U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo Responds to McGirt v. Oklahoma Decision

In an Op-Ed for the New York Times, U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Joy Harjo responded to the United States Supreme Court's historic McGirt v. Oklahoma decision last week, in which the justices ruled that much of Oklahoma is still sovereign tribal land. "All day," writes Harjo, "I kept thinking how this decision was girded by centuries of history; how the news would be received by the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who have left this world." More: 

The elders, the Old Ones, always believed that in the end, there will be justice for those who care for and who have not forgotten the original teachings, rooted in a relationship with the land. I could still hear their voices as we sat out on the porch later that evening when it cooled down. Justice is sometimes seven generations away, or even more. And it is inevitable.

When you understand history this way — as linked stories — then it is no longer a misty past. My ancestor Monahwee, six generations back, was one of the Red Stick warriors who fought directly against Andrew Jackson, against the illegal theft of our lands in the Southeast, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

The Old Ones have always reminded us that we will be here long after colonization has worn itself out. An elder explained to me once, pressing her fingers together, “See this?” I could see no light between her fingers. “This is the time since European settlement.” Then, she spread her arms from horizon to horizon: “This is the whole of time.”

The Supreme Court decision last week affirmed what those of us who live close to our history here know already. Still, we weren’t sure what was going to happen because we do not usually fare well in courts. We have always been dogged by legal fictions and false narratives. In the Declaration of Independence we are referred to as “the merciless Indian savages” on “our frontiers.”

That a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court stood with four other justices and followed the rule of law, instead of bowing to political arguments, is striking: a decision of integrity. It provides hope that the rule of law upon which this country is based can be applied equally.

Continue reading at the New York Times.