I haven”t written about this issue for a while, but after seeing a number of letters, I want to revisit the subject.
Many people cannot understand why my friend, Clayton, spends so much of his energy focusing on changing mascot and town names in Kelseyville. So I am going to try and present it in a way that they can understand. Very simply ? native people do not view or feel that history is disconnected from the present.
In his family, they are personally affected by the tragedy of Kelsey and Stone, and the repercussions of their execution. Notice that I said “personally” and “are,” and a characteristic of tribal peoples is that they carry emotional ties to relatives long passed. This is why the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is so difficult for Americans to understand.
These are tribal peoples, for whom nationalism will always be secondary in their priority of allegiance, and the past is always present in their minds. We have long emotional memories.
Clayton grew up seeing and hearing members of his family in tears every time the discussion turned to the abuse or the suffering of the people under Kelsey. These were his relatives we are talking about. Most of those expressing opinions are not related personally in any way to the situation. If they were to imagine that it was their own family members that were subjected to these horrors; they might understand that the name evokes a gut-wrenching emotional catharsis among some of the descendants of these families.
If you were the descendant of Holocaust victim, how might you feel about living near a town named after the military officer that had your family gassed, their teeth extracted, hair shorn, and bodies melted down for fat? What Kelsey and Stone did was no less horrifying. It is the personal attachment to the history that makes it an issue some cannot let go.
James Blue Wolf
Nice
