FWIW...my most recent ramblings...

Surviving Suicide: What Are the Kids Trying to Say?

I haven’t thought about them in years—the faded scars on my wrists. They’re scarcely visible. They’ve had thirty years to heal, and were never very deep in the first place. They were no serious attempts, just desperate pangs of poverty and “troubled youth.” Most of the kids I knew growing up had them—horizontal rungs of razor-thick scars from botched, half-hearted “suicide” attempts—so they didn’t set me apart as much as they sealed my membership in a sort of a scar clan of adolescents bouncing from group home to youth home to foster home to detention center and back again. We all had them, and it seemed their status increased with their subcutaneous depth: the deeper the scars, the better the clan member you were. No one had taught us that if you were serious about suicide, you had to slit your wrists vertically—and even if they had, I doubt we’d have dared. We weren’t serious about suicide. We were serious about surviving it—and these slits were our screams. More often than not—or shall I say more often than NOW?--our screams—faint though they were--were heard.

So I’m no stranger to suicide. It was an almost annual ritual for my mother—and her attempts linger more tenaciously in my memory than my own. She was more the drugs-cause-cramp than the razors- pain-you type, so the suicidal spectacle always included some sort of staggering, stumbling down drunk, sedative-induced stupor, replete with trips to the emergency room and subsequent days or weeks spent in the psych ward. One by one, her children were removed from the home and placed in foster care. To my childhood mind, suicide and alcoholism went together with mom the same way baseball and apple pie do for the average American kid living on Mainstreet. Just before my mother died a little more than ten years ago, I summed up her life as one ongoing suicide attempt in a story called “Death Wish”—and I have tried to live life for both of us. Whatever else I may or may not have inherited from my mother, I was hell-bent on letting my life be the last in the bloodline to participate in the “death wish” and the “alcoholism.” Transcending the poverty was the ancillary effect of that determination.

And I have succeeded: she had an 8th grade education, I have a PhD. She was on welfare; my IRS bill is as probably as much as her welfare payments were. She shopped at Payless, I shop at Sax. She binged on booze, I binge on books. She got hauled off to jail as often as I hop on a plane to fly to a conference, or to Germany where I attended college and where I lived and worked for ten years of my life; or to Africa, where I have friends and have traveled extensively. She worked as a waitress, I work as a writer, translator, editor. She scrubbed floors. I write books. In my academic writing, I have addressed issues of suicide, genocide, holocaust—one of my current projects includes the translation of original source documents from the Nazi era into English. So, like Jeff Wiese, I spend a lot of time studying Nazi "culture." In recent months, I have translated speeches by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg and other lesser Nazi "luminaries."

But I also work with kids. “At risk” kids. Most of them Black or mixed race—like me: I am of Ojibwe descent and trace my origins back through five generations to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and the Little Traverse Band of Chippewa and Odawa Indians. My early childhood experiences have been instrumental in my current work with youth, but I am nevertheless acutely aware of several major differences in the situation I faced as a child and what kids today are up against: we didn’t have guns, we didn’t have crack-cocaine or crystal meth, we didn’t have the internet, and we didn’t have Prozac—instead, we had a flawed but not completely decimated social service network more or less on our side. It didn’t seem to us that the entire society around us was plagued by the suicidal pathologies of rampant corruption, paralytic public apathy, decadent wealth contrasted by debilitating poverty, an indefatigable commitment to lies and a permanent passion for war. As dismal as our past and present may have seemed, we looked toward a "brighter future."

So it’s no wonder that the recent school shootings in Red Lake have become something of an obsession for me. As soon as news of Jeff Wiese’s internet postings was made public, I began scouring the lines. Barely had I read two pages before I said to myself, “As twisted as it may be, this is pretty sophisticated stuff for a 16-year old Rez kid. I’ve had students in my college classes who couldn’t write this well.” In one of his many cries for help, the words: “"expletive deleted" it all.” Well, I thought, the vocabulary certainly hasn’t changed since I was the "expletive deleted"ed up adolescent writing my rage on notebooks and folders, in thwarted attempts at “fiction” and “non-fiction” alike. I read his writings and what comes to mind is: Indian Killer. Yeah, in a different world this kid might have become the “new Sherman Alexie.” Instead, he became another “Columbine Killer.”

And the internet and MSM have been abuzz with heart-rending, hand-wringing attempts to address the parallels, to dissect the sociological underpinnings of the tragedy and come up with some plausible explanation for “why.” I wonder about this question and how blind people have to be to so much as pose the question.

All things considered, I think of myself today as a reasonably “balanced” person. I am a homeowner, educator—over-educated and over-qualified for most of what I do. I am politically active, socially aware—I write letters to congress and the press on issues that matter to me and never hesitate to help the homeless. And yet, when I look out at the world around me, it is hard even for me not to despair as the current administration drives this country to ruin; the future, even from my ivory-lined perch overlooking the University of Chicago—looks rather grim. And most of my friends and colleagues—none of whom are members of the “scar clan”—agree. The situation we face today is almost unbearable for anyone who’s got the time to dwell on it for too long, which is why most people, in an attempt to maintain a modicum of sanity, choose instead to look the other way--to busy themselves with the banalities of doctors’ appointments, committee meetings, class syllabi and university curriculum.

Until Monday, when Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain’s son was implicated in the incident at Red Lake, we might have satisfied ourselves with the “troubled youth” explanation for the tragedy there. But, if indeed this kid, too, was involved (and we don't know that yet), seems to me we’re facing a much more serious matter. By all accounts, Floyd Jourdain was a good father, a model parent . And we might draw the same conclusion about the Columbine kids’ parents and the parents of children in cities throughout the country, and in fact, the world http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html who are screaming at us to pay attention.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have to scream quite as loudly to get attention. People listened to the superficial slits on our wrists. Now, it seems, it’s not enough for a kid to take his own life: he’s got to take others down with him.

To me it is obvious: our children—throughout the country, throughout the world—are screaming at us, and what they are saying is: there is something profoundly wrong with the world you are living in and the world you are leaving us. The social symptoms to which children are responding may differ: in Columbine perhaps it was the vacuity and meaninglessness of opulent suburban wealth, in Red Lake, the debilitating effects of poverty and the long-term effects of genocide. Either way, what the kids are saying is: WE DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN THE WORLD YOU HAVE CREATED. Money—the excess or absence thereof—does seem to play a role in these incidents, but I think what is really at issue is moral bankruptcy. Our children are telling us that we have cashed in on their future and they do not want to live in a morally bankrupt world.
Ultimately, we—the worldwide adult community—are committing collective suicide. The children know this, and they want no part of it. And yet we are the ones who are surviving suicide—they are the ones abandoning ship. We are sacrificing our children to moral degeneracy and they are refusing to go like sheep to the slaughter.

So what are we going to do about it?

tombstoned (aka LMF): copyright 2005

" So, what are we going to do about it?" I don't know, what we can do about it, and there is no one answer. But first, before we can decide what to do, we need to know what needs to be done: what's missing in individual lives and in our society at large, that leads people to feel so isolated, empty and hopeless. I do know that certain conditions need to be met for humans to thrive:

Each and every child needs to be loved unconditionally. They need people or a person to really listen to them and take their thoughts and concerns seriously. They need to be applauded when they do things right and encouraged when they are discouraged.
People need to be a part of a community where interaction among community members is everday. Adults and children interacting in an unorganized fashion, daily.
People need people, not things, in their lives. They need healthy families and healthy communities to live in. Children need to feel useful, they need to see the beauty and hope in life even if the world seems to be disintegrating around them. They need to know that they are important,that they have a purpose on this earth and that they can determine what their purpose is in life.

AND, children and families should be the first concern of our governments, both federal and state. We should be a "child centered" nation, knowing that if we do right by our children and their families, our nation will be stronger and healthier for the effort. Religion is fine, but it will not answer all the human problems that plague our society.

I'm looking forward to reading other members repsonse.

LMF:

I write myself. I think sometimes that words are all we have. But there has to be some force that propells our thoughts.

You start out with a suicide and end with a larger observance of society. Isn't that what kids are all about? trying to figure out where they are in society? Trying to make sense of what we heap upon their inexperienced lives?

Isn't this where we are again in our society as a whole? There is a huge gaping hole that used to be filled by connections; like the sand pit traps I made as a kid on the beach-- except that now, the sticks and leaves that once camoflaged the problem are now exposed. The system itself is a failure and a facade. No wonder people feel frustrated and bewildered. There is nothing solid to back up our questions. There's nothing but a bunch of land mines and thinly concealed sand traps to impede our progress.

I'm writing all this as a way of clearing my space. As I was reading your piece I kept thinking about Eleanor Roosevelt and the democratic writings she and others contributed in the middle of this past century. Where are those thoughts now? How is their force manifested in our culture? Why do we have so many excellent minds working only part time, under appreciated, underwhelmed and yet so needed for the clarity we all seek?

Please keep writing, but please, focus on the good writers/thinkers of that time-- people like Eleanor, people who knew how to love and care for life.

Hmm. Thanks for your words, but I guess I don't understand why you suggest I should focus on "people like Eleanor"--I just returned from a Native American writers' conference in Calgary, Alberta.

I was moved by some very incredible presentations by indigenous women who are working on intergenerational work between elders and youth on the Reserves up there (projects very much in line with a lot of what you say is needed for children). In addition to the very important work these women are doing in their communities, they are making forays into the world of academia--something very new and challenging for them. Their presentations were awesome--and yet, they were obviously still rather "insecure" about making these presentations--because it's not something that has traditionally been a part of their world. ANd yet they need to develop these skills in order to make clear to the "outside" world the significance of the very powerful work they are doing in their own communities.

I also had the privilege of meeting and spending time with an author named Woody Kipp, whose book, Vietcong at Wounded Knee, I had finished before the end of my flight. I thought to myself, geez, I wish everyone in this country would find this story as interesting and necessary as I do. More than that, I wish this would become required reading for Jr. High and High School kids (a kid like Jeff WIese may well have benefitted from this. It may have provided a positive model for him--a place he could go with his writing.)

Here's the URL to Woody's book:


http://unp.unl.edu/bookinfo/4564.html


Another author I met at the conference, Richard van Camp....a superb storyteller...--some are predicting a new Sherman Alexie rising on the horizon (unfortunately, his books were all sold out, so I didn't get any: he's says he's got pretty good distribution, tho, so on my next trek to the bookstore, I'll be on the lookout for them-- he's got a number of children's books on the market as well--I hope these works begin making their way into classroom curricula). Here's Richard's site.


http://richardvancamp.org/

And then there's the very, very funny and talented Cree author, Thomson Highway, who worked with Native students for a week on a play which was presented in a staged reading at the end of the conference

http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/highway.html

All of these authors have dedicated their lives to teaching children to WRITE, providing them with the skills they need to express the things that are on their minds (and, as the research from the women on the Reserves attests, suicide is and remains one of those things). Yeah, words are all we have, and the ability to write may indeed be one remedy--one way of "surviving suicide"--but as Jeff Wiese's haunting words "any comments? any at all....?"...attest, it's all for naught unless there is a promise that the words be read.

So, I dunno, I've never read anything by Eleanor Roosevelt, and I probably won't get around to it any time soon. I'm too busy giving children of today outlets for expression and at the same time, giving audience to those who've found those outlets.

And as far as reading is concerned, I've really got a lot of making up to do as far as the works of other Native authors is concerned. Linda Hogan, James Welch, Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, Louis Owens, Tom King, Gloria Bird, Roberta Hill, people like that. I guess when these names, along with others, like Winona LaDuke, Vine DeLoria, Elizabeth Cook, Devon Mihesuah, Craig Womack, Robert Warrior, Simon Ortiz, Scott Momaday, Joy Harjo, MaryJo Moore, Lee Maracle, Daniel David Moses, John Trudell, and others become "household names" (and not in the sense that Ward Churchill has since become a "household name"), then I'll start sifting through the body of works by non-Native artists to separate the wheat from the chaff. For now, I'm glad that these authors' works are available to me and to the rest of the world--lot less sifting to do in order to find the good stuff.

Of course, there's always the "old stuff" to catch up on, too: Luther Standing Bear, Charles Eastman, Mourning Dove, Darcy McNickle....all those Indian writers very few people bother to read.