Activist, writer, hip hop artist, lawyer and speaker Gyasi Ross visits Western’s Performing Arts Center theatre for 2 days of events
By Gwen Frost
AS Review: You’ve got a lot of different mediums! Which medium is the most therapeutic for you?
Gyasi Ross: I never thought about in regards to therapy, but I think most natural for me is writing. I’m generally an insular person and I exist within my own head a whole bunch –and that sounds really, really self-centered– but I do! I think a lot of writers do, it’s a by-product I think of growing up in largely rural areas where you didn’t have a lot of outlets. My two sisters are way older than me, and they were (like most women of color, native women) expected to have grown-woman responsibilities at a young age, and I was allowed to be a little boy at those same ages. So they were already out of the house doing homework and stuff, and then my little brothers, 13 years younger than me, so there was a big gap, and my only form of catharsis was basketball and writing.
AR: What do you think is the most inspiring mediums for others to experience?
GR: You know the one that gets the biggest reaction is when, people like hearing me speak. They like it. And a lot of the time its native people who aren’t used to seeing us in those sort of public capacities. And it’s not because we haven’t been capable, but instead because we’ve been generally precluded from those mediums. And so, a lot of times when I speak in places that challenges authority or gives history in a way that is more complete than the educational institutions, a lot of the time those people seem to be very enthused and moved by that.
AR: What are you hoping for people to take away from this event?
GR: What I always hope for- well- it’s different for different audiences. For example, one of my little brothers, he’s a native kid who goes to Northwest Indian College, said that they’re bringing a bus over from NWC. That’s one audience. And for them, it’s really important for native young folks, native people in general, it’s important for them to take away that we are the best storytellers in the world. And when we tell our stories, we have a prophetic quality and power to us. And when we tell those stories bravely, courageously, unabashedly, we can literally change the trajectory of history.
For non-native audiences, it’s that listening to native people is not an exercise in political correctness or philanthropy or altruism. But instead, and we see it here in the Pacific Northwest more starkly than any place else in the country, but it’s actually a matter of survival.
We have something of value to say, and it’s important that all audiences listen to us. Again, not out of political correctness, but because it helps all of us be stronger.
AR: What does it look like to you to hold a space for social change or a difficult conversation?
GR: For me, it’s not difficult. We have people who have been doing this for a long time. These conversations are new to a mainstream audience, but to us these are things we’ve known about, this is ancestral knowledge, and I happen to be a very mediocre conduit for that information, but one that does for better or worse have the platform. To me it’s not about social change, it’s not even about justice, or activism. I don’t consider myself an activist, Gwen. I consider myself a storyteller. I take that note from one of my mentors and role models Winona LaDuke who says that she’s just a concerned citizen and a mother whose trying to ring that alarm. We come from cultures that have town criers who are charged with telling people the truth. And then hopefully people respond in a correct way to that truth. But that’s not activism, that’s self-preservation. No, I want my kids to be cool. I want all my family to be cool.
AR: So you’re a father, what do you want your kids to know, above all else, I know that’s a big question…
GR: That’s a huge question.
AR: Okay, well, in terms of growing up in the PNW what’s something you would tell them every morning?
GR: Well I do tell all of my kids this is literally ground zero for the treaty rights struggle for native people. And what the treaty rights struggle really is, is a fancy way of saying this is a struggle for humanity, for people to recognize that native people are actually human beings. That’s really what treaties are about, that we’re human beings, and you’re going to recognize that.
This is ground zero, and as such, you’re in the midst of that struggle every single day and this is not an abstract thing, it is something that is live and real every single day.
AR: Both titles of your books have the word “Indian” and I was curious, because “Native American” is used more and more frequently in society, so how does this intentional vernacular decision you made for your books reflect your experiences, and why did you use this terminology?
GR: That’s a great question! You ask great questions, that I haven’t been asked yet. Yeah, it was intentional. One reason is I’m a lawyer, and American Indian, Alaskan/Native is the legal terminology that the United States Government still chooses to use in regards to Native people.
ASR I didn’t know that!
GR: Yeah, Native American has literally zero legal effect. That’s important right? Number two, is it’s a generational thing. I was raised a lot by grandparents, and older generations of native people almost invariably say “Indian.”Thirdly, I use the word “native” a lot, because I’m largely a product of this generation. I use native in speech. But I realize that my audience is not me, and I wanted to use terminology that different generations feel access to, and not make it an attempt to sound smarter than I really am. Because I’m really not that smart! I wanted something that was very accessible and not speak over, or beyond what other people were really processing.