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Mr. Red Corn goes to Washington

Pics that inspire design, OFB Field Trips } by Thomas-Ryan-Red-Corn | Comments(0)

On the day before the eve of what is supposed to be one of the most historic days in American history, I found myself at the Wakon Iron in the Pawhuska Indian Village (Wa.hxa.k'o.lin district) lending my support to the singers that had gathered there to help raise money for the Pawhuska wrestling team. Our community had come together and put on a hand game (traditional Native guessing game) to help raise money to support their children in a sport that teaches resilience, respect, and self-discipline; all characteristics that are part of the foundation of a strong community.

As I sat there thinking about the events that would transpire over the next few days I couldn't help but think about the parallels of world I found myself in that exact moment and the one I would be transported to the following morning.

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at five a.m. and headed to the airport to catch my plane. As is customary with flying out of the Tulsa airport, you just never know what you are going to get when you get there. For instance, being plucked for extra security; a favorite past time of mine. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of this experience, the Tulsa airport has now upgraded from the standard procedure of manual groping and now use a space age tube with spinny things. I was ordered into this contraption that looked like it came off of the Star Trek the Next Generation set and these giant black wands rotated around me. When I stepped out, the nice gentlemen was getting some information over his little black ear piece. He then asked me what I had in my right front pants pocket. I pulled out my folding money and showed him. He said "Thanks". At this juncture I'd like to thank the terrorists for giving the airport an excuse to buy some secret spy technology to see into my pants. I feel a lot less violated now than the manual groping I had become so accustomed to.

At any rate, I was on my jet plane heading to my layover spot in the wonderful city of Newark, New Jersey. It was at this point I discovered a strange phenomanon; dudes who appear to be manscaping their eyebrows. Men of all races under the age of 30 seem to be on an eyebrow plucking kick. It appears to be all the rage, I'm sure it will be no time before this stylish fashion sweeps the residents of our community. During my layover in Newark I must have heard a half dozen different languages. Some of which I have no clue of their origins. That's America. And that's the America Obama has inherited. As people assembled at our departure gate, you could see people coming fully decked out in Obamamania. You would have thought we were already there in D.C.

I arrived safely on the ground and upon stepping off the plane, one could tell you had hit the epicenter of Obamamania. Everywhere you looked people of all colors and creeds were decked out and ready to see what was billed as one of the most historic moments in American history.

Now is the part where I tell you that I am a newbie to the world of underground mass transit. After dropping my bags off and parcelling off a little shut eye in my hotel room, I decided it would be a good idea to try my hand at the "Metro", a gamut of 5 or 6 different color coded underground trains that go to and fro all over the city. I studied the map longer than I studied for any test I ever took in school. And upon getting independent verification from three separate transit employees as to my route, I put my dollars in the machine, withdrew my newly purchased transit card and went down the biggest escalator man ever created, where I boarded in a giant cavern that looks like something from Batman's underground lair. I was sitting there waiting for everyone to get on the train when one last guy climbing aboard had the door shut on his backpack. He was inside. His backpack was outside. And he couldn't move. He squirmed like a turtle does when you pick it up by the shell. In my America, I find this funny. He of course did not and I was greeted with a salty look when the doors finally freed him after holding him hostage for a few seconds. For the record I was the only one out of the twenty or so people on that car that laughed.

You would think that in a city large enough to require a mass transit system with an extra one to two million people scheduled to drop in for the shin dig there would be a lot conversation going on inside that metro car, but it was dead silent save movement of our car jostling on the tracks. This is the part of America where I guess we don't talk to each other. I turned quiet time into study hall as I wobbled over to the map on the interior of the car to check, double check and triple check I was headed in the right direction and on the right train. I finally arrived at what I thought was my exit, and was presented with a whole new host of obstacles. I was looking for the Crystal City Hyatt, the location of the Inaugural Pow Wow. Unfortunately for me, no such hotel existed on the maps. Furthermore there were a host of exit passages, I picked the one that looked the least threatening and ended up wondering around underground for another 15 minutes before I was spat out of an elevator in the lobby of a Marriot hotel. The door man there was kind enough to give me the direction of they Hyatt and off I started walking.

Five blocks later and after negotiating some shady looking underpasses I found the Hyatt. I went inside and located the ballroom where the Pow wow was being held. Something I have noticed when you travel eastward from Oklahoma to Indigenous events, the chances of you seeing something bizarre increase exponentially. Your eyes are served various stages of cultural erosion and processes of perceived reclamation, thrown in there with your average pow wow trail folks, who are out there almost every weekend singing and dancing. It was like pow wow trail-mix. Yes, there were some raisins and some m&m's but there were a whole lot of nuts. That's America. And those nuts belong to America.

After the pow wow I successfully turned in for the night by retracing my steps on the metro back to my hotel. At 8am the alarm sounded and myself and the folks whose hotel floor I was crashed out on headed towards the capital. When I entered the station this time an Asian lady handed me a Jews for Jesus pamphlet. I still have not figured that one out, but chalked it up the random quantum mechanics of an American inner city. The metro cars that were holding about twenty last night were now forced to carry over a hundred. We rode to our exit and started hoofing it towards the National Museum of the American Indian (located on the National Mall). I was told I would have some kind of special 5th floor VIP status pass since I did the art work for the Smithsonian's "Out of Many" multi-cultural festival. I hung out with my friends on the 4th floor before heading up to the 5th floor. There wasn't any difference between the floors except the 5th floor had a north facing outdoor balcony to view the inauguration from. Upon stepping onto the balcony you are repeatedly round housed in the face by the breath of Jack Frost until you figure out what many have thought for a long time. The day America sees a black president will be a cold day in hell. Wish granted, it was cold as hell. Welcome to Inauguration day America.

I watched from my perch at the National Museum of the American Indian where I would see every rooftop with sharpshooters and police as far as the eye could see. I was told that Obama had set the record for most death threats against a president-elect. During this day, during one of its greatest hours, America is forced to realize that America's greatest threat maybe itself. Our armed service men and women are not only charged with the task of protecting our citizens from outside threats, but protecting our president from being killed by our citizens. The level at which this fear or this legitimate threat had pervaded the planning of this event was about to be made evident, when following the inauguration roughly one to two million people found the metro stations that delivered them there closed when they tried to leave.

During Obama's swearing in and during his speech, I made what many might consider an odd decision. I didn't watch him. I turned my back to him and looked at what he was looking at. I watched America watch Obama. Because this election has never really been about Obama, it's about the America that elected him. There was a middle aged Native American woman sitting on the floor a few inches from me and halfway through Obama's speech I saw her eyes start to well up. One of the greatest commodities (besides cheeze and condensed milk) you can give to a community is hope. And as a I sat there I couldn't help but wander why she was crying. Was she hopeful? If so, hopeful for what? Perhaps hopeful that things she has experienced in her lifetime won't happen to those that come after her. I wanted to ask, but thought it was best she have her moment.

In another room an elder black man was waving an American flag and dancing joyfully. Next to him, an elderly Mexican immigrant grinned uncontrollably leaning forward in his seat to hang on every word. As you looked around the room you could see how the America the younger generation is inheriting is very different from the ones our parents and grandparents inherited. People are mixed. White, Native, Black, Asian...everything. You saw about every combination you could think of.

At sometimes during the last few years some would say that they thought George Bush thought he was Jesus. And at sometimes during the last year you would think that some people thought Obama was Jesus. Neither could be further from the truth. Obama is not going to come to your house and balance your checkbook no more than he is going to turn water into wine. His message has been clear. It's people that make America better, not its leaders. If we expect Obama to fix all the problems out here on the tall grass prairie we are going to be sorely mistaken. That responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the people that live here. You. Me. Everyone.

Our election process many times is just like that handgame I was at. We do our best to guess, but we don't know how we did till the game is over. What we failed to realize is that we had to come together as a community to afford ourselves that right in the first place. We come together for a slew of various reasons in our community, and things get done. This is where the power of our community lies. And THAT more than anything is what this election was about.

So as a community we can choose one of two paths. We can choose the path where we come together to hash out our differences and find a shared agenda or we can be an America like people on a subway car, not talking to each other. Many times we are blasted by so many political messages that we feel that our choice is at best a guessing game. In addition, many feel, and rightfully so, that the information they receive from media sources can never be objective. America will not really know what they got with Obama until we see the effects of his decisions over the course of his term. And I honestly think the history America witnessed on inauguration day that it's hoping for under his presidency has little to do with Obama being black and more to do with the direction he might take us.

As I set out of the metro station, what I thought was going to be a fifteen minute walk turned into a two hour haul trying to find an open metro station. My path was diverted over and over again as I walked amidst a crowd. We were all trying to get to the same spot, and many of us wanted to take different paths to get there, but we couldn't. That day all of us had make the exact same journey together, along the exact same path; that was only way. Despite the extreme temperatures people were celebratory. As I walked past the capital building with its frozen pond I saw one lone black man ice skating, and was once again reminded that this is America. This is America with our dudes who pluck their eyebrows, old asian lady's representing Jews for Jesus, and our ice skating black men. It might not be the America we see day in and day out in our part of the country but it is the America we are all walking to the same destination with.

At best I try to remain objective in my analyzation of leadership of all levels, but I think this moment is summed up best by a young Kiowa man, who was able to vote for the first time this election when he said, "You know man, I'm actually a little bit proud to be American right now."