Third of July, and the Fourth of July - Remembering Stonechild Chiefstick
July 3rd, 2022, my kids fight-play-laugh. The dogs romp-jump-bark. If you follow me, I’m serious, except when I’m not. Family and close friends know I love, and laugh. And, it’s true, I am sad. I will not pull all parts of myself out of sadness and grief.
This morning we grab a few coffees and swing by our favorite fireworks stand. A friend works here, and we gift equal exchange coffee, served black, no sugar, no cream. He smiles, and keeps all three coffees for himself, before he reluctantly shares. For the fifth year in a row, Luis and I walk back and forth down the fireworks stand and discuss what we might buy. For the second year in a row, we mention Stonechild Chiefstick, and allow ourselves to get serious together.
The other day, a family friend told me, “I just push through the pain, store it away, forget, because nobody cares.”
(The “therapist-in-me” wants him to be curious, and hope. Then I remember we have to survive in a culture where most everyone doesn’t care, or are actually hostile.)
Stonechild Chiefstick didn’t even get a hashtag. A hashtag shows some significance and he didn’t even get that. Soon eclipsed by other lynchings across the nation, Poulsbo’s own scars of race, and power embed themselves on each of us because we easily forget.
I look at our friend.
Luis says, “We aren’t really celebrating, we just want to blow shit up.”
Our friend says, “I can get behind that.”
We return to our car, arms full. I smell coffee, feel sadness.
The distant sirens…
The setting sun comes slowly every third of July. In Poulsbo, Washington, for as long as I can remember, exploded mortars, and fountains. We oo-ed and awe-ed on cue. It doesn’t matter if Poulsbo fireworks are small-ish, and awkwardly timed. We yelled and cheered, with barbeque sticky fingers, and full bellies of brownies.
July 3rd, 2019, many of us gathered to watch these fireworks at a friend’s house.
We, the #supersixcastillejos , snuck around the pool, and greeted friends. I stationed myself by the chips, drink in hand, scanning the crowd of friends. We were late, but that’s okay.
Ready to spread my blanked on the large acre of grass below the outdoor heated pool, anticipating the fireworks, I saw flashing lights, an ambulance.
In the thick of what I knew to be a typically packed crowd on the waterfront, ambulance lights dominated the scene. We were across a wide body of water, and yet I imagined the screams. Scrolling through Facebook, I saw conflicting stories of a man being shot, screwdriver, kids screaming, police chasing a drug addict.
Who knows? We didn’t. We were relying on the play by play of Facebook stories of strangers.
2019 Poulsbo Fireworks never happened, and we never gathered with those friends again.
And, a citizen of the Chippewa-Cree tribe of Rocky Boy reservation in Montana, and close member of our local community, Stonechild Chiefstick was shot to death by a local police officer. Crowds reported he had a screwdriver on his person. Mostly white folks witnessed a white officer shoot this man. The officer who committed the murder was responsible for 20% of the small police department’s use of force incidents. No accountability.
I am not surprised. The normalization of violence against Folks of Color is a part of the formation of our country. Our small, Northwest town is an integral part of historical racism, systemic injustice, and legacy of colonization.
“Let’s take a pause. Pause.” Resmaa Menakem stated on Friday.
Let’s pause. You the reader, and me the writer.
Here, six of us mingle in our house, between bickering and connecting. I take short breaks to lie down flat on my back. Birds chirp, then sputter and stop.
Permission.
Tears drop. My nose fills with snot. I rub my eyes.
For a few minutes, until the other four or five humans in the house demand my attention, I weep.
These aren’t sobs. These are tears.
I pull a heavy body off the bed, and return to the kitchen.
We cook. We play video games.
Between giggles, “I need to lie down for a minute.”
Tears drop. My nose fills with snot. I rub at my eyes.
Guns and police. Whiteness and power. Silence and systemic oppression.
Tomorrow we won’t eat frozen patty hamburgers, artery-clogging hot dogs, or drink liters of soda. The foods that mark a false celebration of independence also threaten to kill us, slowly, but surely. Racism, christian nationalism, gun violence and the anti-life threats of our times, are hidden in churches, nonprofits, and politics. Some lives matter more than others.
Not Buffalo, or Irvine, Uvalde, or Jayland Walker’s story will shock us enough to change. The paddles which electrify our hearts, aren’t built for centuries of hardened callouses.
A painful peeling must begin to dig at the crust which keeps us from feeling the pain of our scars and our perpetration of violence. May we find pause, this July 4th – to create intentional anti-racist communities which feel and see and hear.
May we remember Stonechild Chiefstick.
Because, his life matters.