Minneapolis-based Lakota storyteller uses humor to 'right size' Pope's visit

The images of the Pope Francis wearing an eagle feather headdress during his visit to apologize to Indigenous people in Canada for abuses suffered at residential schools stirred strong reaction in the Indigenous community.

Reporter Melissa Olson spoke with Alfred Walking Bull, a writer and storyteller. Walking Bull says when he saw the images of the pope in the headdress, he decided to deploy his sense of humor.

This transcript of their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I took to Twitter, and compiled a list of white men who have continued to cosplay Indigenous. There’s this long tradition of white people, and particularly white men, willing to put on the external signifiers of what it means to be Indigenous, but not have the perspective, and certainly not the experience of injustice, the pain, the discrimination, the racism, the genocide, all of it. It's just a costume to them. Right?

Along with those images, you posted commentary on social media. How important is it for you to use your sense of humor to cope with the images of the Pope wearing a headdress?

I think a lot of the humor that I grew up with, and I think a lot of the humor that Indian Country shares is a really big love of irony. I think it's just kind of one of those things that gets us through really trying times.

There's such a love and joy of being able to laugh at the things that scare us. It's something that we developed right in those residential schools. It's something that my mother was able to bring out from her from her boarding school experience. It's something that my dad always had about him attending Christian day school. That's a tense place to be in. And we're still alive to laugh about it.

I think when I turned to humor it's mostly to bring to light, this is ridiculous. So let's ridicule it. And if no one's going to speak out against it, I'm going to make fun of it. So that it stays right sized and away from me.

What was your reaction to the pope’s in-person apology to residential school survivors in Canada?

Overall, I think it was still pretty underwhelming for a lot of Indian Country, just because so much of our perspective as Indigenous people is based on what English speakers and people from Europe would think of as law. And a lot of the injustice, harms and the abuses that have been perpetrated on Indigenous people is based in law.

An apology is great. It still doesn't have the full bearing of law, whether in the church or in constitutional contexts. The apology was good prep work, and it's good to keep in practice in order to continue that work of reconciliation because it's not a one-and-done situation.

What did the apology lack?

A commitment to doing things differently, was what I was waiting for. And it didn't happen. In Catholic dogma, penitential acts are considered sufficient, right? But when we're talking about other human beings, we've developed this sense of what amends and apologies are, and they are real. It's a willingness to change and a willingness to be changed. And that's in Catholic theology. When the church talks about reconciliation between God and the people, it's that the people are willing to be changed. What I felt was missing was the church's willingness to be changed by recognizing their sins in front of everybody.

What are you doing to take care of yourself this week as we parse through the news of Pope Francis’ visit?

It's overwhelming for us, right?

I honestly have never stepped foot inside of a boarding school or residential school. But because of the stories and the trauma that my mom shared with me, I understand just a small bit of what she went through and what all of my ancestors went through. It's really … raw for a lot of people right now.

The real joy and the grace that my mother showed when she started her recovery from alcoholism and addiction was that she made it clear that her trauma was hers. And she did her best not to pass it on. She made sure that I knew and that my brother knew that whatever was hers was hers. And we didn't need to take that on.

So I think that when I go back to those stories, all I have is a kind of just deep, loving respect for my family, a deep and loving joy, that they protected their children and their children protected us and now, you know, we're protecting every way that we can.

That's the custody of resilience, and resistance and joy in all and continuing to be Indigenous. Being an Indigenous person who's alive right now is an act of resistance.

What are the important lessons you’ve learned from the pope’s visit as you move forward in your work?

My liberation began when I started to heal, and no one was going to do that for me. I had to do it myself.

What has to get us through is each other and a willingness to hold each other in compassion, even when things are at their worst. When we're experiencing fear and all our generational trauma, we have to give each other so much love and so much compassion, on the promise that when liberation comes for each of us individually, it's going to be so much more rewarding.

We're going to see a day when our children and grandchildren are speaking their language, seeing their songs and being sovereign, not just re-traumatizing each other. The important thing for me going forward is the work.

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