Perspective Taking

Perhaps you have been in a disagreement where after you said something, the other person said, “Well, that’s one perspective.” We may not have welcomed the comment, because we might have thought what we were saying was an undisputed fact. There is great wisdom, however, in stepping back and looking at an issue from multiple perspectives.

I was thinking of perspective taking recently when I heard again what was perhaps Woody Guthrie’s most famous song, “This Land Is Your Land.” I always thought the song was opposed to private property, a song that expressed Guthrie’s support for poor folks who could afford little to nothing. Guthrie encouraged everyone in the United States to view our country, from the redwoods to the Gulfstream waters, from California to the New York island, as belonging to all of us, the public, not just the rich. This land was made for you and me.

Someone pointed out to me that this folksong has a different and quite bitter meaning when heard from the perspective of Native Americans. Most of us non-native people forget that this land, which Guthrie celebrates as belonging to all of us, actually once belonged to native communities. Treaty after treaty agreeing that much of our country rightfully belonged to native tribes was broken so that native peoples today look out from postage-stamp- size plots of land at what was once all theirs. For them, Guthrie’s song should be titled “This Land Is Not Your Land.”

Every summer, I am reminded of the difference that perspective-taking makes. In a part of northern Wisconsin where we vacation, a state highway runs along one side of Potawatomi land. Branching off to one side is a road named for a family of early settlers, Youngs Road. I thought little of that, given that almost all the roads, streets, and towns in the United States are named for individuals or prominent families.

But then I noticed the name of the same road as it branches off in the other direction and onto Potawatomi lands. The name of that clearly-marked road is “Everybody’s Lane.” That name made me take a second look when I first saw it, before I realized that for the Potawatomi, the land and lakes are sacred, given to them by the Creator. From their perspective, it’s blasphemous, a sign of hubris, for anyone to claim that they can “own” land where their ancestors lived from the beginning of time.

Currently, native peoples are facing a different challenge. The president is encouraging sports teams, such as the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians, to return to their previous names, the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians. From his perspective, those who own a team should have the right to name it what they want and portray any logo that they want. That’s like Youngs Road.

But from a Native American perspective, those names and logos are reminders of a painful history of defeat, subjugation, and appropriation of images. Put another way, for Native Americans, those names and images hurt.

I have to believe the president knows that those names are hurtful. Perhaps he believes that those who were defeated in the past have no say in the matter. Perhaps he believes that the victors can do whatever they want.

The truth is otherwise. Teaching in a liberal arts college for over forty years convinced me that truly educated people are humble because they understand that they don’t understand an issue until they view it from a variety of perspectives. Conversely, ignorant people are often arrogant, insisting that their view is the only one that matters.