practical terms of liberating ourselves from a mentality and a value that has been imposed upon us. That's the oppression that allows all the brutality and the violence and the sexism and the racism, the double standard of justice. The value that people have been conditioned to accept. I believe that the only way to challenge that value is to look to where our real purpose in life comes from, and our situation in life. That situation is that we are a part of the earth and I believe that we've got to develop our consciousness into protecting that earth. By doing that, we're protecting ourselves. If we attack the earth, we're attacking our own spiritual balance. Rain: We understand what you're saying, but you sound a little like people who are into a new age/mellow speak kind of rap: "consciousness is it; you don't need any action." But you do a lot of practical action. How does that fit into your idea of social change? You say you're not into revolution . . . Trudell: I'm into "let's liberate ourselves, let's take our minds away from the oppressor's control. Let's come to peace with ourselves. Let's understand our individual limitations. Let's under- "If the Indians were successful in talking about self-determination, maybe cities would want to do it, or counties, or all the white people." stand the necessity to pass on to coming generations a stronger spirit in resistance; less confusion than we had." I believe we live in a time when our oppressors have conditioned us to be reactionary, not to think. . . . Almost every time, we react to something that they do, and every time that happens, it means that we continue to be manipulated. We're not laying out an effective resistance to break away from that manipulation. I've seen the white people try to do it through politics-worker's rights, women's. rights, equal rights, or whatever. But all of these are only parts of a total. The earth is our total existence. If we can just understand that, maybe we'll learn to love ourselves, liberate ourselves. Let's not confuse tactics and consciousness. You don't know what you're going to have to do in your struggle for liberation, militarily or politically, but you've got to do it based on something stronger than hate. Let's not get caught up in the romantic rhetoric of revo- ·lution, because revolution isn't practical in America. If the American power structure felt jeopardized by revolution, they wouldn't have allowed the selling of Che posters in 1967. For the revolutionary in America, the idea and romanticism of revolution keeps him in his place,. just like the illusionary electoral voting system keeps the citizen in his place. So we've got to find a way to overcome these things. We've got to free our consciousness from what is being imposed upon it. That's a liberation. It's not enough that we're in the right, we've also got to be realistic. Rain: How would you apply that kind of philosophy to Wounded Knee, where you would likely have a feeling of hatred toward·your oppressor? Trudell: We get confused in out feelings sometimes. You have a feeling of anger. You see that there is an enemy come to destroy you. You can deal with that enemy out of anger just as well as you can out of hate. You can be just plain pissed off about the things that are happening. Hate to me is a different consciousness, because if Indians really hated, there wouldn't be any Indians. The real haters outnumber us. A lot of tini.es we think we _hate something, but we're really just mad at it. At Wounded Knee, it was just a practical matter of survival, and not something based on hate. The U.S. government was launching an attack on the people at Pine Ridge because of the resources on the land. Indian militants were gaining momentum and public support! so the government had to make an cont.-- December 1980 RAIN Page 17
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