2008 Woodie Awards
Sainte-Marie's lecture offered valuable insight
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Rocket Letters
To the editor:
After Buffy Sainte-Marie's lecture in the MPR last week, a student off-handedly said, "I liked that old make-love-not-war stuff." It was an innocent and supportive comment about the event, but an inaccurate depiction of her presentation. Her analyses are not dated and her talk was not about war, but specifically about Native American education and generally about encouraging students everywhere to live up to their dreams and possibilities.
Sainte-Marie still believes, years after her Vietnam-era song, "Universal Soldier," that we each have a responsibility to think critically about issues and to act upon the knowledge we gain. Her work with American tribal people, for example, involves educating about the millions of indigenous peoples and their cultures in the Americas, rather than continuing our trivializing and self-interested misperceptions. This is also the mission of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington and not a contentious debate issue.
Learning about our country's history and its contemporary manifestation by including the voices of its maligned or romanticized Indians is a messy job, and it is this very messiness that your professors at SRU are encouraging you to take on in all disciplines - going deep in your search for knowledge and truth, rather than settling for the popular mode of easy reductions and "two sides" of issues.
Sainte-Marie, for example, does not believe simplistically that war is never justified and that we should always make nice. With three advanced degrees and a lifetime of international experience, she knows as much or more about the complexity of American history, contemporary worldwide issues, and culture than most of us. Moreover, she is from a tribe that had many vicious battles. The women in most Eastern tribes were strong leaders who made the final decision as to whether a battle that could sacrifice their husbands and sons was necessary and just. Their decision was based on maintaining an accurate, deep, and complex knowledge of the issues at hand.
Many thanks to those who supported Buffy Sainte-Marie's visit to campus and the many who attended. She spoke of her wish, the same as that of most SRU professors, for students to grow further into adulthood with the strength and skills necessary for truly pursuing individual happiness and liberty, and for contributing to a stronger country and a more peaceful world. May we all further develop our critical intelligence to know what that could really mean.
Rachela Permenter
Professor
English
After Buffy Sainte-Marie's lecture in the MPR last week, a student off-handedly said, "I liked that old make-love-not-war stuff." It was an innocent and supportive comment about the event, but an inaccurate depiction of her presentation. Her analyses are not dated and her talk was not about war, but specifically about Native American education and generally about encouraging students everywhere to live up to their dreams and possibilities.
Sainte-Marie still believes, years after her Vietnam-era song, "Universal Soldier," that we each have a responsibility to think critically about issues and to act upon the knowledge we gain. Her work with American tribal people, for example, involves educating about the millions of indigenous peoples and their cultures in the Americas, rather than continuing our trivializing and self-interested misperceptions. This is also the mission of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington and not a contentious debate issue.
Learning about our country's history and its contemporary manifestation by including the voices of its maligned or romanticized Indians is a messy job, and it is this very messiness that your professors at SRU are encouraging you to take on in all disciplines - going deep in your search for knowledge and truth, rather than settling for the popular mode of easy reductions and "two sides" of issues.
Sainte-Marie, for example, does not believe simplistically that war is never justified and that we should always make nice. With three advanced degrees and a lifetime of international experience, she knows as much or more about the complexity of American history, contemporary worldwide issues, and culture than most of us. Moreover, she is from a tribe that had many vicious battles. The women in most Eastern tribes were strong leaders who made the final decision as to whether a battle that could sacrifice their husbands and sons was necessary and just. Their decision was based on maintaining an accurate, deep, and complex knowledge of the issues at hand.
Many thanks to those who supported Buffy Sainte-Marie's visit to campus and the many who attended. She spoke of her wish, the same as that of most SRU professors, for students to grow further into adulthood with the strength and skills necessary for truly pursuing individual happiness and liberty, and for contributing to a stronger country and a more peaceful world. May we all further develop our critical intelligence to know what that could really mean.
Rachela Permenter
Professor
English
