article and immediately called fellow Long Hair Joe Reilly (http://www.spiritboy.org) to ask him if this was one of the places that we've played on the "how far is home" tour with Annie Humphrey and Anne Dunne. No, not Red Lake specifically, but Bemidji definitely was. Bemidji is where some of those children shot were taken to the hospital. I have some great memories of Bemidji.

From what I've learned in conversations with residents during the tour, 2002 and 2004 Northern Minnesota is a land of scarce economic opportunity and racism, where many authorities look to casinos for salvation. I guess that's part of why they took so well to me as a Detroiter. We have a lil sumthin sumthin in common. The articles that I've seen talk about Jeff (the teenager who shot his grandfather and several schoolmates) and how his father had passed, mother was comatose, his grandfather was a police officer Jeff wore his vest and drove his squad car to the school. He even referred to himself as the "Angel of Death," seeking cultural integrity and the ability to stand up to other nations. What conditions of disempowerment must haunt a Native teenager's heart and mind for him to look to Hitler's Third Reich for an example of social unity and strength. You see, today's media articles have not described the realities of life "on the rez" up in Chippewa Nation. They have not begun to describe the cultural yearning for language, voice, land, power-- a place to stand that subconsciously moves the hearts of millions of colonized American.

I'm reminded of Blair's dynamic spoken word Into Darkness (http://blairpoetry.com), when he asks what would have pushed Michael Jackson's father to whip his son into the American spotlight. He wonders poetically how he was driven to make something from his dried up mid-west industrial town, seeking the American Dream in the 1970's. "White children wanted to cut me to see if my blood was Black. They did. It was. I Am."

As I write this letter I think of our smiling mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the 50+ schools that will not be open this fall. I think of how the news highlighted the new relationships with Huntington Woods, Windsor, and a few other cities. I think of the new $30 million dollar building that Mayor is proudly showing off. I visited an elder who watched me grow up from age 2, Ms. C, in Henry Ford Hospital. She pointed out these contradictions of the hiphop mayor's policies, also noting "They (the doctors) talk to me. I tell them to talk with me. They think I've lost my marbles. I may be old, but I'm no fool."

So now I notice how the mayor proposes a "tough budget" by eliminating human resource costs, namely wages and health benefits. I'm looking for people to provide alternatives to youth imprisonment in rural Minnesota and urban Michigan. Because I have a feeling that the enforcement budgets are about to get beefed again. One of the students I work with received an email advising her to join the hot new career field of law enforcement and security. Part of the advertising included the warning that Hispanic and Latino populations are on the rise. So of course, in this society where the look of poverty and crime is racialized, the increase of brown faces means an increased need for security.

I'm looking for Africa-town, Michigan Welfare Rights Union, and entrepreneurial start up programs to be discussed openly and enthusiastically. I'm looking for Angela Davis' Critical Resistance (http://criticalresistance.org) to help us Midwesterners move beyond looking for prisons -- to healthful communities-to solve our emotional, economic and cultural shortcomings. I'm looking for organizations such as INCITE- women of color against violence (http://www.incite-national.org) which spoke out against both violence against women and the criminalization of men of color, the default "face" of American violence and crime. Both organizations recognize that police and imprisonment, unless entrenched and connected within local communities, are as violent to these communities as the "criminals" that they indemnify. These organizations encourage us to evaluate the social "solutions" being offered: the hard-on-crime stances, gentrification via welcoming international corporations and upper-income developments, touristification of urban areas; and they propose visions of strong, self-governing communities that we can build together.

I remember when my co-worker Tracy asked a Catholic representative how could the richest organization in the world close more than a dozen schools in the Detroit area, he said that the other districts are under no obligation to share their funding. That seems especially cruel given that 30+ public schools are slated to close in that area. But they say: That's not how it is organized.

That's not how it is organized.

That's not how it is organized.

A community center is an excellent place to learn how to talk with, and not just talk to. not just talk at. Our communities have to learn to discuss issues of trauma, abuse, anger, and healing. Our communities must take up the challenge of creating beloved communities that can use but are not dependent on American cultural and political norms. Otherwise, the cultural and economic frustration will be a perfect segue to fascism. See Hitler in an impotent Germany during the Great Depression. Is it the rap music that is causing the anger and frustration of the youth or is it its most eloquent description? What can be gained from conversations with Black and Native youth AND elders? What is the proper societal role for a warrior- an "Angel of Death?" Who will initiate young Black men to be community griots and not just lyric-slangers?

This is how it becomes organized.
This is how we become organized.
This is how we become organized.
This is how.
Through prayers and song,
we stay in solidarity
with those whose hearts are shattered
those whose existence is boundless.
To regain our true identity
as expansive as the sky
connected as the moist sands
loved by the deepest sea.
We'll crash until the ocean is dry
to reclaim our humanity
collectively.