Luckey acknowledges hard truths

Playwright and actor Ariel Luckey used hard-hitting questions as the basis for his lecture on injustice toward Native Americans, as well as the chorus to one of the hip-hop theater pieces he performed during his presentation on Thurs., Nov. 3, in Jepson's Wolff Auditorium.

"Free Land: Race and Land in America" consisted of a PowerPoint presentation about the Homestead Act and wars against native tribes interspersed with excerpts from Luckey's solo theater show, "A Hip-Hop Journey From the Streets of Oakland to the Wild Wild West."

Given the content of the lecture, some people may assume Luckey is Native American, but the Oakland native is actually one of the targets of his own wrath. His great-grandfather received a free land grant, or homestead, from the U.S. government as part of its effort to settle empty land in the Midwest. Luckey resents the idea that the land was empty because many native tribes had to be displaced for his family and thousands of others to live there. His family's history led him to investigate the history of crimes against Native Americans and to identify with their culture.

"I'm just a white boy attracted to the color, disconnected from my roots so I reach for another's," Luckey rapped at the beginning of the show.

The hip-hop pieces were the high points of the presentation, but the two-hour show was dominated by a slide show that detailed the history of how the government took land from the Native Americans, spanning from the Pilgrims landing in New England to the construction of an Oakland mall on Ohlone Indian burial ground.

Luckey's righteous anger separated the talk from the average Gonzaga history class. His outrage was palpable as he told the audience that 270 million acres — 10 percent of the U.S. total landmass — was taken from natives and given to white settlers and that the U.S. government has  broken all 371 treaties it signed with native tribes.

The lecture was also different from a standard history class because of its specificity. Luckey had a copy of the document that gave his great-grandfather possession of a homestead, and he used his family's history to parallel the bigger picture of whites taking native lands. He also tailored the presentation specifically for Gonzaga.

One hundred and fifty four people attended the lecture, according to UMEC. Only about 20 of them raised their hand when the audience was asked what tribe hailed from Spokane (the answer is the Spokane tribe), which drew a "wow" from Luckey.

Luckey taught those who didn't already know about Gonzaga's history — how in 1881, Joseph Cataldo bought 320 acres of land for $936 in silver. He then established Gonzaga, which was originally intended as a school for Native Americans, but changed its mission when it opened. The Spokane Reservation was also established in 1881, and the city of Spokane — then known as Spokane Falls — was incorporated in the same year.

The Spokane Indians, the Texas Rangers' minor league baseball affiliate, also fit in well with Luckey's message, as he made the argument that using Native Americans as mascots for sports teams is insulting to the tribes. He also said that some native tribes like the Wampanoag of New England don't celebrate Thanksgiving — it is a day of mourning for them because of the colonists' wars against their tribe.

Luckey acknowledged that his message would be hard for some people to hear. "Who wants to think about how their family benefited from something so horrific?" he asked. One in five Caucasian Americans, according to Luckey, have at least one ancestor who homesteaded.

"We stand on stolen land," he said, "with the past in our hearts and the future in our hands."