In a letter to the editor, BRIDGE members write, "Reflecting on, learning about, reckoning with and repairing this country's colonialist and genocidal legacy is hard, uncomfortable, invaluable work that we must engage in by following the leadership of those most deeply impacted."
At least a few residents of Great Barrington were aware of Laura Secord by the early 1900s. When the Ingersoll home was first moved and then torn down during the construction of the Mason Library, structural artifacts were removed and sent to Canada for a Laura Secord exhibit.
In her letter Kate Burke writes: “In signing this proclamation (presented by the Du Bois Legacy Committee) not only did the Selectboard take a step toward social equity in our community but it also set in motion what can become a real honest healing.”
Truly, this vast space was filled with love as well. Performers from New Zealand to Hawaii, from British Columbia to South Dakota to the Berkshires, thrilled us with a generous display of their indigenous song and dance traditions.
Broken treaties are the most commonly recognized mechanisms for the displacement of tribal nations from their ancestral lands. Less well-known are the destruction of native cultural practices, starvation, wars of attrition and the outright murder of more than 2 million Native Americans.
Voter suppression schemes target specific populations, generally nonwhites, and make it onerous or impossible to register, to get to the poll and cast a vote. Recent examples include the shenanigans in Georgia, North Carolina and North Dakota.
The Coast Guard, the agency we rely on during the darkest days of disaster, is about to be shuttered for the sake of a wall and a temper tantrum. Ready to move to Canada yet?
As much as I enjoy the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, I occasionally crave opera, as well, and the Glimmerglass Festival is central New York’s answer to outdoor classical flair.
Why are we honoring a massacre? On the other hand, how many monuments are there to Native American maltreatment? It’s a rare admission of how fiercely we wrestled New England from its indigenous people.
