Why write?

A view from our family’s land in the Lower Brule reservation.

My first published article was an op-ed in the campus newspaper. I was studying earth science at the time, and the local libertarian edge lord published an opinion piece arguing that American Indians received unfair “handouts” from the federal government. Hundreds of treaties ceding land and resources and other nefarious acts of outright theft say otherwise. I didn’t write the part in the Constitution that reads treaties are the “supreme law of the land.” Patriots love their constitution until it comes to Indigenous treaties. And thus began my writing career.

Writing has always been a challenge and a source of existential dread. My test scores in reading and writing, whether on the SATs, ACTs, or GREs, were consistently lower than those in math and science. Graduate school didn’t help. My writing suffered greatly after reading French poststructuralists Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The assigned reading lists often encouraged a cumbersome, jargon-filled way of communicating that usually took a high level of deciphering. Graduate school didn’t teach writing or teaching, even though my profession requires me to do both. Theory is essential, and I still read a lot of it, but trying to understand how an author uses or misuses words like “reify” is annoying.

It was only after a brief stint as a beat reporter for Indian Country Today to make ends meet that I learned the power of narrative and voice. This type of journalism forces you to argue with facts and compelling stories. It teaches brevity and how to distill a complicated issue into its bare components while walking a reader through the lives of people who illuminate larger structural problems and social realities. It also forces you to talk to regular people, knock on their doors, and have honest conversations with people you may not otherwise encounter. The stakes and outcomes are different for journalism than for academic scholarship.

The power of everyday people came alive through the stories I heard on the streets of bordertowns, where Native people survive a literal meatgrinder of violence that steals their body parts, families, children, relatives, livelihoods, dignity, homes, and often their very lives. Those experiences still haunt me. The inevitable violent confrontation with settler society occurs more often off the reservation in urban spaces. Those places are familiar, though they may seem less “authentic” than the reservation experience. I saw myself, my family, and my friends in the Native people who carved out lives in places that tried so hard to erase them. If Native people are understood at all by settler society at all, it is primarily through our erasure and disappearance.

Our forced absence in the public discourse is paradoxically our continued presence on this land. It is how America has come to know us as non-existent. It’s easier on the mind to cognitively disappear entire nations than to be reminded of one’s own tenuous relationship with this land. Erasure, in this instance, is a survival mechanism. The stories of bordertowns make white people uncomfortable. Cities are supposed to be modern, progressive, and tolerant. Indian hating is supposed to happen elsewhere in the Western states and remote, rural areas. While this is true, its most violent expressions also happen in liberal enclaves and “sanctuary cities.”

Most of what people impart during an interview never makes it onto the page. An hours-long discussion sometimes produces only a single quote or none at all. The skill learned is not writing the final product. It’s taking the time to listen, really listen. Mass media and social media value soundbites over deep engagement. Attention and critical thinking are sacrificed for clicks and profit.

Listening is a skill my father taught me. He spoke quietly, often not looking at me, and sometimes refusing to repeat himself if I missed a word. It frustrated me. There was a lesson. What’s more important than what is happening right now? Where is your head? Where are your ears? Be present. Respect the person in front of you. Lakota oral tradition requires a high level of attention to a speaker. There are nuances that, if missed, throw off an entire understanding. My dad isn’t some wise Indian sage. He’s just a regular guy trying to teach his sons to be respectful and patient listeners. That’s as important as an elder imparting cultural knowledge through storytelling. Only the contexts are different.

That’s why I turned to podcasting. It allows people to tell their own stories, and the formula of question, answer, and discussion is a vehicle for elevating someone else's voice and perspective. My interview style allows people to tell their truth however they want. My hand in editing is minimal. The long-form, casual style enables the listener to marinate on what the speaker is saying. It is often faster than print journalism. A story may sit for weeks and, in some cases, months before publication.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, I carried an H4N Zoom recorder everywhere. My older brother gave it to me for Christmas when I started doing interviews over a decade ago. When I started podcasting, everything was in-person. I used the Zoom recorder as a hand-held mic, similar to the man-on-street interviews you see on local news. Those days are over—for now. Now, we sit at computers, sometimes worlds apart, to record an interview. It’s not better or worse, just fundamentally different than in-person conversations. It requires a different kind of listening.

After hundreds of interviews since launching The Red Nation Podcast, I noticed that I began writing much less. This lull coincided with major professional and personal changes. After writing Our History Is the Future, I had unrealistic writing expectations and goals for myself. That book was cathartic for me and elevated my writing skills. For about a month, I sat on my aunt’s couch, piecing together more than a decade of archival research, research notes, and interviews I had conducted about the Water Protector Movement. It began with my own family history of writers and intellectuals, such as my grandfathers Andrew, George, and Frank. Later, I learned my great-grandmother Cornelia Swalla read and wrote the correspondence for my great-grandfather Reuben Estes, the first chairman of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. Reuben was illiterate, a fact my grandfather Frank imparted to me the first and last time we spoke when I interviewed him in 2013.

Whenever I feel like I'm experiencing imposter syndrome, I remember my family history—how writing helped shape our tribal history. The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote that writing and reading were necessary for thinking and living well. He encouraged the young philosophers not to create statues of their philosopher heroes. A statue is a dead thing. Imagine yourself as the child of the greats, and they are your role models guiding your development of virtues. I think of myself as the son and grandson of great Lakota people. That is not an abstract connection. It is part of every Lakota person’s lineage. My writing and intellectual practice continue a long tradition. That makes me feel less like an imposter or individual and part of a multitude of ancestors from the past, relatives alive in the present, and those forthcoming.

Since December 2023, I have been keeping a daily journal. As part of that practice, I have mostly removed myself from all social media except X and Substack. The fast-paced, click-bait news cycle doesn’t allow deep thinking or writing. Red Scare is where I’m committing to writing regularly on topics that interest me. Instead of the “fast news,” this blog is more of a “slow news.” It’s a research journal.

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