Jackson Clark II knows his way around the Navajo Reservation of Arizona and New Mexico, and the pueblos along the Rio Grande Valley. He has continued – no, greatly grown – his parents’ trade in Native American arts. He has spoken numerous times (a hundred?) about the qualities and origins of the weavings, pottery and jewelry that are so skillfully crafted by the artists he knows, and often about their family members and their lives.
But Clark wasn’t able to speak April 17 at Fort Lewis College’s Life-Long Lecture Series (Herald, Apr. 20) when Steve Schwartz, interim FLC president, asked Clark to postpone. Indigenous activists associated with Four Borderless Corners had contacted the college to request cancellation, and shared they planned to protest what they viewed as giving Clark a platform to perpetuate a “white savior” story.
Clark’s talk, “Saving Navajo Weaving,” was to be about the economic relationship between trading post owners who knew there could be a larger market than existed for quality Native American artistic work, and that weavers, potters and jewelers could expand their work to share their artistic expressions, better support families and, in some cases, involve the next generation. The traders had the names of potential customers and where advertising would be effective, and knew the marketing verbiage that would attract attention.
The quality of Navajo weavings particularly had always been recognized by members of other tribes, but the traders provided the opportunity to multiply that appreciative audience many times over as they promoted the cultural origins and stories that might exist behind them. With expanded opportunities, weavers partnered in response.
Clark’s Indigenous critics who spoke out the evening and morning before his talk said that the story of the weavers’ relationship with the traders shouldn’t come from a non-Indian. The suggestion was that Clark would give too much of the credit for what became a rich weaving legacy to the traders. But, given that the Clark family draws attention to its Toh-Atin Gallery with the outside location of an exaggerated figure of an Indian, which has been criticized by many, including some nonlocal Native Americans. It is very possible that his critics saw that he was speaking as an opportunity to again bring up the Indian.
We’ll not know.
Had FLC allowed Clark to speak, and there had been an opportunity for a discussion to follow, which would have been easy to provide, those attending would have been able to weigh their merits. Were there other perspectives as to the balance between trader and weaver? A college campus is where that is supposed to take place; where differing viewpoints are encouraged.
The possibility of violence was also a hot spot. Schwartz defended postponement saying the college had learned of the protests with little notice and were concerned about campus safety. Protest organizers said they had not threatened violence and the fear was unfounded and rooted in a stereotype of the “rowdy Indian.”
As it is, FLC missed an opportunity to show that it is an educational institution where a controversial topic could be discussed and around which dialogue could occur. Too many other colleges and universities have failed to be such a place.
Commencement is little more than a week away, but when students return, Jackson Clark II should receive an opportunity to deliver the talk that he was prevented from giving, and any critics of his message are invited to participate. That’s what should occur on a college campus.
