16 May Charlene Teters, the trampler

Charlene Teters is a hero. She stood up to lots of things – like fighting against universities using racist American Indian mascots. Her art is also very challenging, treading on experimental ground in a very male-dominant world. I wrote a ballady poem about her.

 

The Trampler

 

The story of Charlene Teters answers the following questions

in the upcoming tale told by one curious pedestrian…

 

When can thoughts begin to change?

How do humans rearrange?;

Drop their savage-daddies’ dusty thoughts

and let civility run its course.

 

She left Spokane Washington

To experiment with form,

As “a good Indian woman.”

A better would then be born.

 

1989,

Charlene wound up at Illinois.

A stunning display of white folk

and so began the stunning scorn.

 

One day her kids, wanting some fun

Said, “Mom, mom, can we go to the game!?”

Teters gently warned them:

They’ll wear paint, and feathers, it will not be the same.

 

As the halftime buzzer sounded,

the Chief came out and bounced around and

did his dance, the ‘traditional’ prance.

The crowd rose up and roared advance.

 

Teter’s warning was drowned in sound,

her little daughter sank in her seat.

Her son, he tried his best to laugh while

Charlene got to her feet.

 

Full buckskin regalia.

All 90-eagle-feather.

The authenticity hurt more than simply mocking her would ever.

 

Who decides who honours who?

The traditional majority do.

I tend not to answer rhetorical questions

but some people require extra attention.

 

One thing I learnt along the way:

intention is irrelevant

with what is racist and what is fine;

one’s fine is another’s across the line.

 

Now. When things got a moving

and her sign got to proving,

up steps a fool by the name of Rick Winkel.

 

You’d do well to beware his combed over hair;

just about as sparse as his logic or compassion.

The illusory farce so steeped in the past

proved yet another hurdle for our hero.

 

To be up against an army

of angry men

with agenda as their fuel,

in the middle of their den,

to hold yourself all by yourself

and not to lose your cool

among the heat.

Be yelled at

spat at

Dragged and lumped into a heap.

 

A rebel reed standing against the current

A naked soldier running toward a turret

 

But by and by and one by one

Support gathered far and strong.

A long and bitter battle followed

And still today goes on.

 

Poor Chief Illiniwek died a slow death,

In 2007 he breathed his last breath.

A single reed obstruction

Turned the historical current by interruption.

 

And now I sit with my pen in my hand

doing my best to understand

how conquest still clings to Indigenous backs,

how the Chief was cheered and why

Charlene was the one attacked.

 

From when she painted risky in the Res,

to the conflict of the Chief.

Teters is a true trampler;

A rare and regular human who garnered belief.

 

When can thoughts begin to change?

How do humans rearrange?;

Drop their savage-daddies’ dusty thoughts

and let civility run its course.