Thoughts on the Cycle of Exclusion and Reaction
Yesterday Carla and I went over to the Half Price Bookstore in the Capital Hill area of Seattle. While there, we noticed some type of street fair a couple of blocks away, on Broadway, and decided to walk over and take a look. We found ourselves in the midst of the Capital Hill Gay Pride Festival. As we walked through the streets blocked off for the Festival, we saw extremities of behavior that I never would have expected to encounter on a city street in daylight. I could not condone some of the behavior I saw--and it made me uncomfortable--but I was not shocked or offended, as I once probably would have been. Instead I was reminded of something I've learned, which is that when people are excluded and pushed to the margins, they create their own culture. It becomes a counter-culture. That counter-culture is a reaction against the dominant culture that spawned it. Often, members of a counter-culture go to extremes to define themselves and act out against the dominant culture which they feel excluded from.
When Carla and I used to do jail ministry, it was not uncommon to hear an inmate say "Well, since I'm going to Hell anyway, I might as well live it up while I can." Such statements were a fatalistic reaction to seeing oneself as no longer acceptable to God or society.
Yesterday I also finished a fantastic (and classic) book entitled Man's Rise to Civilization: The Cultural Ascent of the Indians in North America by Peter Farb. Farb's sweeping book explores Native American cultures from prehistoric times up until the 20th century. The book also documents some of the outrageous, inhumane and, frankly, evil treatment imposed upon the Indians by European settlers from the 1500's to the present. One thing that lept out though was how--almost universally-- when a tribe encountered Europeans for the first time, the Indians welcomed the strangers with kindness and generosity. It was only later--after being repeatedly taken advantage of and mistreated in the most heinous ways--that the Native Americans became hostile. The more they were pushed out of their lands and into the margins by the newcomers, the more they reacted.
I've also been reading The Journal of John Woolman, a Quaker who lived in the American Colonies--in what is now New Jersey--in the mid-1700's. Last night I read about some of Woolman's experiences among the Native Americans. Woolman wrote that he had "...for many years felt love in my heart towards the natives of this land who dwell far back in the wilderness, whose ancestors were formerly the owners and possessors of the land where we dwell..." and that he felt drawn to visit them. "Love was the first motion," he wrote "and thence a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them..." What a difference in Woolman's attitude from that of so many other settlers and missionaries! Woolman journeyed into Indian territory and did so at a time when war was brewing. There had been several reports of native bands attacking White settlements in the area he went to. Just to the West, an English fort had been overrun by a war party and the occupants killed. Indian warriors had appeared in a native settlement ten miles away from where Woolman was, showing scalps cut from dead Whites and declaring that it was time for war.
Woolman wrote that shortly after hearing this news he came out of an Indian dwelling he was visiting to find an armed man waiting outside: "Perceiving there was a man near the door I went out; the man had a tomahawk wrapped under his match-coat out of sight. As I approached him he took it in his hand; I went forward, and, speaking to him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My companion joining me, we had some talk with him concerning the nature of our visit in these parts; he then went into the house with us, and, talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly, sat down and smoked his pipe. Though taking his hatchet in his hand at the instant I drew near to him had a disagreeable appearance, I believe he had no other intent than to be in readiness in case any violence was offered to him."
Woolman recognized that the man was brandishing the tomahawk as a reaction. The dominant culture had caused his people much pain, suffering and deprivation. The hatchet wielding Indian had a "disagreeable appearance", but rather than being shocked or offended, Woolman approached him, invited him in and became his friend.
When Carla and I used to do jail ministry, it was not uncommon to hear an inmate say "Well, since I'm going to Hell anyway, I might as well live it up while I can." Such statements were a fatalistic reaction to seeing oneself as no longer acceptable to God or society.
Yesterday I also finished a fantastic (and classic) book entitled Man's Rise to Civilization: The Cultural Ascent of the Indians in North America by Peter Farb. Farb's sweeping book explores Native American cultures from prehistoric times up until the 20th century. The book also documents some of the outrageous, inhumane and, frankly, evil treatment imposed upon the Indians by European settlers from the 1500's to the present. One thing that lept out though was how--almost universally-- when a tribe encountered Europeans for the first time, the Indians welcomed the strangers with kindness and generosity. It was only later--after being repeatedly taken advantage of and mistreated in the most heinous ways--that the Native Americans became hostile. The more they were pushed out of their lands and into the margins by the newcomers, the more they reacted.
I've also been reading The Journal of John Woolman, a Quaker who lived in the American Colonies--in what is now New Jersey--in the mid-1700's. Last night I read about some of Woolman's experiences among the Native Americans. Woolman wrote that he had "...for many years felt love in my heart towards the natives of this land who dwell far back in the wilderness, whose ancestors were formerly the owners and possessors of the land where we dwell..." and that he felt drawn to visit them. "Love was the first motion," he wrote "and thence a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them..." What a difference in Woolman's attitude from that of so many other settlers and missionaries! Woolman journeyed into Indian territory and did so at a time when war was brewing. There had been several reports of native bands attacking White settlements in the area he went to. Just to the West, an English fort had been overrun by a war party and the occupants killed. Indian warriors had appeared in a native settlement ten miles away from where Woolman was, showing scalps cut from dead Whites and declaring that it was time for war.
Woolman wrote that shortly after hearing this news he came out of an Indian dwelling he was visiting to find an armed man waiting outside: "Perceiving there was a man near the door I went out; the man had a tomahawk wrapped under his match-coat out of sight. As I approached him he took it in his hand; I went forward, and, speaking to him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My companion joining me, we had some talk with him concerning the nature of our visit in these parts; he then went into the house with us, and, talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly, sat down and smoked his pipe. Though taking his hatchet in his hand at the instant I drew near to him had a disagreeable appearance, I believe he had no other intent than to be in readiness in case any violence was offered to him."
Woolman recognized that the man was brandishing the tomahawk as a reaction. The dominant culture had caused his people much pain, suffering and deprivation. The hatchet wielding Indian had a "disagreeable appearance", but rather than being shocked or offended, Woolman approached him, invited him in and became his friend.
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