Choosing Understanding Over Competition
Commentary appearing in VTDigger on June 18, 2024.
Professor David Massell’s opinion piece, “The awkward truth about Vermont’s Abenaki,” published in VTDigger on May 29, is itself a dismaying example of polemics masquerading as fact.
As a University of Vermont history professor, repeatedly taking on the role of cultural interpolator and apologist for someone else’s politically motivated campaign of disparagement, directed toward the university’s eponymous state, the characterization of awkward with respect to opinion seems reflexively appropriate.
Presenting a set of statements about profoundly subjective lived experience as troubling objective truth, without the necessary contextualization and humanization, and projecting that into a near-vacuum of public comprehension, is a graphic example of the strategic use of selected statements to support a predetermined conclusion.
Massell’s arguments are akin to the oft-repeated assertion of “sole authority” made by certain office holders from within the Grand Counseil de la Nation Waban-Aki Inc., whose agenda is being supported and platformed through the use of his employer’s facilities at UVM. His collusion goes far beyond being a messenger, to being an agent.
Not only is this narrative being misrepresented through proscriptive definitions, but the underlying reality is that the messaging is also being controlled by a few individuals in the Canadian Abenaki First Nation governments. There are many Native citizens (Abenaki and otherwise) there who do not agree with this agenda of aggression or its motivations.
To be clear, this push to marginalize others for exclusive self-benefit runs directly counter to the wisdom of “making kin” and seeking balance through reconnection and restoring relationships.
The possibilities of an affirmative future for all of us, including our Mother Earth — no matter our respective experiences and intertwined heritages — will not be achieved by separation and competition. We do not choose to conduct ourselves in this manner.
The descendant Abenaki communities within what is now called the state of Vermont and elsewhere (borders being a recent construct atop the essential understanding of land as self) are not “less than” or “other,” much less nonexistent. That is not how we are called to be in the world.
Simply put, people have had a different experience here in the Green Mountains and river valleys, one that does not readily conform to a limited qualification or set of assumptions imposed by others through restrictive legal mechanisms. The state of Vermont’s understanding has continually evolved toward a more complete embracing of experience. This is not the time to slide backward toward willful exclusion and diminishment. Together, we have come a long way and still have a long journey ahead.
The state-recognized Abenaki bands choose to work toward better relationships with all of our kin, however distant or complex, and with our neighbors. We look forward to having healing conversations with the Abenaki communities to our north, and with all of you, including the folks at UVM. Our hands are extended in friendship and not raised in fists in opposition.
K’namiolbnaji nabiwi — we will see you soon!
This commentary is by Rich Holschuh. He lives in Wantastegok/Brattleboro and serves as chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. He is a citizen of and cultural relations officer with Elnu Abenaki band, and is a co-director of the Atowi Project.