By Mordecai Specktor

Powwow in the Parking Lot
In late May, the North Pine County News reported on the Hinckley-Finlayson High School graduation ceremony:

“Two students were recognized as salutatorian, the student with second highest academic honor, and valedictorian, the student with the highest academic honor …  “One-by-one, the students lined up and walked on stage as their name was called. Families cheered and exclaimed their pride in their students as each senior moved their tassel, proclaiming they finally finished their high school careers.

“As the ceremony wound down and the crowd slowly left the school, loud drumming could be heard just across the street. A large powwow from the Native American community was set up for all graduates to attend and to celebrate their success. The Native American students were ushered in by the Ojibwe honor guard, who danced to the drums and presented their flags. They made a circle in the roped off parking lot. Once the drumming was done, the powwow began.”

The newspaper article did not mention that the drum song took place in the school’s parking lot, rather than inside during the graduation ceremony, because the school board had banned it. Controversy ensued.

“A northeastern Minnesota school district with a large Native American student population is facing blowback after its board voted unanimously … to forbid a tribal drum group from singing at its upcoming high school graduation ceremony,” Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“The Hinckley-Finlayson School Board voted Monday [May 13] without comment not to allow the performance of an Ojibwe traveling song at the May 24 graduation, after the district’s superintendent said allowing the song would create ‘legal risk’ if community members feel it is endorsing a religious group.

“The vote prompted a school walkout … during which about 40 students left school ten minutes early and marched around the school.

“Hinckley-Finlayson High School social studies teacher Alyssa Vickstrom, who’s also an advisor for the school’s Native American Student Association, or NASA, said they were joined by family and other community members.”

I’ve been a consistent advocate for the separation of church and state. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution established the proverbial wall of separation, proscribing governments from favoring one religion. However, one faction of the population, Christian nationalists, would like to impose its religious ideology on everybody. Coinciding with the rise of Trump in recent years, Christian supremacists have grown louder in demanding that the U.S. be ruled by Christians, and that Christians hold sway in every area of society — the so-called Seven Mountains Mandate.

Since I was a young teenager, I’ve been fascinated by the right-wing extremists in this country. I recall writing a high school report on the John Birch Society, a conspiracy-mongering, right-wing group that saw fluoridation of drinking water as part of a domestic Communist plot. The Commies were everywhere, as per the Birchers.

Now the right-wing extremism responsible for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 people, including 19 children, has been mainstreamed. (For younger readers unfamiliar with this horrific chapter in U.S. history, watch “An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th,” on HBO.) Partisans of the Republican Party, which has been on a long descent into insanity since the beginning of the Reagan presidency, in 1981, has thrown in with Trump, parroting his lies and bullshit. They seem intent on upending democracy in the U.S.

Over recent years, violent, bigoted and racist conspiracy nuts have perpetrated a number of mass killings that targeted racial and ethnic communities, from the Oct. 27, 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre, in Pittsburgh, to the shooting of Latino shoppers, on Aug. 3, 2019, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and the mass killing of mainly Black residents of Buffalo, New York, on May 14, 2022, at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket.

I’m likely missing some other examples of carnage committed by disgruntled individuals with access to military-style weapons. Things are becoming progressively crazier in this country.

Getting back to the Hinckley-Finlayson High School affair, which is not on par with the previously mentioned cases of mass murder, I don’t understand the thinking of the school board members. The Ojibwe traveling song that the school board banned from the graduation ceremony is an expression of the lifeway of a significant group of students.

In an article published on MinnPost.com, Melanie Benjamin, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, noted that “the song was played last year without any problem. This year there are 21 Native American students graduating, about a third of the class, and they’ve worked hard to reach this important milestone. They overcame obstacles and defied the statistics that often weigh against Native American students. This travel song isn’t just music; it’s a salute to their grit and success. It’s a way for us to acknowledge their journey, and it helps us heal old wounds and look ahead with hope.”

The school board should reconsider its benighted decision ahead of the 2025 high school graduation.