Some thoughts on Ward Churchill

A lot has been made of Ward Churchill based on a single phrase. To get a better idea of the man, you can listen to him speak here. This is an hour long and a 7 meg download. For those who don't want to invest an hour, I will hit the high points.

This was from a public appearance on February 8, 2005. I don't know where it took place but from the audio there was an enthusiastic crowd complete with someone banging on a drum. It has sort of a tent revival feel to it.

While Churchill says that he does not need to apologize or exclaim to anyone, he does say that he was only talking about the "technocrats" in the building, not the food service workers or the children or the rescue workers.

He then goes on to a rambling "connect the dots" analogy. He mentions current mismanagement by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (I'll agree here but I'm for limited government anyway) and Wounded Knee. He talks about the number of children killed in Iraq by the sanctions (he mentions George H. W. Bush who established the sanctions but not Bill Clinton who enforced them for 8 years). He then skips to the use of nukes on Japan and the firebombing of Tokyo. This was done to "show Japan who is boss". (The fact the we were at total war with Japan, that Japan attacked us, and that bombing of civilian populations in WWII started with Japan's ally, Germany, bombing England during the "Blitz" somehow escapes him. Interesting omissions for a history professor.) He also mentions the subjugation of the Philippines a century ago and finally ends up with the Dutch "renting" Manhattan from the Indians, slaughtering them later, and playing soccer with their heads at the location where the World Trade Center stood. As a side note, he mentions that Wall Street is named after a slave enclosure. (see notes at the bottom) This he feels draws a pattern of the US as a killer of foreign children so it was only natural that someone would strike back. Palestine is also mentioned.

He feels some sorrow for the deaths of the innocent workers who died on 9-11 but no more sorrow than he feels for the dead children in Iraq.

He then takes questions from the audience. In response to one question he says that this is the start of an attempt to get dissenting voices out of the colleges.

Someone says that he supports Churchill's right to free speech and asks if Churchill supports his right to march in the Columbus Day Parade. Churchill says no because his 9th Amendment rights supersede the questioner's 1st Amendment rights. The convoluted explanation is that the 9th Amendment says that rights not mentioned are left to the people, that human dignity is therefore protected by the 9th Amendment, that Columbus violated human dignity, and therefore freedom of speech does not apply to anything to do with Columbus. (The hypocrisy here is overwhelming.)

Someone else pointed out that most of the students were more likely to be technocrats than food service workers. Would that make them "Little Eckmans"? Yes.

In all, probably too much has been made of Churchill. He made a catchy soundbite but his message is the same as is found across campuses - the US is bad, Bush is bad, capitalism is bad. I list of people defending Churchill can be found here. It doesn't take much digging to find that they are all part of the same anti-America movement. For example I found the link to Churchill's speech at a site linked from Ohio State University professor Mark Grimsely's blog. Grimsley linked to a video about the Project for a New American Century. This wraps up every conspiracy you ever heard about the Military/Industrial Complex and the NeoCons into tight little package.

Despite what I said above, I'm going to spend a little more time talking about Churchill. Some people's lives are not really meant for close scrutiny. Churchill is a good example. His claims to Indian ancestry are dubious even though they were his main job qualification. Now it turns out that he copied someone else's art and sold it as his own.

Remember Kerry's medals? We never did hear the whole story on them. No one even cared while he was a back-bencher in the Senate. No one bothered looking into the history of "Jeff Gannon" either.

Historical notes on New York:
Churchill distorts early New York history so badly I needed a separate entry just to set the record straight.

First, we are talking about events that happened nearly 400 years ago and were done by Dutch. To blame America for this 150 years before the Declaration of Independence is absurd.

Did the Dutch buy Manhattan or rent it? Churchill mentions a "handful" of beads. This refers to the story that Manhattan was bought for $24 worth of beads. This account was published in the 2nd quarter of the 20th century and was based on a period account that the beads were worth 60 guilders. The exchange rate at the time (the 20th century) turned this into twenty four dollars. The hundreds of years of inflation were ignored.

In the early 17th century, 60 guilders was more than an average worker earned in a year - as much as double. That means that the beads and trade goods cost something in the order of $10,000 - $40,000 based on today's wages. That's a lot of money for temporary rights to unimproved property.

Churchill says that Wall Street is named for the wall that surrounded a slave compound. He is mixing up two different periods. Originally, the entire colony had a protective wall around it with a road running along the wall. This is what Wall Street is named for.

By 1700 a large portion of New York's population was African slaves and a slave graveyard has been found on Wall Street.

Churchill says that the Indians tried to reclaim their land and the Dutch, to be certain of their claim, killed the tribe, took their heads, and played soccer with them on the site of the WTC. Again, he is confusing multiple events. The incident involving beheading Indians happened years later in 1643 as part of a war between the Dutch and the Indians.

During that bloody 1643 war with the Indians, a group of soldiers paraded through New Amsterdam's streets after an attack on a Canarsie village. The soldiers had beheaded some of the fallen Indians and carried the heads on long poles. As they paraded past Ariantje, one of the heads fell and landed at her feet. With a burst of enthusiasm she gave it her best kick and off it flew, to the dismay of many in the crowd who blamed her family for the war and also looked down upon her savage behavior.

Note that not everyone supported the war and that playing soccer with a head was unacceptable to the adults.

Here's where Churchill got the WTC reference (same link as above):

FOOTNOTE: The June 27, 2004 edition of the New York Times carried an extensive article on the history of the property where the World Trade Center was located. The article stated that, "...Damen, for example, its first European owner, played a critical role in a decision by the early Dutch colonists to massacre Indians living at two nearby settlements, igniting two years of warfare." It went on to state, "Damen died about 1650. His heirs sold his property to two men: Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt, a brewer and one-time soldier in the Dutch West India militia, and Dirck Dey, a farmer and cattle brander. Their names were ultimately assigned to the streets at the trade center site. Damen's was lost to history.

So a child who lived on the WTC site kicked an Indian head like a soccer ball, earning some conpempt for her parents. Churchill is playing fast and lose with history. He tried to establish that the WTC was built on bloody ground and 9-11 was the natural progression but he is mixing and matching his facts to do this.

Pretty sloppy for a department head.