BT06-01TEb

Be the Bold Type.

These aren't just tees. They're what we stand for.

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Say it with us: When we say Anti-Shame, we mean “working to abolish sin & guilt & penance & othering.”

I was raised Catholic, so sin & guilt are cultural DNA. Sin, especially, is how you are supposed to understand your place in the world. All people sin. But there are those who are saved from their sin through the Body and Blood of Christ. And there are those damned to hell. 

The summer after I graduated high school, I was invited on a mission trip to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. We were going to help paint houses, provide summer school, and learn more about the Oglala Lakota people, including a visit to Wounded Knee and attendance at a pow wow. As the trip unfolded, I grew more uncomfortable with my role as Catholic providing charity preaching about Christ’s salvation. 

It hit especially close to home when the history of the Wounded Knee Massacre was shared with me. 20 U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for the slaughter of up to 300 Oglala Lakota men, women, & children. With that medal, the State saved murders because the State wanted to save itself. I finally understood how the State & the Church use law & doctrine to justify their own murderous ways, and how guilt & sin were the basis of both.      

I protested to the Priest chaperoning us that what we were doing was a subtle form of Wounded Knee. Our aid was conditioned on the premise that we also got to preach salvation, and who are we to save anyone. He told me this was the way things are; who are we to question its order.   

I knew immediately that if this was the order of things, I was not among the saved. And that began my long journey of healing myself from sin & guilt & shame. 

A book that I read after visiting Wounded Knee was Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. It is still one of the best books that chronicles the lives, stories, and histories of Wounded Knee. 

One book that is helping me better understand and practice solidarity with Indigenous politics today is The Red Deal by The Red Nation. I highly recommend it. It is short, direct, and grounded, and it offers concrete actions we all can take to advance a politics of “climate justice and grassroots reform and revolution.”