Posts made in December 2016

standing rock

Journey To Standing Rock

BY JEANETTE LENOIR

“The white man broke every promise except for one. They promised to take our land, and they did,” these are the words of war chief and holy man Sitting Bull that, more than 100 years later, seems to still echo across the plains of the Dakotas.

The bitter cold and recent decision from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that put a halt to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, (DAPL) may have sent some protesters packing, but not all of them. The camp—today a community of staunch, unwavering and passionate like-minded people—is bracing for what’s to come. Whatever that may be, some of the Veterans I spoke to said. Even after president-elect Donald Trump, who supports the construction of the pipeline, takes over the reins at the White House. The protesters, those willing and cleared to speak to the media, made their intent very clear. They’re not budging until all Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. equipment, still at the ready to proceed in constructing the 1,172 mile pipeline under Lake Oahe, is removed from the disputed site.

The location of the All Nations Camp, as its been dubbed by its members and the locals, is in Cannon Ball, SD. A short distance drive up the road passed Prairie Knights Casino. The camp sits between Oceti Sakowin Camp and Sacred Stone camp, immediately after crossing the Missouri River. For many of the protesters, the casino provides some relief from the camp and the bitter cold. As you near the camp site, you can’t help but feel a sense of amazement and awe of the tenacity and strong will of the human spirit. These are the first Americans. Fighting to maintain their culture and identity, still.

“Fifteen or twenty thousand years ago, at the end of the fourth great Ice Age or before, the first men reached the New World. These were the ancestors of the American Indians. They came in small bands of several families, following the hunters who got them food. Straggling out of Asia in pursuit of game, they had no notion of the two enormous continents that lay ahead of them, empty of men,” states a passage in The Ghost Dance, The Origins Of Religion, by Weston La Barre. This understanding carries enormous significance when adequately judging the on-going protest against the pipeline, despite the multicultural distinction of its members, these people have taken on a David versus Goliath like combat.  And, they’re unsure of what lies ahead.

Tribal Flags of all kinds and meanings guide your path into the snow covered camp shrouded with howling winds and flapping tarps begging for mercy. Tents, Tepees, RV’s and even basic plywood  structures that serve as a much needed refuge from the weather, seem to stand at attention as a sign of opposition against an unmatched power, and an unforgiving changing world. Man’s need and insatiable appetite for oil and other riches that help advance and sustain our modern society reigns supreme in these vast lands, fought fiercely for, and belonging to the first Americans, the Lakotas’.

“…every year the first entry of man into the New World seems to be pushed deeper into antiquity,” states La Barre in The Ghost Dance. And, to put the DAPL protest in historical perspective, one can’t help but find the irony and sad truth of this observation. The Lakotas’ aren’t new to these kinds of constrictions, but it’s hard to argue that the on-going struggle for basic human and land rights is steadily pushing them further away from their ancient past, as the world around them tugs away at what remains of their land and culture.

A recent article in the Smithsonian titled, Grant’s Uncivil War by Peter Cozzens, states fittingly at this moment in history concerning this on-going issue: Under the Fort Laramie Treaty, the United States designated all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the Black Hills as the Great Sioux Reservation, for the Lakotas’ “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation.” The treaty also reserved much of present-day northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana as Unceded Indian Territory, off-limits to whites without the Lakotas’ consent. The article goes onto say that “most Lakotas’ settled on the reservation, but a few thousand traditionalists rejected the treaty and made their home in the Unceded Territory. Their guiding spirits were the revered war chief and holy man Sitting Bull and the celebrated war leader Crazy Horse. These “non-treaty” Lakotas’ had no quarrel with the wasichus (whites) so long as they stayed out of the Lakota country. This the wasichus largely did, until 1874.” That’s when Major General George Armstrong Custer received his marching orders to scout land for a new Army post, according to historical records.  Fast forward 142 years later, it’s clear to see who got the raw deal of the Fort Laramie Treaty.

During my stay in Bismarck, ND I got a chance to speak to an official who asked to remain anonymous. He made the argument, sitting next to his wife and a family friend they jokingly didn’t want to claim as such, that the protests may have started as a fight for mother earth and clean water, but says that it’s taken a political turn for another shot at pushing for land rights. “It’s about old rights. That’s what the protest is really about,” he said. “Pipelines are everywhere! Why is this one so important?! It’s a lands rights issue and the rule of law has been violated,” he said. He asserts that the protesters that have come from across the country and Canada are not being good guests of the two bordering states. The group shared stories of poaching, menacing and trespassing on farmers lands. He said the cost to maintain order and safety doesn’t come cheap. “North Dakota has paid 17-million so far to deal with the protesters,” he said. The official also stated that the coverage of the protests have been biased and that goodwill between the Sioux and locals have been damaged because of the protests. “Friends are torn apart,” he said.

Speaking to some Veterans at the camp, the consensus was that the recent visit from other Veterans led by Wesley Clark, Jr. caused more confusion and discontent than anything else it set out to do. Some of them believed that there were political motives involved in Clark coming to the camp. “He even rode on a horse up to a hill,” one of the “Old Vets” claimed. The Veterans, still dug deep into this struggle, refer to themselves as “Old Vets” to distinguish from the newer arriving Veterans that have since left. One thing was made clear. They’re not budging until the Sioux Nation asks them to leave. When asked about getting paid to maintain the protest, the group collectively took offense to the question and said, absolutely not. However, the question merit asking as it was brought up by some in Bismarck, including the official that spoke anonymously, as a reason behind the on-going protest at Standing Rock.

My evening at the camp ended at the Dome, appropriately aired and warmed with burning wood and the smell of sage. It’s a dome structure in the middle of the camp where camp leaders meet to discuss issues, like change of perspectives, how to improve camp life, the forming of clicks and Lakota virtues. The members form a big circle and take turn speaking, adhering to a respectful exchange, and ending with a prayer.

It is necessary to recognize both sides of the situation. It’s hard to argue with the official who says it’s time to merge cultures and collectively contribute to our greater American society. However, the root of this pattern of conquering land from the first Americans, at any cost, runs deep. The wounds are still raw and hard felt. How the Trump era of politics and dealings will impact this struggle is anybody’s guess, but it behooves one to remember that the strength of America is rooted in all the people of this land. The first, the old, and the newcomers.

Former U.S. Consular To Cuba Reflects On His Work And The Passing Of Fidel Castro

BY JEANETTE LENOIR

The world is changing at a rapid pace right in front of our eyes. Trump is president-elect and Fidel Castro has died. These two incidents alone represent a monumental shift in the world. It’s a lot to take in and reflect upon, regardless of how these two powerful figures will eventually settle into their rightful place in history.

Fidel Castro’s passing, perhaps even more so than the election of Donald Trump, highlights the importance of conducting diplomacy maturely. That’s according to Tom Holladay who is retired from the State Department these days but recalls his time as U.S. Consular to Cuba. Holladay served as consular in Cuba from 1977 to 1979. He was part of a group of ten American Foreign Service people who reopened the interest section of the US embassy, as part of the Swizz embassy in Cuba. “The Swizz had been representing us since we broke relations with Cuba and left in 1961. So, we went back to our old building, which had been kept by the Swizz, and we set about trying to reestablish a channel of communication with the Cuban government and solve some problems that had been outstanding,” he explained.

ePa: Can you describe the state of Cuba upon your arrival in 1977?

TH: I don’t think it was really that different than a lot of the countries in Latin America at the time, materially, probably a little more run-down. Cuba was sort of a dependency of the Soviet Union so they weren’t that bad off. A lot of old cars, a lot of unpainted buildings…interesting place, but I didn’t really focus on what the place looked like.

ePa: At the time, U.S. relations with Cuba were much different. Were you well received, or was it a hostile welcoming entering the country?

TH: No, no, this was an initiative of President Carter that actually during the Ford administration, even under Kissinger, we had started this effort to try to normalize relations with Cuba, and it was briefly interrupted by the elections when Carter ran against Ford. Ford was trying to get his own term in office. Ford administration had started this optimate, and they cranked it back down for the elections, probably because of the Cuban vote in Miami. And then Carter, as soon as he was elected, his transition people started the process of getting ready to open with Cuba very shortly after he took office.

I was working in Cuban Affairs in Washington during the time of the run-up, and then going back down, then cranking back up again, and so when we arrived, it was an optimistic time.

The problems were that the Cubans were becoming militarily involved in Africa. The Cubans, had among other things figured out a way to fly troops to Angola via Guiana, using old Bristol Britannia aircrafts that didn’t really have the rage without a fuel stop, and the Guianese gave them the fuel stop. So, as we were opening up and dealing with some of the issues that I was involved in, we were also concerned about their increase activity in Africa. And that eventually put the kibosh on the improving relations. We really couldn’t make any progress on that political side.

The real reason the Carter administration gave for opening up with Cuba was that they could solve some of the human rights issues that had been pending, and some U.S. citizen issues that we couldn’t really resolve if we didn’t have a presence and a dialogue.

ePa: Can you describe some of the issues you dealt with?

TH: We had political prisoners, hijackers, including American citizens who couldn’t leave Cuba with their families for many years because Cuba wouldn’t give them permission to leave. And then there were a lot of Cuban citizens who suffered from the human rights situation there, who wanted to leave but couldn’t get out, so we were trying to solve all those problems.

We were trying to reestablish a dialogue and reestablish some semblance of normal relations.

ePa: What was your first day of work like?   

TH: The first day we opened, all of the people with complaints and problems came to the opening—American hijackers, Americans who couldn’t leave the country, people with permission to leave but needed American visas, all kinds of people—they all showed up as we were talking to the press out front. The management was worried that this would mar the opening. So, they brought them all inside for me to deal with. But, they forgot to screen out the media when they did this. So then I got into a question and answer session with these people, and of course it was all recorded and people in the United States saw me on television that night.

ePa: Can you talk about the hijackers?

TH: Well the hijackers that I dealt with were Americans. They were guys who hijacked planes to Cuba. And they came in and said, ‘we want to leave, we can’t take it anymore.’ So then I had to tell them that, I can’t give you a U.S. passport to leave because you’re on the FBI Wanted list so the only way I can send you home is into the hands of the U.S. authorities. So then they would go to the Cubans and the Cubans would say, ‘if you have a U.S. passport we’ll let you leave.’ Course we couldn’t give them one, so I’d tell them, go back and tell the Cubans I’m not going to give you the passport until we can arrange a way for you to go home that you can’t get beyond that reach.

Most of these guys were American black guys. One group came to Cuba, asked to see Fidel, robbed all the passengers and tried to give Fidel what they stole from the passengers. Fidel had them put in jail immediately, and they never got out again.

So they (hijackers) wanted to leave so we organized their return to the United States via Canada. Air Canada sent down a plane with most of the passengers being undercover Mounties. So, we got them all out to the airport and the stewardesses refused to fly with them. We had to abort the operation. Then, the Canadians spread the rumor that they had gotten to Canada and they (hijackers) were at large there. That didn’t work out. The Cubans thought it was ridiculous that an airline couldn’t transport some fugitives, and that the stewardesses could veto such an operation.

In any case, they were supposed to fly to Canada. Their plane would become an FBI charter and they’d fly to the U.S. where they would come under arrest, had it played out. But, we moved them via Jamaica a few days later with the same plan.

ePa: What happened after the hijackers arrived in the U.S.?

TH: They got back to the United States and then one of them said that I promised him that he would get off if he promised to go back. So, I got dragged up to Federal court but the judge believed me. They all came in and lied that I had enticed them to go to the United States…

ePa: When they got back here eventually, they were all arrested?

TH: Yes, exactly and sentenced to jail for periods of time. One of them was a Puerto Rican guy who hijacked the first 747 to Cuba. His name was Rivera, (R. Campos). These guys were on the margin of society…they didn’t work, and they were sort of malcontent.

He (R. Campos) was the one who said that I tricked him into going back. But, he sent me a Christmas card for years afterwards from jail. I don’t know where he got my address, but for years I got this card from Rivera.

ePa: Really? That didn’t scare you at all, considering that he claimed you promised him freedom when he got here?

TH: (Laughing) Yeah, well it worried me and he may still be after me, but I’ve forgotten him. I think he knows that I meant no ill will toward him…he just saw these other guys leaving and thought, well, you know, I’ll do it too.

ePa: Was he in jail in Cuba?

TH: No, he wasn’t in jail. Most of these hijackers were not in jail in Cuba. They were on the street. Only some very violent and means ones, who killed people in the process of hijacking the planes, went to jail.

ePa: As Consular, did you have a relationship with Fidel Castro, or had any direct dealings with him?

TH: I never dealt with Fidel directly, only very shortly after we got there. Nobody else had access to him either. I only had access to Fidel once in connection with a hijacking to Cuba of a Delta flight, where I went to the airport for our side and Fidel went for his side. I had pretty much the run of the airport, they knew me out there. I can always get in the back way and go in the secure areas but that day I couldn’t get in.

His car was parked out there, so I went to the normal places I usually go in and they wouldn’t let me in. They said, ‘what are you doing here?’ and I said, ‘I’m here for the same reason he’s here’. I said, ‘I came to look at the welfare of the passengers of this plane’, and he, the Director of Immigration,  took me around to the VIP entrance of the tarmac, pushed me through the door, and there was Fidel.

So we sat down on a little couch, I asked him about who the hijacker was and he gave his little ditty about the hijacking group. We had a bilateral hijacking agreement, in which we agreed to return hijackers or punish them locally. The Cubans were hijacking boats and going North and the Americans were hijacking planes. Some Cuban planes had been hijacked too, but he (Fidel Castro) was just giving the reassurances that all of the United States should start respecting the terms of the hijacking agreement, which is in sustention, we’re going to abide by its principles in handling this case.

Then, we had to figure out how to pay for the fuel. The Delta pilot had a credit card he couldn’t use in Cuba. So, I had to commit to making sure that the Cubans got their money for Delta’s fuel. I said I would guarantee that this 15-thousand dollars worth of fuel would be paid for, which a Consular Officer is never supposed to do…is commit the U.S. government to payment. But, Delta lived up to their word. They transferred the money to us and we issued the check on to the Cuban Central Bank.

Those are some of the nitty-gritty operational details…

ePa: Can you talk about some of the political prisoners you dealt with?

TH: Larry Lunt, (Lawrence K. Lunt) was an ex-pat who was married to a member of the Belgium Royal House. He was C.I.A. He was in prison and I visited him every month. The Belgium Ambassador also visited him. The Belgium Ambassador was his wife’s cousin. So he was really well taken care of… I don’t think the Belgium Ambassador had anything else to do.

We had another guy who ran the American Club; we had another guy who worked for Look Magazine who parachuted into the country, just different guys who had U.S. citizenship but who were in jail for political crimes. They wore different color uniforms and were segregated from common prisoners. So, I visited them every month. They were an odd lot, (laughing).

Meanwhile, secret talks take place between Miami Cubans and the Cuban government, which the U.S. government did or did not participate in, where they agreed that the Cubans would release 3 to 5-thousand Cuban political prisoners, if we would take them. And we agreed to take them at a rate of 500 a month. The Cubans also agreed to give permission to leave the country to 15-thousand ex-political prisoners. So then, we started processing them.

The first group was a VIP group. One of them was Paulita Grauw. Paulita had been involved in an attempt to assassinate Fidel by putting a poisoned pill in a milkshake at the Havana Libre. She had delivered this poison pill to the guy at the Soda jerk and he had put it inside the freezer and it had stuck to the wall of the freezer and when he took it out the poison leaked out and he was unable to put it in Fidel’s milkshake. They somehow uncovered the plot and arrested them all. So, Paulita had this attempted murder rap and I had to do an advisory opinion to the department to justify sending her to the U.S. The people who cut this deal where the Miami Cubans. We agreed to do this for them because Carter was big on human rights and we wanted Cubans to release their political prisoners. This would meet one of our conditions for them to improve our relationship, and it would prove that Carter opening to Cuba actually brought some results.

ePa: Can you reflect on Fidel’s death, and what it means for U.S. Cuba relations moving forward?

TH: You know, I’m very torn because I obviously was, I mean, we were subjected to surveillance, bugging, harassing phone calls, break-ins. These security people were on us like flies on shit. They were on top of us all the time. It was an oppressive atmosphere, but I was there trying to do a job and I wasn’t really there to judge them. I was seeing these huge prisons full of people, listening to horror stories all day long, the injustices and the difficulties, the hardships people had gone through because of the revolution, so I was basically dealing with the malcontent of the revolution. But, I believe that the guy deserves some recognition for being the sob that he was, for noble purposes, even though his methods were very bad.

ePa: What are your thoughts on the future of the Cuban people?

TH: I have no idea. Raul is now in charge, has been since 2008. These guys aren’t going to let go. Hopefully they will get the message and start an incremental effort to open up the economy and open up the society in a gradual way. Maybe follow the Chinese model. They have a lot of enemies out there and a lot of people who celebrated Fidel’s death. I’m not sure that it’s that relevant to contemporary Cuba.

Raul has decided to open up diplomatic relations with United States. That’s pretty radical. But, now all bets are off because we have our own domestic problems to content with. We might break relations with Cuba and go back to square one.

If we continue on the path of dialogue and communication instead of posturing and playing fault, we’ll probably be able to move forward. Good things can come from communication and dialogue and dealing direct and nothing good usually comes from vitriol and exchanges of insults.

ePa: Do you think Fidel Castro has brought anything positive to his people and to the world in general?

TH: The guy was a brave man, a tough man, a brilliant man, a master politician, a master chess player. And, he managed to win the hearts and minds of millions of people in the third world. I don’t think you can deny his place in history.

Big Daddy’s And Utica, A Love Story

 

BY JEANETTE LENOIR

Big Daddy’s Beauty Supply store on Genesee St., in Utica, NY is more than what it seems. It’s the go to hair place for most African Americans in the area. Andrew “Andy” Gambino, (no relation to the Gambino family, although he jokingly says he couldn’t tell you regardless) took over the store after his father, Russell A. “Big Daddy” Gambino, died suddenly at the age of 66, on August 15, 2009. Gambino relocated from Pittsburgh, PA to carry on his father’s legacy, as he would have wanted. His father had long paved the way for him to fill his shoes, not necessarily by selling  groceries or hair products to people, but with his love for the people he served. The younger Gambino has fulfilled his father’s legacy, and continues to do so. Quietly and humbly.

What makes this story uniquely relevant to our collective American culture, is its deep rooted connection to the black community in Utica, and African American culture in general. Hair is an important part of our American culture and identity. For African Americans, especially, it is substantially more so, considering our long history battling our hair, and all the negative and positive stereotypes attached to it. For these reasons, and perhaps many more, Big Daddy’s has firmly secured its place as part of the unique African American experience.  Although Big Daddy’s customers are varied and diverse, it is the main spot for African Americans to purchase the many products we use to maintain our hair, styles and all kinds of other products primarily used by black folks. There truly is no other hair supply store like it in the area.

This is Big Daddy’s story in honor of his legacy and service to the people in the region, especially African Americans.