The Misguided Attacks on This Land Is Your Land
August 27, 2019
Woody Guthrie might not have been perfect, but we dont need to cancel
him, writes Will Kaufman.
Woody Guthrie. (Al Aumuller/Library of Congress)
By Will Kaufman
The Conversation
In recent years, Woody Guthries This Land Is Your Land has become a
rallying cry for immigrants. And in July, after President Donald Trump
tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen of color needed to go back where
they came from, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the four
targeted, responded with a tweet quoting Guthries lyrics.
But not everyone sees the song as an anthem for inclusion.
In June, the Smithsonians online magazine, Folklife, published a piece that
lambasted the song for its omissions.
The article, titled This Land Is Whose Land?, was written by folk musician
Mali Obomsawin, a member of the Native American Abenaki tribe. She wrote of
being shaken up like a soda can every time she heard the songs lyrics:
In the context of America, a nation-state built by settler colonialism,
Woody Guthries protest anthem exemplifies the particular blind spot that
Americans have in regard to Natives: American patriotism erases us, even if
it comes in the form of a leftist protest song. Why? Because this land was
our land. Through genocide, broken treaties and a legal system created by
and for the colonial interest, this land became American land.
Obomsawins article immediately generated a flurry of responses from
conservative media outlets.
Commie Folksinger Woody Guthrie Not Woke Enough for Mob, jeered
Breitbarts John Nolte, delighted with this evidence of internecine strife
among what he dubbed the fascist woketards of the American left. The Daily
Wires Emily Zanotti soon joined the fray, penning a piece under the
headline This Land Is NOT Your Land: Woke Culture Now Demanding Woody
Guthrie Be Canceled Over Folk Music Faux Pas.
But Obomsawin and her conservative critics might be surprised to learn that
some of Guthries greatest champions have also had difficulties with the
song.
As the author of three books on Guthrie, I sometimes wonder how the
folksinger would respond to the criticism of This Land Is Your Land for
its omissions.
While we cant know for sure, a glance at some of his unpublished writings
and recently discovered recordings can offer some clues.
Seeger Sings a Different Tune
Pete Seeger, Woodys colleague and protégé, was perhaps the most responsible
for lodging This Land Is Your Land in the public consciousness. After
Guthrie died in 1967, Seeger continued to perform the song all around the
world.
At the same time, Seeger made it clear that he was sensitive to the theft of
Native American lands.
In his memoir, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Seeger recalled an
incident during a 1968 performance:
Jimmy Collier, a great young black singer from the Midwest, was asked to
lead [This Land Is Your Land.] Henry Crowdog [sic] of the Sioux Indian
delegation came up and punched his finger in Jimmys chest. Hey, youre
both wrong. It belongs to me. Jimmy stopped and added seriously, Should we
not sing this song? Then a big grin came over Henry Crowdogs face. No,
its okay. Go ahead and sing it. As long as we are all down here together to
get something done.
When performing, Pete Seeger occasionally tweaked the lyrics to This Land
Is Your Land.
(Josef SCHWARZ/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)
Sometimes, in an attempt to ease his conscience when performing This Land,
Seeger would add a verse penned by the singer and activist Carolyn Cappy
Israel to acknowledge the theft of Native land:
This land is your land, but it once was my land
Before we sold you Manhattan Island
You pushed my nation to the reservation,
This land was stole by you from me.
Woody Wasnt Oblivious
Was Guthrie himself uncomfortable with the songs glaring failure to
acknowledge the facts of settler colonialism?
Theres no record of his views on the issue. But we do know that he was very
aware of and concerned with the history of Native American
dispossession.
For example, he was angry enough with his cousin, the country singer
Oklahoma Jack Guthrie, for claiming credit for a song that Woody had
written, titled Oklahoma Hills. But as Woody wrote in an unpublished
annotation to the lyrics, Jack had also left out the best parts of the
whole song the names of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and
Seminole who had prior claim to the lands of Oklahoma.
Then theres a soundbite in a posthumously discovered live recording from
1949:
They used dope, they used opium, they used every kind of a trick to get
these Indians to sign over their lands, Guthrie says to the crowd.
One of these real estate tricksters was actually Woodys own father, Charley
Guthrie. As biographer and journalist Joe Klein writes in Woody Guthrie: A
Life, Because he was able to speak both Creek and Cherokee, Charley became
known as especially adept at relieving Indians of their property.
How did Charley learn these Native tongues? Was it possible that the
Guthries had Native ancestors?
In a tantalizingly vague 1950 letter to activist Stetson Kennedy, Woody
notes the rainbow blends of his own bloodline, including pure virgin
island negro and unnamed Indian tribelines.
And in an unpublished poem entitled Sweety Black Girl, written the same
year, Guthrie writes:
my
blood beats Spanish and my breath burns Indian and my
soul boils negro.
Guthrie admitted that he was ashamed of his fathers disreputable real
estate practices. And while he may have idealized his own genealogy, theres
no doubt that he was fully aware of whose land was whose.
Some Native Americans See an Ally
Interestingly, not all Native Americans view the song in the same light as
Obomsawin.
The song has proved adaptable and malleable enough to enable some Native
American artists to work with it.
In 2007, the Anishinaabe songwriter and musician Keith Secola sang his
Ojibwa-language version of This Land on the album Native Americana A
Coup Stick.
Secola said in an interview that his version reflects a worldview, of being
a part of the world and not detached from it. Woody was into people creating
their own stories.
Thats what I got from him how to apply this
strategy, this procedure of songwriting, to the topics that affect American
Indians.
A few years before Secolas cover, two of Guthries previously unpublished
songs Indian Corn Song and Mean Things Happenin in This World were
recorded by the Navajo siblings, Klee, Clayson and Jeneda Benally.
We wanted to keep the spirit of Woody Guthrie alive, Clayton said in a
2012 interview. He wrote songs about the Dust Bowl and unions, but he also
wrote about American Indian issues.
Clayson noted that Indian Corn Song was one of his favorite songs to play,
because in it Guthrie talks about wastefulness and how Indigenous people
are
living off the planet in a balanced way.
Mali Obomsawin might take heart from Secola, the Benally siblings and the
other artist-activists who have adopted and adapted This Land Is Your
Land.
Woody Guthrie might not have been perfect, they say, but we dont need to
cancel him.
Well work with him instead.
Sweety Black Girl and unpublished Woody Guthrie correspondence and
annotations, words by Woody Guthrie © Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications,
Inc., all rights reserved, used by permission.
Will Kaufman is professor of American literature and culture, University of
Central Lancashire
