Liberally Loving Alaska
JFK at the Alaska State Fair, 1960
Last week a woman called my radio station. She squealed at my producer, “Who is this woman? She sounds like a LIBERAL!”
There is a good reason I sound like a liberal: I am. And the caller would be surprised to learn that this puts me right in step with the history and the foundation of our state.
So much of what I believe stems from equality granted by our constitution. It was written by more Democrats than Republicans yet delegates debated in a spirit of nonpartisanship. One delegate said, “we chose to put the good of Alaska ahead of politics.” There’s nothing in our constitution that puts corporate profits ahead of Alaskans. If you don’t believe me, ask Vic Fischer. We’re a young enough state that you can still have a conversation with one of our founders.
Six years before our country gave women suffrage, Alaska granted women the right to vote. In 1922, a Tlingit chief, Charlie Jones, was jailed for voting. His protest led to Native Alaskans getting the right to vote two years before Native Americans. In 1944, Roberta Schenck, a Native woman, sat in the “White’s Only” section of the movie theatre in Nome. She was dragged out and jailed. Schenck was Alaska’s Rosa Parks. Because of her bravery and the moving testimony of Elizabeth Peratrovich, Territorial Gov. Ernest Gruening signed an anti-discrimination law on February 16, 1945.
A total of eight men have been executed in Alaska; two white, three Native, one “unknown” and two African- Americans. Seventy-five percent of convicted murderers were white, yet 75 percent of those executed were not. The ratio didn’t add up. Botched executions resulted in decapitation and extensive hang time. In 1957, the Territory of Alaska abolished the death penalty.
In 1970, a Republican-ruled Senate decriminalized abortion three years prior to Roe v. Wade. Our privacy laws are the strongest in the country. Do we really need a “Choose Life” license plate?
There is little wonder why Alaska was ahead of the curve. If you fall through the ice, off a boat, or are stranded in the wilderness, a potential rescuer’s gender or race is irrelevant; we’re interdependent.
We are an unlikely bunch of environmentalists. In 1958, the Inupiat village of Point Hope protested the nuclear detonation of Project Chariot to create a port on the North Slope. As a “thank you,” the federal government buried the contamination from the 1962 Nevada Test Site at the Chariot location. The cancer rates are staggering.
In 1988, Homer voted to officially become a “Nuclear Free Zone” in response to a proposed nuclear sub base.
Interior Secretary Wally Hickel imposed tough regulations on oil companies after offshore drilling caused a spill off the coast of Santa Barbara. He advocated making Earth Day a national holiday. His mantra was “wise use without abuse.” Our delegation wants to open up the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas without much regard for enhanced safety precautions-the lessons of BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill a distant memory instead of a current road map.
The progressive history of Alaska has gotten buried under a new wave of conservative transplants who have hauled their cultural prejudices up here along with their baggage. Mega-churches merchandise salvation by fostering a world view that is fearful and polarizing. The Christ I grew up with in Homer feeds the hungry, cures the sick and clothes the naked; the new, transplanted Christ is busy trying to “cure” gays. It’s easy to summarize the homeless, the hungry or sick as a “lifestyle choice,” but statistics tell us one in four homeless are military veterans. My Christ whipped the money-changers from the temple; this new Christ of the Mega-church puts his arm around the money-changers and asks them for a political donation.
I’m all for saving the whales — so there’ll be more for Native Alaskans to hunt.
I don’t need Michigan Militia transplants like Norm Olson to protect my gun rights. And I don’t need legislators to tell me the 30.06 is the official state gun.
With all this progressive history, why does Alaska turn “red” on election night? Sen. Ted Stevens was more Robin Hood than Republican. Yet, despite his legacy, we elect people who would sooner secede than accept federal funding. We vote for presidents who appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, then are shocked when they rule in favor of Exxon over Alaskans.
This isn’t about Democrats vs. Republicans. This is about Alaska values established by our constitution which were a clear reflection of who we wanted to be in the future. We used to not care what bumper stickers were on a car. If it was in a snow bank, we stopped and helped.
Sen. Ernest Gruening delivered his “Let Us End American Colonialism” speech that galvanized Congress to grant us statehood. With Alaskans paying well over $4 at the pump while our oil companies are reaping record profits, who will deliver the “Let Us End Corporate Colonialism” address?
Yes, caller, I am a liberal. A liberal rooted in liberty, economic and social justice for all.
**** Originally ran in the ADN
Nice piece, Shannyn. Alaska does have a model state constitution.
http://juneauempire.com/stories/040107/opi_20070401005.shtml
What little I gleaned from evolutionary psychologist,Satoshi Kanazawa-we are born conservative(evolutionarily familiar) and evolve as liberals(evolutionarily novel). Apparently we don’t all evolve,some choose to stay familiar and conservative. Oh my god they can choose to stay conservative,we’d better take that choice away from them and I mean right now,Mister.
mike from iowa, you never fail to brighten my day. beth.
Mike-
please be very, very wary of Mr Kanazawa.
Very
Wary
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200803/why-we-are-losing-war
He certainly seems to be a strange duck. London School of Economics,the nerve of some people. Thanks for the heads up.
mfi – well to begin with the whole concept of “evolutionary psychology” has a strong component of bogosity to it simply because evolution occurs in populations over generations and through a mechanism of heritable traits, namely genetics. So that is three strikes against the concept from the get go. Behavioral psychology on the other hand has a modicum of credibility because it has some experimental basis.
Like all such issues, they cannot be readily discussed in lay terms, any more than I could effectively argue here that eclogitic and peridotitic diamonds are both endocothonous though some eclogitic examples might have allocthononous antecedants. Sufficiently obscure bafflegab?
IMHO what a great deal of the present debates in our society comes down to is a difference between those whose opinions are grounded in beliefs versus those whose opinions are grounded in evidence. A brief summary of that difference I think is summed nicely by a single quote from Bertrand Russell. “For years we were told that faith could move mountains and no one believed it. Now we are told that atomic bombs can move mountains and everyone believes it.”
Another great job, Shannyn, as usual.
It seems that most of Alaska’s history – until only very recently – was very much like the earliest years of our country. People living in difficult circumstances helped each other without regard for their differences. If a homesteader’s barn burned down on the prairie, the neighbors joined together to help rebuild it. If a family lost everything to a tornado, neighbors gathered food and clothing to give them and helped rebuild their home. No one asked who you voted for in the last election or whether you supported a woman’s right to choose. No one checked your farm wagon for bumper stickers to make sure you were the ‘right kind’. You knew that whoever you helped this week would be there if you needed help next month.
Yes, I know there was terrible discrimination against the Native Americans, and the South obviously had its own ugly issues, but in the very earliest days of this country, most people put aside their petty differences and helped in whatever way was necessary. This country was, in effect, very liberal in those days and has changed, certainly much for the worse, since then. We’ve gone so far in the wrong direction, I wonder if there’s even a way to get back to helping our neighbor instead of hating them.
Although I am rather ‘conservative’ (with a little c) in my own life, I have realized over the years that my outlook on the rest of the world is far more liberal than I ever imagined. I would much prefer to be one of those dreaded ‘libruls’ – to care about other people, help those in need, keep our earth safe and healthy, work to improve the lives of everyone around me regardless of political affiliation – than be consumed by hate, greed and fear.
Yup, add me to the list of ‘Liberal and Proud of It’!
OK, everyone. Place your beverage orders, I’ll do my best to fill them. (I have on hand organic, white jasmine tea, organic jasmine pearl, raspberry tea, a blended herb tea with cornflower, hibiscus, matcha, and coffee. The rest I’ll have to get.)
one cold heiffer highball,please. White with a twist of humor.Thank you.
Outstanding essay, Shannyn!
Thank you.
i never understood how being a “liberal” was transformed into something “un-american”….i mean, wtf???…i grew up believing and thinking that was part of and who our founding fathers were (and they WERE!!!)….just goes to show you how successful the republi-CONS have become in their marketing and branding of the “liberal” concept (shame on them for being “un-american)….i sometimes use the default concept of being a “progressive” (depending on who i am talking to…for some reason they more readily accept it???)….but it seems so diluted…..
actually, the founding “fathers” would be considered “radicals” today….LIBERAL RADICALS……
yes. i believe they would.
I’m surprised that a rethuglican-ruled Senate decriminalized abortion. Maybe their loss of heart and compassion is an evolutionary and ongoing process. The death penalty usually makes me sick to my stomach,the mention of hang time in conjunction with botched executions was somehow humorous,though not intentionally so. Thanks for the history lesson. Alaska is like a large part of the rest of our Nation in that the religious nuts are trying to take over all aspects of our existence.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article, Shannyn. It was a very interesting little bite of Alaskan history.
Thanks lady for another great anchor.
Hope everyone has checked out Glenn Greenwald pieces at Salon.com. The Friday and Sunday pieces were most moving.
Thanks that i live in Alaska.
OK – I finally had to do it — finally had to look up who this Elizabeth Peratrovich, she of the testimony against discrimination, was. So I did.
Whoa! What a woman! Quite the woman and a Lady, to boot! February 16th is an annually observed state holiday in AK because of the influential speech she made on that date before the Alaska Territorial Senate in 1945. I did not know that…either. She was truly an impressive soul.
Thanks, Shannyn, for pushing me to meet her; I am honored in ‘knowing’ her. beth.
Below is just a portion of the information out there about her. (The linked article is long, being a fairly comprehensive history of the passage of the anti-discrimination Law in AK, but it’s well worth the read –or at least a quick skim-through; some of the tales in it about the discrimination Natives were subjected to will leave you pretty much speechless…I know they did, me. b.)
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[snip] According to established legislative custom during the debate on the bill, an opportunity was offered to anyone present to voice their views. Elizabeth Peratrovich, Grand President for ANS, rose in the gallery and said she would like to be heard. She came to the floor, crossed it and sat next to the Senate President on his raised platform. Elizabeth was a beautiful woman with the ability to maintain her composure in even the most heated debate. As she stood before the all-male, predominately white legislators, the packed gallery was tense with expectation. Clearly, the passage of this bill would spell profound social change in Alaska.
“I would not have expected,” Elizabeth said in a quiet steady voice, “that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill or Rights. When my husband and I came to Juneau and sought a home in a nice neighborhood where our children could play happily with our neighbors’ children, we found such a house and had arranged to lease it. When the owners learned that we were Indians, they said ‘no.’ Would we be compelled to live in the slums?” Her intelligence was obvious, her composure faultless. After giving a potent, neatly worded picture of discrimination against the Indians and other Native people, Mrs. Peratrovich said, “There are three kinds of persons who practice discrimination. First, the politician who wants to maintain an inferior minority group so that he can always promise them something. Second, the Mr. and Mrs. Jones who aren’t quite sure of their social position and who are nice to you on one occasion and can’t see you on others, depending on who they are with. Third, the great superman who believes in the superiority of the white race.” Discrimination suffered by herself and her friends, President Peratrovich told the assembled body, “has forced the finest of our race to associate with white trash.” There was an awesome silence in the packed hall, you could hear a pin drop.
Asked by Senator Shattuck if she thought the proposed bill would eliminate discrimination, Elizabeth Peratrovich queried in rebuttal, “Do your laws against larceny and even murder prevent those crimes? No law will eliminate crimes but at least you as legislators can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak your intent to help us overcome discrimination.”
When she finished, there was a wild burst of applause from the gallery and senate floor alike. There was tears, crying. Her plea could not have been more effective. Opposition that had appeared to speak with a strong voice was forced to a defensive whisper at the close of that senate hearing by a five foot five inch Tlingit woman. The Senate passed the bill 11 to 5 on February 8, 1945. A new era in Alaska’s racial relations had begun. [/snip]
From: “A Recollection of Civil Rights Leader: Elizabeth Peratrovich 1911-1958” http://www.alaskool.org/projects/native_gov/recollections/peratrovich/Elizabeth_1.htm
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[CORRECTION: Ach…the 16th of Feb was the date the Law was signed… not the day of her incredible testimony. b.]
The Christ I grew up with in Homer feeds the hungry, cures the sick and clothes the naked; the new, transplanted Christ is busy trying to “cure” gays. It’s easy to summarize the homeless, the hungry or sick as a “lifestyle choice,” but statistics tell us one in four homeless are military veterans. My Christ whipped the money-changers from the temple; this new Christ of the Mega-church puts his arm around the money-changers and asks them for a political donation.
thank you Shannyn for such an inspiring post.
i thank our Native Mothers for their trials and tribulations that resulted in victory. victory for us all.
blessings be upon them.
Beth –
There are many stories of the injustice done to native americans. This is one more of which I was not aware. Thank you for making me aware.
Thank you for a wonderful read!
Eloquently done Ms. Moore, eloquently done. May I suggest that you modify the claim that there is a relationship between the cancer rates at Point Hope and the presence of 60 millicuries of radionuclides at a site 30 kms away? If I was cynical I would question all of your claims on the basis of this one being relatively flimsy. First you should have cited some source for your claim in as much as it carried an emotional potential shall we say in light of what has recently occurred in Japan. I do not at all mean this to be taken as a cheap shot type of criticism, I mean it very sincerely that if you are going to publish your thoughts, you should be certain about the credibility of your sources and you should also make them known when they are arcane and a bit sensational. Everything else you say in your post is fairly easily verified, a matter of record. I looked at what is verified regarding the link between the nuclear disposal and cancer rates in Point Hope and found one article in PubMed which refers to the fact there there is a statistically significant higher incidence in cancer at Point Hope for persons living there 30 years ago. Unfortunately the whole paper is behind a paywall apparently so I cannot access it but that is the only reference I could find to any research on the cancer incidence at Point Hope.
I offer up this somewhat tendentious (but I hope mild) criticism because from my perspective as a scientist, it is important that those who are not scientists understand our limitations and our method of reasoning. We tend to be very critical.
Your overall portrayal of Alaska was very moving and I think also a good and true characterization. I have seen in the comments above allusions to how the state was transformed by the oil play. Money can do that. In a certain way Alaska might be a microcosim of the greater US. It has a sufficient amount of diversity to be at least symbolic. It has about the same general potential from a purely economical point of view, and it has a strange mix of people that may not be equivalent to the greater US but is still comparable. A minority of radicals with no scruples at all doing everything and anything to get more power over everyone else.
The contrast you draw is informative because it exemplifies how things change when there is cooperative effort to achieve, versus when philosophical differences generate resistence. I would suggest that the vociferous and often vicious reaction of the right wing is based partly in fear,, partly in ignorance, and partly in gullibility.
Lisa who was the last post when I started writing.
I know what you mean. I wish you could have your state back as well, but it isn’t going to happen.
I didn’t make it up. There is so much documentation on this. Here’s one example:
http://www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com/ContentPages/ContentPage.aspx?entryId=1171640¤tSection=1161468&productid=5
“The government acknowledged that soil in the area contained “trace amounts” of radiation, but denied that its experimental nuclear dump had caused the Inuits’ elevated cancer rate. Until the dumps were disclosed during the late 1990s, the Inuit in Port Hope had no clue as to why the incidence of cancer in their village had jumped to 578 per 100,000 within two generations. Some doctors blamed the rise in cancer rates on smoking by the Inuit. In 1997, Dr. Bowerman, chief medical officer of the Borough of Barrow, Alaska, published findings linking the increase in cancer incidence to the burial of nuclear waste near Port Hope (Colomeda, 1998).”
Ms. Moore,
I don’t recall having accused you of making it up. I only tried to suggest that you provide some citations to credible research that found a link between the nuclear experiments performed and as I believe you said in your original post soaring rates of cancer.
So you respond with this citation to a news source reporting something, I am not sure what because I cannot view all their content, but with the sole apparant reference to Colomeda, 1998. If I google that I get a speech given in Brisbane in 1998. This is not peer reviewed research.
Since I assume you are not accustomed to the way in which scientists scrutinize claims I will once again, apologize for being harse if that is how I seem, but if indeed that is how you look upon my suggestions then you are doubly mistaken. My criticisms were offered in an effort to refine and help clarify your reasoning. You seem, however, to have overlooked my main point which is that offering up weak claims based on faulty reasoning is a form of discredit which we can ill-afford to make in trying to confront and oppose the ideologically amoral right wing.
You appear also to have neglected almost all the rest of my comment throughout which I praised your confection of Alaska. I find that slightly dissapointing because I hope that we who try to be rational about going forward should be mutually supportive.
To be blunt and forthright, I think the plowshares harbor project was a pretty stupid idea
and was accordingly shot down by many dissenters. The subsequent experiments done
to evaluate dispersion of fallout from nuclear weapons use were constrained and so far
as I can see no threat at all to public health.
I hope you can understand that my purpose is not to discredit you, but to urge you to refine
what you claim to within the bounds of the demonstrable because if you do not, others will
discredit you with far more villany. I hope you will take me at my word.
I typed in cancer rates/point hope alaska and found some interesting articles,including one written by a Shannyn Moore and a lengthy reply from someone else.(I didn’t collect his name). I also found some interesting info on why health care data is hard to find for native Alaskans and other indigenous peoples. There is an article from a study done by a Satoshi Kanazawa-Evolutionary Psychologist that finds a higher IQ in children and young adults who are liberal and tend towards atheism.
Ahh Mike from Iowa..many thanks for that last sentence..and this would be..me n mine..skipping off into the morning..grins ear to ear..as..we always knew that. We all actually Do..play well with others..but in too many cases..we’gots to..lift up they lil boxes..and chat into their semidarkness..’cause they jus never seem totally-able..to come out and play’…..
It’s always good to see “evidence” that supports what we want to believe.
At the risk of being a downer – following Krubozumo Nyankoye’s comment regarding the rigors of science, for me to say that the body of Satoshi Kanazawa’s work lacks any semblance of scholarly rigor is an understatement that necessitates my bending over so far backwards in the effort to be polite that my head is now on the floor behind me.
You might want to check out his most recent offering – http://www.scribd.com/doc/55558908/Why-Are-Black-Women-Rated-Less-Physically-Attractive-Than-Other-Women-But-Black-Men-Are-Rated-Better-Looking-Than-Other-Men
This has proved too much even for Psychology Today who took the article down, which is surprising for them.
“After all Psychology Today had no problem with his loving look at American politics in which he wanted Ann Coulter for president, because she would have nuked the Middle East on 12 September 2001. That’s just the kind of guy he is.”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/i_guess_even_psychology_today.php?utm_source=mostactive&utm_medium=link
Fourty Watt –
You make a good point. There is a seriously threatening effort on the part of
the right wing to implant ideologs in state sponsored universities in order to
teach and prosteletize a religious dominionism.
The thing that stikes me as really strange is that some good old boys can’t
tell the difference between grits and a cow-paddy. They eat ’em both.
Shrug….
Thanks So much! I love the history of our constitution. There is a great DVD available in the Consortium Library as to how the Alaska Constitution was crafted, who the players were and the issues they hoped to address … really quite inspiring! I was almost in tears proud as I watched it!
As to the liberal/conservative divide in the state — this became apparent with the influx of oil money and people from the South who brought with them some fairly intolerant, racist and “fundy” points of view. I just wish we could have our previous state back. Their presence may have been the price paid to get the oil out of the ground, but I rue the day our state turned from blue to red.
Nicely done, Shannyn. It’s high time a number of Alaskans remembered we don’t have Republican issues or Democratic issues. We have Alaskan issues best solved by working together in a respectful manner.
amen
This brought tears to my eyes.
The conservatives and religious right have hi-jacked the National Narrative~ and steadily hi-jacking the Country.
I am so sick of these self righteous people who tell us WE have no values or morals, when all along they are just self-projecting.
I am a Bleeding Heart Liberal and wear it as a Badge of Honour!
How the hell do we get them to grow a conscience and a warm heart??
Shannyn, thanks for the great read. We need all the liberals we can get.
🙂 I appreciate this little trek through Alaska history – always nice to have a reminder!
Beauty! Thanks for writing that, I plan to memorize major portions.
This is the first time I have seen someone write what I have thought for over 20 yrs.
Southern white trash came up here with the oil business and the military, starting esp right after the pipeline and thru Ronnies’ presidency.
Pro military, Baptist and racist. But the love the free money and good wages while saying they
“don’t need no union”.
We were a true Libertarian stronghold prior to the influx of the lesser educationed southerns.
Always glad to continue my education when the subject is Alaska. Since when did liberal become a dirty word? Never understood that. Am I first?
Yep, zyx, you are first. And remember: the first commentor buys beer for everybody else.
I want milk from a contented cow,thank you.
omg…i never knew…when and where is it served???…..lol
It will likely be flat and warm by the time it gets from NY to Alaska!