178 | On Gratitude & Stolen Land [SPECIAL EPISODE] with Paul Zelizer
Our guest today on the pod is Paul Zelizer, Awarepreneurs founder and CEO. It's a special Thanksgiving themed episode on the topic of On Gratitude & Stolen Land.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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On Gratitude & Stolen Land
SPEAKER: Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:04
Hi, my name is Paul Zelizer. And this is a special episode of The Awarepreneurs Podcast. We've actually never done anything quite like this before. So your feedback is welcome. But in this year in 2020, on this special day, at least here in the US, I wanted to think a little bit aloud and share with you some thoughts and get your thoughts. start a conversation really, we're all about dialogue as a podcast, on the topic of on gratitude, and stolen land. Growing up as a kid, thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. Our house was it was normal in the neighborhood I grew up in, but it was in Westchester County, New York, and I realize is quite large now. And we our house was where our family came. We weren't a particularly large Jewish family, but we're a close Jewish family. And we would make all the Thanksgiving dishes and people from the whole Metropolitan New York and New Jersey area would come to our place. There'd be cousins rolling on the floor, and football games and turkey and stuffing and chocolate desserts and family visiting and telling story to late in the night. It wasn't religious, it was family. And it was close. And you know, we were like saying prayers for hours are not ours. And as a kid, it wasn't like this over yet. Which some of the other things that we would gather as a family, let's say a Passover Seder, you know, just had a different feel to it. This was all food and roughhousing and telling stories and throwing footballs around and eating yummy things. So Thanksgiving, and the whole practice of gratitude, just, it kind of got into myself as a young person. Fast forward to 1993 and I moved to New Mexico. And I love this place. And those of you who listen to the podcast regularly know, New Mexico, I like to refer to New Mexico as my biggest teacher, both the place the land here, and the people here and the different cultures and the wisdom traditions. Taos Pueblo, for instance, is the oldest continually inhabited building in North America. And back in my days, when I was more a social worker, or a community mental health and community organizer, person, more than a social entrepreneur, I was on the ground in small communities all over northern New Mexico, including the pueblos, the native reservations here in our beautiful stay. And I started to learn about some things about Thanksgiving that they don't teach you when you go to the privilege very much, mostly white schools in Westchester County and a little town called Yorktown Heights, New York, I started to learn about things like racism, and genocide, and colonialism, and just the heartbreaking stories of what it happened both here in New Mexico, and around the world. And I learned more about my own story, as my family are Jews. And as we've traced some more in recent years, we've learned that a significant portion of our family came from right outside maybe 20 minutes away from Warsaw, Poland, anybody knows the story of what happened in the Holocaust. During World War Two, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Jews were mostly not that prone to physical defense, getting guns and shooting people and but the Nazi just campaign to obliterate the Jews just wipe them off the face of the earth was so poignant in that place that the Jews in Poland at that time that the Jews rose up and there was, you know, an uprising and eventually was squashed and everybody was killed. My family, I wouldn't be here, if people didn't leave the place that I'm native to, if you want to look at it that way that my people are native to we we were disrupted through the process of anti semitism and hatred, and genocide, and colonialism. And to juxtapose these two, such contradictory ways of being human gratitude, and love and family, and all the stories of oppression and attempted genocide and actual genocide and indigenous people have experienced this more than anybody but so many of us were
05:00
We live right now, we're not like the Taos Pueblo people. We haven't been in the same place for 1000 years relating with that land, the water still clear. And they're still tending to their sacred places, including blue lake, which is a very interesting story go look up the history of how the Taos Pueblo people got blue lake a sacred place, and their tradition back from the federal government who appropriated stole it.
05:31
Most of us don't have that kind of, we've been in the same place for generations and generations. And when you look at the why of so many of our stories like my own, it involves so much hurt, and suffering, and intergenerational trauma and depression.
05:49
Particularly now in 2020. When I'm sitting with this theme, of ungrounded, gratitude and stolen land, the juxtaposition of there's so much beauty and love in our human family, just my heart stretches in our own community aware printers, community and people who are doing social impact work and deep transformational work so many kinds by just so much love and appreciation, and thank you, and gratitude and thankfulness in my heart in this time.
06:33
And what's happening in my own life, there are good things and beautiful people and the people I love and this place I live that's just stunning in not just physical ways, but on every level.
06:47
And 2020 has been a year where so much has been,
06:52
oh, whatever you say, revealed and surfaced. And the fault lines have been rumbling and whether it's the racial reckoning and jorf George Floyd's murder COVID-19, who it's impacting the disproportionate effects, poor people and people with less resources with the economic crisis that has just
07:19
broken my heart. And some of you listeners who have reached out and shared your stories of businesses that just went up in smoke, or just how hard you've been working in 2020, just to stay afloat.
07:37
And the indigenous peoples here and everywhere, black people here and everywhere.
07:44
LGBTQ people who've seen so many
07:53
hateful acts, and across the board, we've seen hateful acts and crease.
08:00
We've seen the mindset of hatred and colonization and anti semitism, so much hatred.
08:09
So in this day, it just didn't feel right to publish a podcast episode as usual. Although I love our guests.
08:17
I wanted to sit in that complicated, difficult, full spectrum experience of being human in this moment, if you know me, if you know where printers
08:30
dialog is one of the most sacred things in the world. That's why I do a deep dive interview podcast. 5560 minutes. Sometimes we even go over that. When we started. People told me I was crazy. Paul, nobody's gonna listen to a podcast episode for an hour people are way too freakin busy for that.
08:54
And yeah, where printers has grown, and you keep telling your friends, and more and more people keep coming and listening. And we're inspiring each other. And we're learning as we sit with both grateful hearts the love that each of you do your work with. The communities you touch, the care that you have for your clients, and the people who buy your product and your services and the communities you serve so many of them that have been left out and excluded, and have suffered a disproportionate amount of harm and suffering and to sit with that beauty, the care and the love, and the thankfulness and the whole history of stolen land and hatred.
09:43
That's what's in my heart. And I wanted to share with you I don't have a whole lot of answers. Am I here to give a lecture how we get out of the math you all
09:53
the only answer the only
09:57
thing that's in my heart as I sit with that
10:00
Full Spectrum is community. There's way too much for my little brain, my little heart to hold. But when I'm in community and doing my piece and you put me in connection with people like you who are doing your piece, that's what keeps me going. And on this day, I want to say thank you for what you do. Please take really good care in these points in times. And I just want to let you know how much I appreciate all the positive impact that you are working towards.