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Today marks a month since protests erupted over George Floyd’s murder and there’s an early image from Minneapolis that I can’t get off my mind - the one featured above. It went viral. The symbolism is fairly straight-forward: an upside-down American flag reflects a nation in distress. The burning building in the backdrop merely amplifies this message. But there’s something else I see that, perhaps, few others do: the colonial narrative going up in flames. The pictured liquor store on fire is named after Minnehaha, the fictitious Dakota maiden central to one of the most saccharine takes on the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. Nineteenth-century epic poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published “The Song of Hiawatha” in 1855 during one of the bloodiest eras in U.S. history for Indigenous land loss. Longfellow’s invented courtship between Minnehaha and Hiawatha perversely romanticized this colonization. And the feigned lovers became American icons; namesakes for parks, streets, counties, and apparently liquor stores, nationwide. It’s racist, to be sure. But there was a motive behind the bigotry. Then as now, America hungered for a national identity. Modernists of the era eventually came to question America’s lust for Longfellow, and like today’s cancel culture, he met his demise. Since the fires were ignited in Minneapolis, my industry, like the rest of the country, is also paying witness to similar revolts leading to resignations. I have an essay in the works on where this all may be heading, including a cautionary tale from Indian Country. I’ll announce its publication here, so be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already. Because if there’s one group where well-intentions routinely get bungled, it involves Native Americans - and it’s not just a white people problem.
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