Transcripts

KARAL ANN MARLING: I'm Karal Ann Marling. I teach at the University of Minnesota when they can catch me. I'm a pop culturist, and I'm turning into a pessimist about 1992.

I would think the best thing that could possibly happen in 1992 would be that the Japanese would lower their trade barriers to permit Toys"R"Us to flourish on every street corner in Japan. But it'll never happen. The sun hasn't been out since Christmas. This is not looking like a great new year.

KIKI SONNEN: I'm Kiki Sonnen, former Saint Paul City Council member, and now I'm executive director at Westonka Community Action Network. And I'm optimistic about the new year because more and more people are becoming aware of the need to live in harmony with the Earth and protect the environment and with the recession, even though that's bad news for so many of us. But I think that the good side of it is that people are becoming more attuned to what's truly important in life, like family, friends, and community.

WABUN-ININI: My name is WaBun-Inini in the language of the Chippewa. Or we refer to ourselves as the people of the Anishinaabe. That is my real name. And, of course, my missionary colonial name is Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime representative of the American Indian Movement.

1992 to us, of course, our concerns are the efforts by the United States, Canada, other republics in Central and South America, Spain and others throughout the world who are intensifying their efforts to commemorate the so-called discovery of America by the colonial pirate Christopher Columbus as a cause for celebration or jubilation. Of course, to us, it really marks 500 years of struggle for our survival and the fact that we have survived attests to our deep spiritual and cultural connections with sacred Mother Earth. And I believe that's what allowed us to survive the 500-year American Holocaust.

So we're hopeful in turning around the thinking of people throughout the world that this event cannot be celebrated. But it should memorialize the fact that Indian people, in particular, have been the victims of the American Holocaust.

The other aspect, of course, is with the upcoming Super Bowl and as part of the process of genocide to demean and degrade our culture and our spiritual traditions such as Washington and Kansas City football franchises, the Cleveland and Atlanta baseball franchises and other universities like the University of Illinois, with their demeaning, degrading mascot, that we can seize this opportunity to bring about a change in what these professional and university programs refer to their athletic programs.