Re-evaluating Beloved Folk Music OR Did I hear what I thought I heard?
June 13, 2006 – 3:08 pmI am a great folk music and protest music fan. I find it inspiring and connecting me to a larger movement, not always one of this era, but of a struggle for justice that has been going on for years upon years.
But even the things we hold dearest must be evaluated and reevaluated through the lenses of racism, sexism, heterosexism and the like. Our lenses change with time, as our awarenesses change.
I recently purchased a "Best of Peter, Paul and Mary" CD. Their participation in many civil rights movements has always been an encouragement to me. If you have never heard their song "Have you been to jail for justice?" you really need to find a copy and give it a listen.
I was sitting back listening to the music, singing along with the songs I have taught at Girl Scout Camp for years, until suddenly I was struck by one of those awarenesses. One of those songs everyone knows and can sing along with suddenly made me very sad. I had noticed, for the first time in my life that "This land is your land" was an extension of the American belief in a Manifest Destiny…that "this land was made for you and me." When, indeed it wasn’t.
I recently was listening to a Womanist Theologian talk and she was speaking of the movement of the ancient Isrealites into their "promised land." This was a "promise" made to Abraham and Sarah that their heirs would come to posses a particular land of "milk and honey." Problem was, somebody else was possesing it when they came to get it. This theolgian simply said "The Caananites didn’t do anything." in regards to being militarily attacked and pushed out of their own land.
Suddenly, that statement rang into my ears about the Native Americans who held this land and "didn’t do anything" to deserve being attacked and pushed off. This land was not our land, this land was their land. Suddenly that song I had taught for so many years without even thinking about the lyrics made me a little sick.
I find myself struggling now with the lense time and social education has given me. If I hear the "our land" as a social "we" (as compared to the royal "we" or the singular "we"), If I hear it as "This land is our land" meaning a rainbow of people coming together to form a diverse community seeking to be fair to all involved, I can almost stomach it. But it is difficult. How do we deal with the racism that allowed all our generations to mow down entire nations of peoples to take what they wanted? We can’t pack up all the non-Native Americans and ship them back to where their ancestors came from (even if they did know from whence they came!) There is no simple answer.
Perhaps my sudden awareness of the racism implicit in this song is old news to the reader. It was new news to me and I will never hear that song again without being aware of it. Perhaps that is part of the answer — constant awareness of racism’s old wounds and new wounds, and a constant attempt to find answers to solve both. Whatever the rhyme or reason, my lenses will never see or hear that song in the same way again.
8 Responses to “Re-evaluating Beloved Folk Music OR Did I hear what I thought I heard?”
Ever since reading “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” years and years ago, I’ve always heard that song as “This land is their land, this land’s not our land … this land was taken from the free”.
By Jami on Jun 13, 2006
@Ona
Not old news for me, my friend.
How do we deal with the racism that allowed all our generations to mow down entire nations of peoples to take what they wanted? We can’t pack up all the non-Native Americans and ship them back to where their ancestors came from (even if they did know from whence they came!) There is no simple answer.
There isn’t and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head for me. If we, as a nation, do not address are national thieving, then what does democracy really mean? Can America truly ever be democratic?
By Jay on Jun 14, 2006
well, i think there *is* a way we can work to right old wrongs and that is to help native peoples currently fighting for treaty rights. Yes, some incredible bullshit happened 500 years ago, but it is *still* going on *today*. native peoples are still fighting, still working to keep what little they have left. There still here–and although i think that bury my heart was a very valuable resource, it bought into the mainstream oppressive view that native peoples battle ended back when the indian wars ended. That native peoples just sort of disappeared after that. And that’s just not true. Support treaty rights, because in most cases, native elders made those treaties guided by the “seven generations” thought–so treaties can and are used to protect the lives, health, and rights of native peoples, which in turn, protects the lives health and rights of non-natives as well…for example, many racist environmentalists would have you believe that cattle grazing will destroy the land and as such, we must take away the rights of natives to gaze that cattle on that land–but if you look more deeply into it, the government actually wants the native peoples off that land so that they can use it as a testing ground from atomic bombs. but it is treaty rights that keeps the government off that land and keeps that bombing off that land.
can you tell?
sigh. i’m ranting.!!!
but this is an issue that is very important to me.
anyway, I’m really so glad you’re always pushing yourself jay, it keeps me pushing myself as well…i just found out that the term “straight” in reference to heteros can be and is pretty offensive as it implies queers are “broken”. it’s a small thing to be aware of, but it’s important in the larger battle.
if we all keep pushing ourselves like this eventually things have to get better…
By brownfemipower on Jun 15, 2006
When I learned this song in primary school, our teacher said that “you and me” included American Indians as well as everyone else living in the US, and that what was important was to “make that true” by making sure Indians got some respect and rights. Not quite true (as Ona said, that’s not what the lyrics meant), but a good thing to teach kids.
It *is* important that we keep challenging ourselves with stuff like this, and traditional things are often the easiest to overlook.
“i just found out that the term “straight” in reference to heteros can be and is pretty offensive as it implies queers are “broken”.”
Bent is the opposite of straight. “Bent” or “crooked” used to mean bad or dishonest, hence “a crook” and also “upstanding” meaning good — and in some languages like Hebrew, the word for righteous is the same as the word for upright. (Ok, shoot the linguist. as BFP says, it’s a small thing to be aware of, but still part of the bigger picture, jsut like Peter, Paul, and Mary.)
By IrrationalPoint on Jun 15, 2006
I do hear what you’re saying and I’ve had my own epiphanies about North America being full of people in highly organized societies when the Europeans arrived, but this particular song was written by Woody Guthrie, a socialist/activist who wrote it as a protest against “God Bless America.” He did a lot of hoboing around the countryside and was radically opposed to economic exploitation of anybody. “This Land Is Your Land” was written as a reminder that ordinary people are supposed to have access to the land. One verse talks about “no trespassing” or “private property” signs keeping poor people out when they were hungry.
I agree that we need to be really conscious that the land we live on was stolen from indigenous people, but my best understanding of Woody Guthrie was that he knew that, too.
By changeseeker on Jun 20, 2006
Changeseeker,
I think that Woodie Gutherie still advocated opening up lands sequestered by the rich that probably aren’t ours to open up in the first place.
Being against economic exploitation does not make one in solidarity with the struggles of native americans per se.
WG seems to still be advocating for a better America when the fact that said country exists on primarily stolen land brings the whole notion of America’s existence into question, in my mind at least.
As I said before, I can’t advocate splitting up the 1000 dollars a rich dude has for five poor people when i know the rich dude stole the money from a nice little old lady.
By Jay on Jun 22, 2006
As I said before, I can’t advocate splitting up the 1000 dollars a rich dude has for five poor people when i know the rich dude stole the money from a nice little old lady.
nice point jay. and i agree that just because you are against economic exploitation doesn’t make you allied with native peoples. especially during the point of wg, natives were in desperate legal battles to keep their lands, were being sent to bording schools to ’save the child, kill the indian’, and were in relocation camps/cities all over the country–specifically, a tribe would be suffering because the u.s. wasn’t living up to their treaties which *promised* that they would take care of the tribes, so the u.s. used that suffering and desperation to get folks off their land–the u.s. would relocate native peoples to the cities under the guise of “jobs” and “money” but once those folks were gone from the rez, the government would then reparcel the rez land such that only people who were actually permanet residents of the rez got land–and all the rest of it (the land that was just vacated by people in the relocation program) was redistributed to the government. The government wound up stealing almost 3/4 of the treaty “protected” land in this manner, and a large portion of this was done between the 30’s and the 50’s–so that song definitly has ramifications within the context of native peoples–could you imagine being a relocated ndn and walking to work hearing that song? knowing full well you couldn’t go back home and fight the theft of your lands because to do so would mean your family would starve??
By brownfemipower on Jun 23, 2006