Blue Like A River: A raised fist is not a symbol of peace.

When you see the raised fists, no amount of clever language will hide what they are really after.

Blue Like A River: Introduction

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Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

None of the prayer meetings I’ve been to have involved raised fists.

I mention this because this was supposed to be a peaceful, prayerful protest and there sure were a lot of raised fists.

Of all the hand gestures you could make during a protest, the two favorites seem to be the middle finger and a raised fist. The middle finger doesn’t need explaining, especially considering how people drive today, but the raised fist is a bit more curious.

The image of a raised fist has a long history in protest and revolution movements, particularly in the 20th century. It’s been used for political, social, and economic reasons. It’s been used by white supremacists, feminists, gay rights, Black Panthers, the U.S. Communist Party, French and Soviet revolutions, Serbia, Cuba, early 20th century labor movements, and even Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists in the 21st century.¹

Clearly, the fist is not universally tied to right or left ideology. Both sides use it. Heck, toddlers use it. It is not a symbol of a particular political belief, but of a particular attitude. In other words, unless you know the context, you can’t possibly know the meaning.²

The interesting thing to notice about the raised fist as a symbol is whether it’s holding anything. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the fist appeared as a standalone symbol. Prior to that, the fist was shown holding something. The fist was not the tool. It held the tool, which was the means for change.³

I was curious about the use of the raised fist during the protest, and asked Frank Arrow if it was a traditional Native symbol. He shared some information with me about the use of the raised fist in Native American cultures:

For an indigenous representation of a raised fist, you must go to East Asia, where different hand formations play a major part in Hindu, Buddhist, and Shinto iconography. You’d see the Okinawan goddess Megami, quieting the stormy waters with one hand while implying strong response with the other. But in Native American symbolism? Nope.

Half a century ago, members of the nascent Red Power movement, especially the American Indian Movement, patterned themselves after the Black Panther Party, and also the Japanese student radicals that AIM co-founder Dennis Banks had seen when he was stationed in Japan. He was impressed with their tactics, and even tried to duplicate the Japanese cadence calls when organizing Native supporters. (It wasn’t a good fit – Native Americans notoriously resist regimentation and fixed formations beyond social dances.) The National Student League (Zengakuren) and its splinter successors formed a virtual counter-military, reaching a peak in 1968 with thousands of armed Japanese radicals battling police in the streets.

I had not been aware of any of what Arrow described, but there was a startling level of violence in the United States during the late 1960’s and 1970’s that most people seem to have forgotten. After the 1970’s, the use of the fist as an icon of resistance and rebellion declined in the United States, until it started to pop up in the mid 2000’s on posters for EarthFirst! and music albums and materials that dealt with “justice” issues.

As with any symbol, though, it’s super easy to commercialize. Even Howard Stern adopted it to protest FCC regulations. And, in the Dakota Access protest, the raised fist symbol helped sell a lot of product, raise money, and looked good on a T-shirt. The entire world raises its fist in defiance while ringing up sales on the cash register, I guess. We’ll buy stuff from the Rebel With A Cause.

It’s important to understand some of the history about the use of the fist as a symbol because this protest was constantly packaged and sold as peaceful and prayerful with a big old fist slapped onto it.

A fist is not a symbol of peace. It is a weapon. It is defiance. It is rebellion.

I don’t have much respect for anyone who desires violence and confrontation, but even less when they do it at the fringes of a peaceful camp so that they can have a sanctuary benefit from the public relations the camp is churning out. That’s not bravery. That’s not a warrior. That’s hiding behind skirts, which takes us back to the 1960’s protest movements and a technique that became known as “chicks up front”.

“Chicks up front” is basically something that makes law enforcement look bad, just in time for the camera. Raise one fist and use the other to push the ladies forward.

In violent protests, women would be sent to the front of the protest marches, while protesters further back (some wearing helmets to protect themselves from the violence they knew was coming) would pelt police with “rocks, bricks, hunks of concrete, and water balloons filled with human waste. When police first moved to arrest the rioters, they first had to wade through lines of women creating a media-ready agitprop worthy of the Bolsheviks.”⁴

In September 2016, when private security forces used dogs to try to keep protesters separated from pipeline construction workers, this technique seemed to be in play. If you watch the video from the day, you will notice that mostly women were walking into the dogs. Protesters had horses and their own dogs with them when they eventually forced their way into that secured area of private property, and as a group, there were obviously men present. But what were the stories that came out of that day? Women are being bitten on the breast, and children are being hurt.

Chicks up front.

In November, when the protesters came into the cities of Bismarck and Mandan, I was able to see some of this in person. One afternoon, while standing on the sidewalk along Rosser Avenue across from the locked-down Federal Building and post office, I could hear the call for women and “arrestables” to go to the front lines. They were clearly getting ready to stage a moment. The Bismarck Police Department wisely did not engage them, choosing instead to form a blockade with cars and officers where 3rd Street met Rosser Avenue. Despite significant screaming, law enforcement parked themselves resolutely. After a few hours, the protesters left.

I’d initially thought I was just mistaken about the whole lady-human-shields tactic, that it was coincidental, but in my interview with Sheriff Kirchmeier, he also noted that women and children were often put on the front of the line.

Raised fist held high while...hiding behind skirts? Please.

For a movement that seemed to legitimize itself because of specific Native American culture, the raised fist was a stunningly generic and therefore meaningless symbol. In commenting that everyone from President Donald Trump to celebrities use the raised fist to punctuate their existence as some sort of bolduppercase thumbs up, one writer hit on the truth: “The raised fist appears to mean everything and nothing at the same time.”⁵

All of that felt like supposition, though, until Frank Arrow told me a story about the raised fist, and why it has no place where there is supposed to be peace.

Way back at the end of the 20th century, I organized a series of annual learning events, inviting Native American Elders from various nations to provide mostly-white suburbanites the opportunity to learn about the history of those who had been here before them. Lenape, Innu-Montagnais, Lakota, Cherokee, Hopi, Micmac, Mapuche, and others.

One year, the senior speaker was a Shawnee-Lumbee Elder with Cherokee connections. He was a tall, imposing man, in great shape for his years, and a WWII veteran, and wore a beaded Stetson. He looked like a taller version of the Cherokee Sage, Will Rogers, right down to the bad haircut. He had also been in training for leadership since age 19.

Another group of speakers were supporters of convicted murderer/political prisoner Leonard Peltier, and had brought a large drum. As they were singing the well-known “Peltier Freedom Song”, each drummer raised a free hand in the clenched fist salute. After several songs, the program continued.

I saw the Elder, whom I’ll simply call Grandfather Eugene, walk over to them, and started talking. After a few moments, the leader’s head dropped. He looked surprised, even ashamed, but nodded. After a few minutes, they shook hands and parted. Then Grandfather Eugene turned and fixed his glare on me. As he got closer, his face got stormier. I braced myself for the lightning that was sure to strike.

It seems they had admitted they weren’t really of Indian ancestry as they had told me, but were genuinely doing this to raise funds to help the Peltier case. The ends justify the means … unless you’re talking to an Elder who knows better. But most of the scolding hadn’t been about their claim or their cause, but about the raised, clenched fists. In Grandfather’s view of things, they had just desecrated what was supposed to be a prayerful, spiritual gathering of learning and reconciliation just as much as if someone had drawn a knife or a gun.

So why was he more upset with me? They were just punk kids, true believers in something current, ignorant of real tradition. I didn’t have that luxury; I was in a leadership position and held to a higher standard. I had organized the event, invited the speakers, invited the drum, and had allowed the proceedings to be sullied by raised, clenched fists. And then, I had even gone along with them, and raised my own fist!

The day ended with a new lesson for me. There’s no place for a clenched fist at a prayer meeting. There’s no place for confrontational behavior of any kind.

Arrow then went on, explaining how it all tied into what he’d seen during the Dakota Access pipeline protest.

I watched radicalized Natives and their would-be allies confront, insult, threaten, and physically assault those they considered their enemies, and claim that they were peaceful, prayerful and unarmed. It ended better than it might have.

In February, I saw the flooded, smoldering ruins of the protest camps, heard the complaints of ranchers whose herds had been decimated, the threats of rape and murder against the spouses and children of law enforcement, as well as accusations of sexual assaults within the camps. This recalled to me the words of the Roman historian and senator Publius Tacitus:

“Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.” (“They plunder, they slaughter, and they rape and steal, this they falsely name empire; and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.”)

Substitute the word “sovereignty” for “empire”, and it fits perfectly. This quote has been applied to the Duke of Cumberland in Scotland, to General Sherman in Georgia, to the “carpet bombing” of Vietnam, and to many others.

I also remembered the words of my own ancestors, when they agreed to lay down their weapons and once again accept the authority of the United States, and of one of our prophets. He had been a chief, but realizing that the balance of power had changed permanently, he abolished the position of warchief as a class, and the warrior society as a training process. From that point, he followed a strict path of non-confrontation, and has become a great role model for the medicine societies.

Their words came back to me many times in 2016. I have heeded them.

I appreciated Arrow’s words. When seeing the raised fists in the protests, most of what I had to go on was a general feeling, a whispering sense that peace didn’t start with a closed hand, but an open one. Only the latter allows you to give and to receive.

1. Cushing, Lincoln “A Brief History of the ‘Clenched Fist’ Image.” Docs Populi. 6 Mar 2016. Web. 12 Mar. 2017

2. Orr, Niela. “What Does The Raised Fist Mean In 2017?” BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed. 1 Feb 2017. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

3. Cushing, Lincoln “A Brief History of the ‘Clenched Fist’ Image.” Docs Populi. 6 Mar 2016. Web. 12 Mar. 2017

4. Leaf, Jonathan. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties. New York: Distributed by Perseus Distribution, 2009. Print.

5. Orr, Niela. “What Does The Raised Fist Mean In 2017?” BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed. 1 Feb 2017. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.