Pax-salon Mailing List: Fwd: Dakota Scaffold/Dear White People (please share)

[patty guerrero (pattypax]

This email is from Susu Jeffrey and i thought some of you might want to go to 
this.   patty

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Susu Jeffrey <susujeffrey [at] msn.com>
> Subject: Dakota Scaffold/Dear White People (please share)
> 
> 
> Dear White People,                                                            
>                Thursday, June 1, 2017
>  
> Where are you? I am missing you. Please come to the Walker Museum’s sculpture 
> garden under construction in Minneapolis, off Hennepin Avenue to witness the 
> 2-story Dakota scaffold on display in the public park. Come today.
>  
> Tomorrow (Friday, June 2) at 2 pm, it will be de-constructed by an Indian 
> company, left in a pile until it is moved to Fort Snelling for ceremonial 
> burning. 
>  
> This sculpture is a replica of the 1862 gallows where 38 Dakota men were 
> hanged simultaneously, the day after Christmas in Mankato. Quite an 
> engineering feat to drop that main pole and release the floor under the feet 
> of 38 bound men.
>  
> The mass hanging was witnessed by 4,000 people in a kind of orgy of hate and 
> fear after the 6-week Dakota-U.S. War begun by starving Dakota people whose 
> treaty food was locked in warehouses. So much rope was required for the 
> hanging that the event had to be rescheduled from Christmas eve to December 
> 26th.
>  
> Ropes hanging from the huge art scaffold were removed from the plans which 
> was designed as a jungle gym for children whose parents could stand around 
> and read about the sculpture while their kids played on it.    
>  
> California artist Sam Durant originally displayed this scaffold in Germany as 
> an example against capital punishment and mass murder. One might think that 
> an example of mass murder in Germany would be a replica of a Hitler-era 
> crematoria. 
>  
> As a Roma descendant, I researched my gypsy heritage for my first two books 
> (of poetry). One out of ten of the world’s gypsies was murdered under Hitler. 
> It wasn’t just Jews, anarchists, communists, political critics, and 
> physically or mentally disabled persons.
>  
> Interesting that Durant, who was paid a reported $75,000 for “Scaffold,” 
> chose a little known Native American mass murder to encourage a conversation 
> on race or capital punishment. Surely a more infamous example of America’s 
> original sin would have been a replica tree bearing “strange fruit.” Whoa! 
> Wouldn’t that have been a conversation?
>  
> Dakota people and allies are waiting to see you on-site. You will be greeted 
> by a museum’s-worth of poster art fastened to the construction fences. You 
> might miss the trees lining Hennepin Avenue formerly screening traffic noise 
> and city pollution that were removed for the public park makeover.
>  
> Visitors move along the fence line past the Walker building slowly, reading 
> messages, horrified, sympathetic, wondering why “we didn’t know.” The 
> Minnesota scaffold story is international, not simply local news. They say we 
> are bound to repeat our mistakes if we don’t know our history.  
>  
> For specific directions to the nearby free parking lot, google 311 Kenwood 
> Parkway (an apartment building) opposite parking for Parade Stadium and 
> construction workers.
>  
> Hope to see you there—Susu Jeffrey
>