Last weekend, at the Alaska Press Club annual conference, held at the Anchorage Senior Center, when the issue of those stupid white boys from California pissing on people they thought were supine came up, I held back in my observations. That's not to say I didn't make any. I did.When, during a seminar on racism in Alaska media, commentators seemed to feel that the pressure on Anchorage's Clear Channel (thanks, St. Ted!) radio outlets was a community-wide event, illustrating a growing awareness of how awful it is that our First People have been mistreated, I was incensed. I pointed out that, after simmering for days, the issue only gained traction when the economic clout of Alaska Native organizations began to be noticed and respected by the local media. Very soon afterward, the media narrative had changed.
I'm in the midst of the hardest essay-article I've ever written. I've been working on a biography of Diane Benson which is attempting - feebly, so far - to show her central importance in an array of civil rights issues in Alaska since Benson was a child. One of the hardest parts of this has been getting my friend to trust me. I understand.
I worked for 13 years in the field of public safety. For seven years, I was employed by Allvest (now Cornell Corrections). I ran the Cordova Center, Alaska's biggest halfway house, for two years. I've helped thousands of offenders get back into society. I've sent hundreds of people back to jail or prison. I've been educated in and have trained others in aspects of domestic violence and sexual abuse. One thing I've learned is that women who have been injured by violent men have a hard time relating to men seeking information on why or how they were victimized.
Diane Benson is certainly not a victim. She might have been, at least one of the times she was raped by a white man as a young woman. She might have been when she was shot in the thigh, and left to bleed to death by one of her assailants. She might have been when she was assailed by the Anchorage Daily News, the Associated Press, the UAA Northern Lights, and others for defending her Tlingit clan from a UAA faculty mentor who had turned upon Diane.
She might have played the squaw role to so-called "real Democrats" after she challenged Don Young in 2006 and narrowly lost, after being outspent by her opponent nine to one. She might have gotten upset by now (I would be!) that the Anchorage Daily News and most other MSM outlets have continually neglected to cite her important role in keeping pressure up against Don Young and his long list of calumnies.
She might have been upset that the Alaska media, hot on the Abramoff-Young connections now, fails to mention that her 2006 campaign begged the same outlets to consider this matter almost two years ago, and didn't. As recently as last fall, when Benson gave the ADN four days notice to show up for her announcement of a request for an investigation into Young's unconstitutional 2005 legislation changes, they could have given a flying fucking shit.
Doing my research into Benson's civil rights record, I'm disturbed. She's an inconvenient truth. More than that, she's a multi-level inconvenient truth. Not only did her early 21st century challenge to defend her house, clan and tribe get screwed and skewed by the Alaska media, her extremely articulate and moving challenge to it at the time, a long essay she wrote defending her objection to Linda McCarriston's Indian Girls, is locked behind an internet screening block.
Benson's deeper truth is in her continuity. A substantial portion of the lack of understanding of that resonant depth for our Native Alaskan community by our Alaska media may well be inadvertent. Diane understands that. Benson has also commented upon this legacy's stepchildren for a long time.
Diane Benson may be more than a little Quixotic. But maybe not. Her challenge to a party - the Alaska Democrats - that has been so long out of real connection with what Democrats mean to the USA, is dismissed as "opportunistic," even now. But she isn't attacking windmills, she's attacking a corporate paradigm that is killing not just Indian girls, but all our exposed small communities off the road grid. She's attacking politicians who accept money from war criminals like Henry Kissinger without even caring to know that. She's attacking politicians who dissed her in 2006 because Rahm Emanuel, a Republican in Democrat's clothing, told him to let her bleed to death once again in the cold snow.
As I've read through the material on Benson's history in Alaska civil rights issues, I've been looking at the records of her two opponents in the upcoming primary. All three compare favorably to Young, to say the least. But I hope to illustrate here, over the next three weeks, how uniquely powerful Benson's courage, perseverance, common sense, tribal loyalty and universality actually is.
Unfortunately, I'll also have to explain how far short our statewide media often is in recognizing deeper issues when an Alaska Native woman is the subject of discussion.
Unless there's a lot of money involved.
image of Diane Benson signing her request for an investigation into Don Young's unconstitutional change of Federal legislation last autumn. photo not courtesy of the ADN, because they weren't there.
9 comments:
Excellent article, Philip!
I had an interesting time finding the actual poem "Indian Girls" awhile back. When I did and I read it, I couldn't understand how anyone could NOT think that was racist. Of course, the author as a survivor of sexual assault then played the victim when her racist assumptions were exposed.
Benson makes folks uncomfortable because she holds up Aphrodite's mirror to those Alaskans who have fooled themselves into thinking that our state is "different" and we are "immune" to the racism of the lower-48.
CD,
A couple of the people of color who are working on the Benson campaign and I were discussing aspects of Alaska racism a while back. It was just before the shock jock thing happened. Both of these friends - one from Washington, DC, the other a long-time Alaskan - see things eery day in our media, in social events and, yes, in the Alaska Democratic Party, that remind them of how deep our institutionalized racism in Alaska toward out First People is.
Why do some white men claim to hate Native women yet rape them? I don't understand how they can even get aroused. What is the psychology behind that? Do they also loathe themselves? Do their wives divorce them if they are married and get caught?
Diane Benson is an inspiration not just to Alaska Native peoples, but for all women. But her ability to overcome the adversity in her life and push ahead is only one aspect of her influence. The fact that she is not acknowledged as a force in Alaska politics is a result of the institutionalized racism in the state infrastructure, AK's media, and the population in general. We cannot seem to acknowledge that the ideas of Alaska Native leaders are given less consideration becasue there is a deeply-embedded belief that AK's First Peoples are poorly educated or inherently less intelligent than - let's face it - white citizens.
As my fellow anthropologists will confirm - Alaska Native leaders have a tough job. They often have to behave in a way incongruent with their cultural norms. They must be aggressive, outspoken, and confront people. They have to acceppt that they may ruffle some feathers... that the value to always get along and avoid conflict (perhaps one ofthe most important and deeply held beliefs) will not serve them or their constituents.
I could go on and on... The fact that Benson and other Alaska Native leaders have been able to do this, while retaining the respect of their community and deep roots in their culture, demonstrates their strength and ingenuity. So I say "Thank You" from deep in my soul... thank you.
I'm getting a deeper appreciation for Diane thanks to your blog, Phil! This is the stuff we don't here about in the ADN.
There is a quality of Alaska Native women in leadership roles which you might want to consider in describing Diane. The women seem to have a uniquely strong ability to positively transform the communities around them, at the levels of family, neighborhood, organization, profession, tribe, and community. Remembering Della Keats, for example, she was a woman who radiated strength and resiliency and love at every level, transforming everything she touched. Della was not alone. I just wanted to attest to having seen this quality in many contemporary Alaska Native women leaders today, and suggest speaking to it in your work. We get so bound up in seeing people as if they were walking resumes and end up missing many of their most important dimensions.
polarbear,
Writing the article I'm working on - looking at Diane Benson's focus on civil rights as an Alaska Native since she was a High School freshman - is the hardest piece of writing I've ever been responsible for.
For one thing, it has been hard for her to talk to me about it. For the other, she appears to have forgotten more civil rights activities she has done, than most Alaska public figures have achieved. Watching her go through the remembering process on this has been rewarding, though.
Thanks for reminding me of Della Keats!
"photo not courtesy of the ADN . . . " Priceless.
theresa,
that was especially for you....
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