11/18/20 - Robert Jensen, John Trudell

On this week’s episode, “First Voices Radio” digs deep into its 28-year-old Archive and brings listeners other interpretations and observations surrounding the American holiday known as “Thanksgiving.”

Part 1:

This interview was first aired in 2005. Robert Jensen is an emeritus professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Austin and a founding board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. In his writing and teaching, Dr. Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. He has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism. Dr. Jensen and Tiokasin discuss the history of Thanksgiving, based on themes in his book, “The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege” (City Lights, 2005).

Part 2:

This is a special broadcast of the late John Trudell’s “Thanksgiving Day Address.” Although Trudell's remarks are from 1980, listeners will be amazed at how his observations have stood the test of time and still ring very true to today. The names of U.S. politicians that Trudell mentions have changed over the years but the issues that Native people faced then and now remain the same. John Trudell (1946-2015) has been identified as a poet, a fighter for Native American rights, an agitator, and lots of other things. But if you were to have asked him which of these descriptions best suits him he would have refused to be pinned down. “Actually I don’t consider myself to be any of those things. They’re things that I do…but they’re parts of me. They’re not the total.” Indeed, Trudell was the complex sum of all that he saw, endured and accomplished in his 69 years, a time in which he experienced more than most people might in several lifetimes. More information about John Trudell can be found at https://www.johntrudell.com/.

Music Selections:

1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song)

Artist: Moana and the Moa Hunters

CD: Tahi (1993)

Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand)

(00:00:44)

2. Song Title: Don’t Abuse the Medicine (July 2020)

Artist: Girls Rising

CD: Released as a Single: https://youtu.be/29rIixMxmIQ

Label: Produced by On Native Ground

(00:26:50)

3. Song Title: The Cleansing

Artist: John Trudell

CD: Tribal Voices (1983)

Label: Effective