The Only Growth Industry

Is policing

Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. I am writing to you from Billings, Montana, where I’ve been a guest at MSU-Billings via invitation from the Native American Achievement Center here. It’s been nice hanging out with students and forging some new relationships. Someone in one of our discussions asked me what the “best thing”¹ is that has happened since my book came out “and stuff” and I have to say that opportunities to get out and meet people where they literally are is right up there. I don’t know if this was an exciting enough answer for the questioner, but I’m sincere. This trip in particular has helped me with some insights into the important role the community of advanced education can provide these young people, despite my lingering, and surging, distrust of the ultimate intent of these kinds of institutions. For example, the NAAC folks provide a critical service to Native students here but face a constant uphill struggle with institutional leadership just to have their needs fulfilled. It’s typical, of course. The struggle continues and, in the end, the real victory happens when new relationships are created regardless of the outcomes in the constant jousting with here today, gone tomorrow settler administrators.

There is a vigorous winter storm bearing down on us too. After generally sunny and nice jacket-optional days it is gray and growing ominous outside my window, and the skinny trees across the parking lot are beginning to swoop and gyrate; it seems like all the dirt in South Central Montana is blowing through my viewshed. It swirls up from vacant lots waiting for more stupid hotels to sprout up among the half-dozen other stupid hotels – including the one I carry responsibility for being a temporary denizen of – exclusively occupying the area, on a landscape that maybe three or so human lifetimes ago would have been a gathering place, with the mighty Yellowstone River immediately nearby, for wild buffalo, and the people, like mine, who existed beside them.

There is a giant U.S. flag whipping at its anchor yonder and I wish it would either be shredded into components for a lovely ribbon skirt² or, perhaps even better, be torn loose³ entirely to blow all the way back across the sea where its founders came from. How’s that as a wishful metaphor? More than ever I long for a Rapturous sort of event where all the people who “love their country” so much as to happily and willfully overlook what that cabal of dudes was really all about to just finally up and drop dead. Let that ilk be bulldozed into mass unmarked graves for a change. I’m particularly activated today because there was a small group of girls in the breakfast lobby earlier, maybe in their early-to-mid teens. I was watching their exuberance and thinking of all those evil old white dudes whose predatory abominations have been visited on girls just like them, being protected from justice by the so-called “most powerful government in the world” and it makes me sick, not the least of which because it is just an example of how the system is working as initially and intentionally designed. Those villains and their beaten-bruised bodies should all be swinging from the ends of ropes. I truly try to honor John Trudell’s words when he said, “No matter what they ever do to us, we must always act for the love of our people and the earth. We must not react out of hatred against those who have no sense.” But these monsters make it exceedingly difficult sometimes. So if someone will bring the rope I’ll wrangle up a carpenter or two to build the gallows.

Anyway. I don’t leave Billings until tomorrow afternoon but that might be in the thick of the dangerous weather, or at least its immediate aftermath; the Blackfeet have already declared a state of emergency in preparation for the storm, and Butte – which I have to drive straight through – has closed her schools for the rest of the week in advance. Who knows, maybe I’ll spend an extra night here among the Rims….

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These kids are alright. Additionally, is it even a punk rock show if there isn’t someone’s random lost shoe on stage?

A couple Saturdays ago I flew into Missoula after a commitment out of town, hustled to find my car out in the airport parking lot, and then careened eastward on I-90 directly to a rotting old former train depot along the railroad tracks separating the barbarians of the Northside from the rest of the city in an effort to catch a punk rock show happening in, as befits the best of such things, a dank and smelly basement. When I came around the corner and onto the street where the venue is situated I was struck by the mass of young people out in the darkness, spilling from the sidewalk onto the street, clouds of breath and cigarette smoke and vape effluence swirling around them. I might have even giggled aloud at the scene – one exactly like every gathering of young people out for such a show since these kinds of shows began happening – as I approached.

I parked my car, threaded my way through the throng of youthful humanity, had opportunity to wave hello to my daughter in law, then descended the stairs to where the mayhem would ensue. I was there because my son, who has been a drummer for more than half of his life, would be making his debut as a bass player in a punk band he’d been part of for barely a week, having learned a set’s-worth of material with his new bandmates in the meantime. His band, playing the closing set of the night, was just finishing their setup. I greeted him, exchanged fist-bumps and hugs, exchanged similar greetings with a couple of his friends who I have known since they’d just emerged from their diaper-shitting eras, and then it was on. I was front and center when the noise commenced and it was glorious. A triumphant mosh erupted and I held my own for the first three songs then I realized these teenagers would probably kill me if I remained so I retreated to stage right and behind to watch the rest of the show. I was renewed by the experience and my son clearly was too.

The place was packed and the music was blistering and largely unintelligible but I was overjoyed to be there. These young people need outlets like this and I believe it is the role of the rest of us, as their elders, to make sure they have opportunities to unfetter themselves. I’ve never found anything so primal and invigorating as extreme high decibel music delivered sweatily in the companionship of others. Were there bad decisions shared among those bodies sparking with hormones later? Certainly. But that’s part of being young on a Saturday night. Again, as elders, it is our role to be there to help them get up when they stagger, just as that is the code in the pit itself, where when someone is knocked down everyone nearby immediately moves to get them upright again. That was happening too in that pit, and I’d been directly involved in such during my ten minutes flailing and pinballing among them.

“The only growth industry is policing.”

– Tyson Yunkaporta, from Right Story, Wrong Story

Later that night, returning home at maybe 11:30pm, a Sheriff’s deputy cruiser was parked at an intersection in my neighborhood. He swung out into the road behind me as I passed. When I parked in my spot at home he pulled up in front of my house and got out of his car. He approached and began questioning me, asking if I’d been home all day and I said no. He said there’d been some teenagers reported earlier in the neighborhood knocking on doors and asking if people needed their dogs walked. Additionally, it was reported they’d allegedly tried breaking into homes as well. That was that.

The next morning I received an email from the Laheys⁴ under the subject, Park Children Brothering [sic] tenants:

Dear Tenant, The attached picture of children ringing door bells and in one instance trying to enter the home. If you know their names or address please contact me via email or phone. The police have been made aware of this incident. Harassing other tenants will not be tolerated.

The picture to the email was from a ring camera positioned on the porch of a neighbor whose house I pass every time I go out sauntering. These kids were at most ten years old, if that. I was horrified. First that this photo would be shared to anyone on the receiving end of that email, and second, that anyone would call the cops on children without being grown-ass adults and engaging with them directly. Isn’t the latter a simple obligation in sharing a neighborhood with other people? What would these same people who called the cops do if those children were being menaced? Call the cops and wait for someone else to “do something!”? I’ve been in a state of flabbergast ever since.

I’m picturing the parents of these children, perhaps a single, already overburdened mother, being contacted by the cops because of the largely innocuous behavior of her children, and the additional weight of that interaction on her psyche. Her stress, and the resultant and certain stress on her children, all because some other adult chose to shirk their responsibility to the community and cry to the Police State. What is the message this sends to the kids? What reason do kids have not to be little shits to adults when adults set such a terrible example?

I make a point to interact with the people in my neighborhood, whether I’m out in the street walking at bus time and greeting kids waiting at the corner, or even just waving and exchanging a few words with passers-by when I’m sitting on my porch at morning or evening. I know few names but that isn’t the point. It’s the visibility, the seeing of one another that hints at looking-out for, or being looked-out for, that is important to me. Who are we as a society when we concede personal responsibility to our neighbors to distant murderous authorities; that we’d choose picking up the phone and calling the fucking cops rather than take a minute or two to engage with an 8-10 year-old? It’s cowardly, spiritless behavior and I’m appalled by it. I don’t think it is an indication of what our culture, our society, is. It’s more an indication of where it’s steadily heading if we allow it.

“Our people tend to have a situational bias when it comes to causation, rather than a dispositional one. Dispositional bias is when a person sees someone yelling at their kids and thinks, ‘That’s a bad parent,’ or ‘They’re cruel to their children in that culture.’ Situational bias is when you think, ‘There must be a lot of pressure on that parent. I wonder what’s going on?’ Context is everything in an Indigenous worldview.”

– Tyson Yunkaporta, again, from Right Story, Wrong Story, again.

What is it about our society that is pushing us that abysmal direction? Is it simply more convenient to call the cops in a circumstance like this? That’s my gut feeling, and I suspect you could toss the proverbial rock in any direction in any of our communities and strike one or another reason as well. The dreaded “algorithm” perhaps, or the news cycle, or inane bumper stickers that deepen fissures between us, the irrational fear about “the other” that is constantly being stirred, and etc. It’s anything and everything and I’m saddened by it.

I’m thinking about a recording I was shared of Terry Brockie explaining something from his culture. Terry is a consultant here at MSU-Billings. Our paths haven’t crossed during my visit, though two of the students I’ve shared time with here are his relatives, as niece and cousin, and I loved learning that. Per his MSUB bio, Terry “is from the Fast Travelers clan of the Aaniiih (White Clay) Nation on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in North Central Montana. A lifelong advocate for his Tribal culture, Terry is deeply involved in language revitalization, Tribal history, and actively participates in his Tribe’s ceremonies. He currently teaches his native language at Aaniih/Nakoda College and serves as a consultant in education and Tribal economic development.”

In the passage I’m thinking of, Terry is speaking of the loose controls his people traditionally exerted on their children, how they might be “free with them,” but if they started getting a little out of hand, there is a word concept – kaa’eeh – that can carry many meanings but in this context is used to remind the child to be still. To be patient and respectful and self aware in the circular nature of the world they are part of with everyone else. To be peaceful in awareness of their wider relationship with the world.

I’m not Aaniiih but I’d guess kaa’eeh has no context that involves the calling of the police, which we are constantly being urged to do whenever we see something suspicious, whether in airports, or shopping malls, or apparently in our own neighborhoods where a pair of adolescents apparently pose a dangerous threat simply by being adolescents.

I concede I am practicing a degree of dispositional bias in my judgment of the cops-caller. But when push comes to shove, I’m giving the kids the benefit of the doubt. They have much to offer us, and we as adults have an obligation to be in support of them in return. In relationship, convenient or otherwise.

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My neighborhood doesn’t entirely shelter the miserable and terrified. For example, I give you this magnificent light display from the house down the street. It changes with the season, the holidays, whatever. When I approached the neighbor as he was preparing this display in celebration of St. Mara’s Day⁵, he told me how it works, and that he has the display on in the evening and “in the morning so the kids have something to look at when they are walking to the bus.”

Isn’t that sweet? His name is Jason and he shares his home with Chloe⁶ who has her own cleaning business. I’m grateful to have them in my community.

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1. I’m not that great at “best” or “favorite” things when asked, so I tend to lean toward “best most recent” whenever asked, though this wasn’t necessarily one of those cases.

2. At a glorious dinner last night at The Burger Dive a young woman was wearing a beautiful ribbon skirt, indicating where she’d upsized it to fit via repurposed silk ties she’d recovered from an uncle or someone, which is the inspiration for my comments about that gross flag outside being thusly transformed. She and I later squared off in a spirited debate over whether or not french fries, or bacon, should be dipped in milkshakes. I am opposed to such unholy behavior, and rightfully so. Also later, another young woman from the Fort Peck reservation, quipped: “I love this! A bunch of lactose intolerant Natives all eating milkshakes together!”

3. I’d originally used the word “free” instead of loose but I don’t want to abuse such an important word as free when discussing this country, even metaphorically.

4. The owners of the development and, #IYKYK

5. In honor of Mara Panich, my friend who owns Fact & Fiction Books, whose birthday is March 17th.

6. They could be partners/married/whatever but I’m not going to make any assumptions.