Join Kosta and his guest: Sayota Knight, educator, artist, and advocate. Locally, Sayota has dedicated himself to helping bring awareness to indigenous people, in addition to leading the coalition to rename Algood Middle School’s current mascot.
In this episode: Sayota's personal experience working to advocate for indigenous people in the Upper Cumberland, the history behind the offensive mascot still being used to represent Algood Middle School, Putnam County School's reaction to Sayota's request, and what we can do as members of the community to be more uplifting, supportive and inclusive to minorities.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Contact Sayota:
sayota@frontiernet.net
Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
Join Kosta and his guest: Sayota Knight, educator, artist, and advocate. Locally, Sayota has dedicated himself to helping bring awareness to indigenous people, in addition to leading the coalition to rename Algood Middle School’s current mascot.
In this episode: Sayota's personal experience working to advocate for indigenous people in the Upper Cumberland, the history behind the offensive mascot still being used to represent Algood Middle School, Putnam County School's reaction to Sayota's request, and what we can do as members of the community to be more uplifting, supportive and inclusive to minorities.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Contact Sayota:
sayota@frontiernet.net
Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
One of the strongest characteristics a human being could have to admit, I was wrong. I want to do better. I want to be better, and give you what we call seven generations down the line chance for our children to do better.
Morgan Franklin:Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Hey, y'all. This is Kosta. And today I'm here with my guest, say Sayota Knight, educator, artist and advocate. Locally, Sayota has dedicated himself to helping bring awareness to indigenous people, in addition to leading the coalition to rename Algood Middle School's current mascot. Sayota, I want to talk about the issue right in front of us. The day we're recording this episode is Wednesday, April 12 2023. Over the past three weeks, Tennessee has descended into complete madness, not started by but punctuated by the senseless tragedy at the covenant school, as someone who has spent their entire life advocating for the rights of children, minorities, education, and just basic human rights. What are you feeling at this moment?
Sayota Knight:Well, first, thank you for this opportunity, and honored to be here. And I'd like to start with a land acknowledgement. And the fact of the matter that this land that we're walking on, we call Tennessee is the rightful land that Yuichi the arsenic, you wouldn't? In the Shawnee people's good question. Thank you also, by the way, for this question, and my feelings right now is that of just sheer pain for the people that are in doing this hardship right now, as a descendant of people who have dealt with any historical trauma, dealing with gun violence, rape, genocide, and these things, there's proof that this stuff has been passed down through generational trauma, you know, so everybody, every human being should actually their hearts should be bleeding and hurting really bad, due to the fact that we are in a society that values guns over our children, and the rights of a few over the rights of the many. And in indigenous culture. That's quite the opposite. In fact, it's more of an honor to give more of yourself than to take more or to selfishly hold these things that they cherish. And so my feelings are of complete angst, and sadness. And in a way, I feel like, we're in a point where it's darkest, before it's lightest, so there's some hope to because without it, I don't know how the indigenous people who have made it this long, really, and we've been warriors, if you will, for centuries, since the first Europeans set foot on the sands of this continent. And so we as a people have been through a lot of hardships, and they still continue to come at us. However, there's these glimpses of hope or light that come in this darkness that gives us more reason to continue on with people like Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson, you know, these are recent heroes. But I look to heroes like Robert Kennedy, and guys like you who are unsung heroes that you never really hear about, like Mary Jones, Mother Jones, if you will, Mary Harris, excuse me. These are individuals that will did their privilege in a time that it was unpopular to do so. So there is that little glimpse of hope. And I think we're at that point where it's a cross generational cross, you know, racial stance to fight.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So Gloria Johnson, I watched the floor session when they were voting on all three expulsions, I didn't get a chance to catch all Justin Pearson's because we had a recital thing, but I watched the first two especially and I will tell you this, I did an internship and 12 session and Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, especially are my jam. And if they were there while I was there, I would have probably ran down from the from the gallery and joined them at the well. There are so eloquent. They are saying the things. And believe me when I tell you this, I thought was 112 session with Katrina Robinson being expelled and she called it a procedural lynching. I believe it was I thought that that was a one off. I was like, there's no possible way that they could ever expel another African American, given the controversy that that created and they weathered that storm. As I'm watching Justin Jones speak, and every point that he's making I'm like, make sense. Yep, absolutely make sense. Then Gloria Johnson gets up there and she says This, this is the most important part, this younger generation will not wait. They will not be quiet. They will not sit idly by and just take it. And as I'm digesting all of this, I'm like, How do I summarize this into a phrase that works for people? We have been mansplain. And our entire life. It feels like an eternity. And I'm tired of listening. I don't want to hear it at all. And so when glory Johnson says y'all need to be careful, because the nobody's playing here. And when they did the worst possible thing they could have done in brush braking, who was the deciding vote on Cory Johnson? I think maybe he messed up, push the wrong button or something. Or maybe he really did not want to expel Gloria Johnson because of her color and race. Right? The Tennessee legislature not just put a spotlight on themselves for expelling to African and young, young, I think people need to remember young African Americans. Absolutely. And not expelling a older white woman. They put such a spotlight on them. It almost I in my opinion, I believe they've tagged themselves as a Jim Crow society. Yes, they are trying to run the state in that same capacity. And it ties into all the things that we're about to talk about with regards to the all good school mascot who my kids attend all good Elementary. When you went to the protest earlier this week. Do you feel hope?
Sayota Knight:Absolutely. As I was standing there amongst the 1000s of people I've felt in the air and literally the vibe of a true change. And there's mixed elements of why that is people say, Well, what was it one thing? No, it's several things. Unfortunately, the person who was the shooter was, you know, truthfully, Bynum was apparently personal, trans back from the trans community as community and then going to a, quote unquote, Christian private school, right. And we're always mansplain that, well, if there was more prayer in school, or if God was in school, and things of that nature, this wouldn't happen. Well, what was going on with his Christian school? That's where it's going on. And it's still happening, right? And then being that these two are three advocates, if you will, speaking up for the six murdered individuals. They didn't care what background they were, they're just tired like we all are. I don't want to be desensitized to murder. You know, it should always be a shock. It should always rattle us and hurt us all. And the moment we get desensitized to this, which is why I have this hope. No one was desensitized. Everybody was angry.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How is this moment in history, different than parkland? Because there were kids that got on national TV that protested that had walkouts and I mean, I don't know how familiar you are with the Parkland shooting and all the organizing that happened afterwards. But Nashville has struck a chord, like to the heart. So how is it that is it just because we are now starting to see the Gen Z generation, the activist generation that we've been waiting for finally sort of graduate income into their own into adulthood? How much different is this movement than parkland?
Sayota Knight:I'm going to say this as respectful as possible that it happened in a Christian school. Yeah. But privately, I think that was the turning point for a lot of people, because public schools have always been the bottom of the barrel for any treatment or any notoriety for any hardships. We've had kids stabbed in schools fights, shootings for decades. And it's never moved the needle or the barometer for any change. And I've said this in conversations with friends before I said, when this happens to a, you know, a privileged community that's predominantly European American, then I think people will start to really question this, and it happened. Yeah. And it wasn't the amount of people that's the other. I don't want to say the hardship of this whole thing. However, parkland, there were a lot more kids and then you had Newtown and, you know, there's 25 people murdered there. And with 23 of them being kindergarteners, little little babies, you know,
Kosta Yepifantsev:I can't believe they didn't do anything after that. That's what I'm talking. I thought
Sayota Knight:this would be the one but then I don't look at it like, well, any MT is more than or worse than the other. They're all bad. It's like saying, well, this person is more racist, or got treated more racist than that. But it's all bad racism on any level is bad.
Kosta Yepifantsev:At the dam broke though. Yeah, Nashville, the dam broke. Yeah. And instead of taking the common sense approach of saying, well, maybe we should really look at gun reform. Maybe it's not a good idea to let 21 year olds and 18 year olds luckily that hasn't passed the session yet. Right Harry, you know, permitless Gary, maybe it's I mean, maybe we shouldn't have stockpile of AR fifteens at a militia base in town, if we're so worried about the federal government taking us over, instead of letting everybody have an AR 15, that might work. Right, right, right, you know, let somebody that's actually equipped to handle those types of weapons, guard it and then we don't need everybody with an AR 15. If you're so worried about, you know, the out adverse effects, they could have done those things. Exactly. But they chose to do the complete opposite and the worst, which is not listen, and then expel the representatives who decided that this measure was important enough not to take to committee where they're going to be just voice voted out, like we saw on Channel Five with Phil Williams, right. They're going to find a way to get their message out so that the protesters that are in the capitol actually know that we ain't playing this time. Right. And I'm going to make sure that someone inside the man on the floor actually hears us. Yeah. You want to talk about mascot? Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Sorry. I know we, we had to talk this is very historic
Sayota Knight:and needs to be addressed. I mean, today's a beautiful sunny day. You know, I was just telling Morgan here that you know, I'm blessed to be here and I'm this is what needs to be spoken out.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Absolutely. You've been featured in dozens of publications, from the Tennessean to Fox News, sharing your disappointment and disapproval of all good middle schools continued use of the R word as their mascot. Will you take us back to the beginning of this battle, and tell us where it stands today?
Sayota Knight:So I'm gonna take you way back. Pre President Obama 2008. My wife and I, we had lived in an apartment just outside the Allgood district area, well, actually, in the holidays, all the district area, and we had not had our first child yet. We were expecting. I was pulling for Brock Obama. Same, you know, I wasn't going to hold back and get full credit there. Yes. And I was proud of this moment, like, you know, anything with some new voice, some new change, and we just came out of the George W. Bush era. And I'd put a bumper sticker on the back on my car, rightfully expressing my First Amendment rights. And in our community. Politics is everything really. And if you speak in dissent to the mob, if you will, they want to silence you. So I come home from work one night, park the car and you have to come off the road quite a ways to get to my car. And the house we lived in had three apartments in it. So we were off the road in the country, if you will, not in the city. Someone had to have followed me know where I lived. My daughter was just born. And we had got an infant seat for her a car seat in the backseat. And it was in November, because she was born in October. So it was really, really, really cold. So I go upstairs, go to bed, and get up the next morning go to work. Before I head out to work. I start the car just to get it warmed up. And I noticed in the rearview mirror, like I hit the button to defrost the rear window. It wasn't working. I was like what's going on? I look back there and kind of look like a mosaic. But then I saw a hole in the middle of my back windshield. I was like what just happened?
Kosta Yepifantsev:When was this 2008 2006? Citizen six? Yes,
Sayota Knight:this is the origin of it, of course. And I was like, whoa. So I get on my car shocked. And someone had come up to our car. And this is quite a ways off the main road. By the way. bashed out the back of the windshield, and all that glass went in my baby's car seat. Oh, my gosh, I've filed a police report. And the police were like, well, we can't do much because we don't You don't have any video, you don't have any witnesses. It's happened at night. And that's how these cowards work, by the way. So I ended up having to turn it into insurance, pay out a lot of money to get a new back windshield, get a new car seat, because I can't just trust I get all the glass out of that special newborn. And that rattled me because I'm thinking, wow, this is terrorism. Because this is how violent these people will be. They're sending me a message. And it's because of my political affiliations. But how's that deal with the mascot? Well, I'm indigenous and so to my child, and she would have went to the schools in Oregon. And that's when we said no, we're not going to take our kids and put them through this. Thankfully, we were able to find a house in the Capshaw district area and we moved there fortunately for us, and at that time, I started really molding, how I'd take the stance to get this mascot change, consulting with my elders in my native friends and trying to truly get the facts on this and reading about Suzanne harjot and other movements that happen all over the United States and the American Indian Congress organizations like this and really reading on it. And I was getting mixed bags. I was like, Well, why just myself bring this up. It's time went on. I started seeing like few years down the line. My kids were in elementary school. This was going to be an issue I knew because we're going to have have interactions with these other schools, and about middle school age for my kids. That's when I started taking this up and speaking about it in the parking lots at schools and asking people to stand with me. And a couple of colleagues of mine who had the courage and the bravery to take their kids out of the all good school system and bring them to different schools really touched my heart. And that's when I started saying, Okay, I need to coalesce this coalition, if you will, and start to make movement on this. So after much thought and planning, I started making up these goals, how, who I needed to talk to who I need to reach. Once that started happening, though, other entities around the United States started making their change. It was really kind of a symbiotic or synergy thing, where Suzanne Harjo was finally able to hand the reins over to another indigenous woman whose name escapes me at this moment, I apologize. However, she was able to convince on the on a monetary or financial economic standpoint, to get Federal Express to use their own policies that they would not support racism or condone it at all within any of their organizations. And that's what ultimately brought down the Washington's national football team right named to be changed. And when that started happening, I thought this is the time and Dr. Gruber here at Tennessee Tech, she contacted me and Tom savage of the NAACP, we talked and looking back, you know, I wish we would have waited a little bit longer, but the petition came out. It caught like wildfire on dry still, whereas if you will, however, the resistance of the other side was we're in Trump country, if you will, they did the same tactics. They had a petition as equal, and thought, well, we'll just fight fire with fire. And that's when things started going towards the school board. I spoke in 2020 19, excuse me, not just a school board. And it was October 4, I believe. I addressed them and asked them to have an exploratory committee. And actually actually before that I had a meeting with Corby king and his assistant. And he told me that he would do what he could to get me a chance to speak but he didn't have any. And I don't want to misquote him, but he didn't have any faith that they would change it. He said some things that I'll leave in confidentiality right now. But for him to say the things he did about the community of all good was very eye opening, eyebrow raising. So that let me know what I was going up against. But when I presented my argument, I use the video, the National Indian Congress Association. And it was aired during, I believe the World Series where you know, they show pictures of Jim Thorpe and other indigenous people throughout the years. And it's as simple as I love it. It's like, you know, we call ourselves Choctaw, we call ourselves Paiute. Hopi Apache proud Dr. Fireman, and at the end of it, it shows the football helmet of the Washington team and it says we call ourselves many things. But one thing we do not call ourselves and he says the helmet. I presented that to the school board. And I felt like I made good gains with this and the fact that they were very receptive at the time. They came to me after my presentation and assured me here's the part they assured me that they would have this committee they said thank you for coming, Mr. Knight, Representative Cravens, and Gammons and Frey and Cormac and even Corby King, all came to me shook my hand and lied to my face, basically, and said they would have this committee. They look forward to working with me. So what happened? The election of 2020. And eventually, as things started to precipitate to more violence, and you know, tribal politics and politics, was it called the Tennessee freedom fighters and turning point USA organizations got involved white supremacist, and they have a knack for trying to continue their, you know, their confederacy flag flying and keeping these racist and hurtful symbols going, including the mascots. I don't have proof of this, obviously, but they intimidated the school board members and threatened them somehow, because it was like, night and day.
Kosta Yepifantsev:That's the question. Yeah. When I look at all of these different topics, obviously, the all good mascot is pretty significant one, in my opinion, who is getting to these people? And what are they saying? Because I see Corby King, and Jill Ramsay who took Celeste Gammons, this place. They're good people. I know that they couldn't possibly think that this is right, right. So imagine what they're being told on the other side of it. I mean, I know they're not trying to retire on being a school board member. It ain't like they're making a million dollars and they're trying to save their jobs, you know, say Um, and we'll we'll we're going to talk about that about the the consequences of taking the position that you take and the position that Julia has take Julie Gruber has taken right. I believe Andrew Smith as well. Yeah. And I'm mistaken, and just the fallout of all of that, right. So you go to the school board, they say they're going to look into and create an exploratory committee, you feel good about everything. election happens, turning point USA comes in. They don't look into it know what happened. In fact,
Sayota Knight:the only way I caught wind that they were going to have a vote not to have an exploratory committee was through social media, they didn't email me, they cut off all communications with me, they said they would let me know, the weaselly part about turning point USA is they got in touch with this organization called NASA or the Native American Guardian Association, their fraudulent organization, they use what we call in our circle, pretend demons, they hire out indigenous people that want to make a quick buck. And don't care to be sellouts. And these guys, they don't have education themselves. So they're willing to be the mouthpiece and basically give permission for other people to use these terms and images. So Kim Cravens use that to justify her decision and convinced the other board members of my from what I saw, on that fateful day, to justify not having a sport to a committee. That's kind of what we're battling here is the education or lack thereof, of all peoples, including indigenous peoples of their own culture. Who's getting to these individuals, I believe there's I don't know if I can get in trouble for saying names. But I believe people like and other guys like this, who use ugly tactics to thwart any kind of hope, if you will, or any kind of other voice dissent, dissent. Yeah. And fears. A lot of people's only God, if you will, they don't want to speak out in a community because everything's so tightly knit economically, they're afraid they're gonna get fired. Again, it's all due to jobs here. If there's not much opportunity, what job you have that pays well, you know, you don't want to lose it because you're afraid whoever your boss is, or your master, they will fire you because you took a stance to speak out and you might embarrass them.
Kosta Yepifantsev:The most recent economic report that was just in the Herald, I think, maybe last week at UCH Ira Mark Farley spoke on this at length, the number one, and there's five points, the number one thing that people in the upper Cumberland specifically and cokeville want are higher paying jobs, right. And of the five, three were economic drivers, essentially. So economics matter, and a lot, especially to people here. I wrote an email to the school board and all of the other representatives in my because my kids go to all good. I thought, well, you know, surely the listen, they may, maybe they'll reply, me. Usually when I write an email, I'm expecting someone to reply back. And my argument was just that it's if you are wanting to bring higher paying jobs to the upper Cumberland, you are going to have to create an environment that is diverse and inclusive, and doesn't have racist, derogatory slurs has one of their school mascot. Absolutely. I mean, that's like the first like, 10 checkboxes that you check. That should be, you know, probably one, two or three, no derogatory slurs representing our town, right? It's really interesting that you brought that up, because I've never thought about it from that perspective. But because progress is the enemy towards ignorance. And when we talk about bringing in new jobs, we're talking about progress, right? It's life or death, for the people that want to maintain Cookeville. And the capacity that it is, because of new companies with high wages and high salaries come in, and they tell the school board like, Hey, listen, we're not going to do business here. If you guys don't do something about this, or we're not going to come to Cookeville. If you guys don't do something about this, right, they're going to listen to that. I hate to say it, but that's probably what it's going to take.
Sayota Knight:Yeah, it's an economic stance where I think, again, back to the Federal Express example, people, they're motivated by money, unfortunately. And as corrupt as that processes in our capitalistic society, it is truth that our system is off, not like the barter system of indigenous people, hundreds of years ago, but a barter system have a piece of paper that we value, a certain measuring stick. So that's the sad part about it. It takes that instead of just the moral fortitude to say this is wrong. Yeah, and it's wrong for any other people. I've asked many classes I've spoken to in any audience I've had just put this in perspective, please, I said if we had a symbol or an image of a African American and like a Sambo imagery, and we called it the good negros or anything like the worse word, the N word right? We'll, they wouldn't put that in there, they wouldn't have it. Or if they did the all good Jews or whatever, we could put out any ethnicity or group of people in that, and no one would put up with it. In fact, I've done this lesson. And every person I've spoken to the looks on their faces is not just telling, but it's like they resoundingly say, Yeah, this is like, wow, what are we thinking?
Kosta Yepifantsev:Is the terminology of the R word? Is that in line or comparable to the N word is that essentially how it makes you feel so that people can understand the significance of you hearing that word? And also just in general, for all indigenous people, how it makes them feel maybe if you could expound on that? Thank you. Great question.
Sayota Knight:So a lot of people don't know the history of that term. And it's because it's been twisted, do the the red word, the red, the prefix of that whole term, you see things on products like Redman, tobacco, or, you know, the Redman society. And the perversion of that was because a lot of nations specifically like the Choctaw, or the Cherokee, would have Redman societies or the red stick society, red stick warriors, things like that. And it wasn't necessarily because the color of the skin is because of the idea that we all bleed red. And so the idea is that you give up yourself for the greater good of the whole, right? However, in the ugly history of that term, the R word. There is a it's a fact as a historical fact of a instance in the 1700s in northeast United States, and it deals with a European settler called Hannon Dunstan, her name is Hannah Dunston. And she was with a group of colonizers during the Abenaki war time in that area. And the ugly truth of it is Europeans were stealing and murdering the Abenaki people in that area and taking land from them. And so, through those battles, the Abenaki would revolt and murdered the Europeans that were there, of course, and one battle specifically dealing with Hannah Dunston and her colony, they raided the people and murdered them. And Hannah Dunston was one of the few survivors. In the story though her children, her babies were murdered, it was even believed that one that people took her baby and beat it against the tree. She's so good. That's how ugly warfare was back then, you know. And so any mother, regardless of any race would be devastated, angry, furious, but she was a captive of these Abenaki people. And they took her as kind of like a slave. And in those times, you took your slave and gave them to somebody who was willing to be a slave master, if you will. And so what Hannah Dunstan did is she was able to communicate with Abenaki people. And you could imagine the language barrier, but she was able to communicate to her handler or her slave master at the time of the Abenaki person. And she asked him how to use what we know is a tomahawk. And this practice, though, I want to preface this was learned by the Spaniards scalping, and that's what I'm getting to scalping. And so she learned how to scalp using a tomahawk, just because this guy showed her, so she waited in, at night when these the whole family was asleep, and she murdered them all in her sleep, and sculpt all the babies, all the kids, all the parents. We know this though, because when she escaped with the other white lady she was with, she took the scalps with her ran back in cover of night, to the colony that was decimated. And the ones that were able to live, one of them was a priest. And most of these colonies had priests because it was supposed to be for like God's watching over you or whatever. How we know the story, though. The priest documented this story and wrote it down. And she's the first person in the United States to ever have a statue made of her first woman, by the way, also. Wow. And there's three statues made of her. And the statues have her holding the tomahawk up with one hand in the scalps of the indigenous people. In the other hand, that's showing where that practice began, where it was popularized, right? Eventually, you had people like Samuel Phipps in Massachusetts now who fought against the Penobscot people. And he was raping little girls and and women. What what he was doing was just saying, well, I'll take your women or I'll take your land and so the indigenous people want to get the land so they would unfortunately give their women human Roman but they got tired of that and they fought back. So then he popularized it further the scalping and skinning of indigenous people and he put monetary value on it. Handed doesn't mean a popular but he put monetary value on it and economic in May the economics where you had poor People who couldn't read or write coming over to the new land trying to make their way. And they're like, Yeah, that's a huge incentive
Kosta Yepifantsev:skinning indigenous people. Yeah,
Sayota Knight:killing them just for the heck of it. It was documented in the FIPS proclamation, that if you killed a young man 20 or older, you got 50 pounds or something like that, which is a lot of money, it's a lot of money, and any male or younger would get 20 pounds. And females were valued a little less, but it was like, I think it was like 25 pounds for females. And kids were not little babies were not. They were taken in as slaves. This is ugly history behind it, just like the N word has an ugly history to it. From there, the practice then was harbored by the states. And at that time, we only had 13 colonies, then 13 ratified states in 1776, and a couple of years after the vicious racist, and I'll say it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, although they had in mind that they said, We want everybody under this umbrella of democracy, they really didn't mean it. They only meant white men that were landowners, even the poor whites were not even included in this. But they duped the poor whites tricked them to do their dirty work. And they would send these poor whites out instead of the US Continental Army to go squat on land in North Carolina, Tennessee or Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia. And that's where you had the wars with the Cherokee people, they would fight back. And eventually you had people like Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, who then made it a military practice. So eventually states started picking up this practice and selling or giving money for bounty hunting. And that allowed the United States government to do warfare on the back end without declaring a war. Because an act of war would have been the whole tribe would have been able to fight against the tribes. If you were the five nations post, the Anunnaki and the Seneca and those people. I'm here now talking about the Seminole, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and those people. They were like, look, we're going to fight these people off, but it's not the United States government. But whenever they would fight the squatters off or the encroaches on this land, then the government would come in and say, well, you're killing our citizens and like, well, you're not the army. What's going on?
Kosta Yepifantsev:Right? It's not your land.
Sayota Knight:Yeah. What are these treaties for? Then? You're right, you're not enforcing your treaties, they would say they would enforce them, but they never enforced them. Right. when gold was found, that was the other part in North Georgia. Yeah, when gold was found, that's when the scalping even got worse, because cattle companies, rail companies, and mining companies, those were your big corporations at the time, they had no regard for human life, zero regard, right, even their own people that they were sending in the coal mines, which we now know, in Kentucky, and West Virginia, all the poor whites that were dealing with black lung disease and other problems they're still dealing with, by the way. So this monster of greed and selfishness has seeped in the blood of many, many people, even African Americans. But to be sure, this scalping practice, the skinning went westward, and my people the Apache, we fought it to the end, we had the longest fight, we fought over 100 years, we've been in the longest engaged fight with the United States ever have any peoples 100 years, 110 years to be exact. And in that time, we fought the Mexicans and other settlers that tried to come in and the Spaniards. So this scalping practice was then even more monetized at $200 in advertising papers. And for those who could read, that's what drove it now. And this is around civil war time, where people knew that it was, you know, the phrase kill the Indian save the man, right? Well, they were displaced on what's called reservations, but they're really called prisoner of war camps. And while we were there, and we were starved out, and if we left to try to get food, we ran the fear of being bounty, hunted, and scalped, and those scalps were then traded at your local for trading posts. And that's how this ugly term was used. So with these guys who say, hey, how many are words did you get? Well, I got 20, or 10. And for each one, you got $200. So that's a lot of money. It's an insult, though, because it's not a lot of money. Because in today's value, I did the math on this, I did a current on one website and found a currency equivalent from those times to now it was a little over $5,000 to murder somebody
Kosta Yepifantsev:insane. And they got away with it. Coming full circle. We are just now to the point to where we're reconciling these injustices. Yeah, okay.
Sayota Knight:You know what the discovery, if you will of these mass burials of children at the boarding schools in Canada, with a Apache and Navajo and Hopi and all these indigenous people were stripped their kids were stripped from them and taken hundreds and hundreds of miles if not 1000s away. 1000 miles away from their families got a fear of being murdered. Yeah, those children dealt with rape and murder being abused beyond measure things I couldn't even fathom. Yeah. And then mass unmarked graves. And I contribute that act to the R word to. Because these terms allow people to look at us as just animals. If you are a human, yeah, we're subhuman. We're just an as the Constitution called a savages. And that's still in the Constitution, by the way, so we're still never going to be regarded as human beings. And until we get these mascots changed and being seen on a national and global level, as human beings, this violence will continue to perpetuate against us.
Kosta Yepifantsev:We talked about how it takes economics to change things. Yeah, that's very appropriate for us to point out that the change that's happening at the state legislature was not necessarily an economic change, it's outrage, and it did move the needle with the executive order signed by Governor Bill Lee, that's a pretty big step and the state of Tennessee. So our local school mascots have been changed in the past. And for far less offensive reasons. For example, the Northeast Trojans are now the Eagles, allegedly because a parent did not want their child's school to be associated with a condom brand. In your opinion, what will it take for us to change?
Sayota Knight:Looking at all the things that have happened over the years, and I've lived here for 25 years, I feel it's going to take a parent or multiple parents who have kids in that school system to see the ugliness of how that word affects people. And if they see their kids look in a shameful way, nothing moves you I think more than seeing your kids question you or hurts, or even confused. Like, why is this wrong? Right? Yeah. And that's the other scary part for me is that they're teaching this to kids and saying it's okay.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, the fact that a person can attend that school, knowing that that's their mascot is, I mean, that's already rather shocking. Yeah. And I am a perfect example of someone that's complicit because I send my kids to all good Elementary and right next door is all good middle school. Right? You know, and, and they teach about Martin Luther King. Yeah, yeah. They teach about indigenous people. It's interesting, actually, when they were teaching, Louie about indigenous culture and the settling of America essentially, right, they left out the part where the American settlers completely decimated, you know, millions of of indigenous people when they came to the United States. And I told him that, you know, and I don't know if like it, maybe he was just like, What do what now? Like, you have to have those conversations with your kids. Like, it's history. Yes. The fact that you don't want to share history is how it repeats? It's absolutely,
Sayota Knight:yeah, that's the crime, I think, for our school system. And that's why they didn't want me to be able to speak,
Kosta Yepifantsev:here's the$100 million question. What do you think that we're afraid of, because when it comes down to it, there's no legitimate reason that we can change the Trojans to the Eagles, because it reminds someone of a condom brand, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that we refuse to address one of the most demeaning representations of the indigenous identity. Is it power? White guilt? Or is it just plain ignorance?
Sayota Knight:I think it's all of the above. We're a multi dimensional being all humans are. And the idea that we want to hold on to this idea of comfort, right? Like, we have this idea that a movie has its beginning and in at the end, it's a good, good ending, whatever. And to question that or to bring something into that foray, if you will, then, whoa, wait a minute. That's not how the script is supposed to go. And we're not in it. Leave it to Beaver ages or Andy Griffith anymore. I just don't want to change the narrative. Right. And to be isolationist, as this community, I feel has been to think that living in the 1950s is still the appropriate way to go about things, you know, is quite comical and baffling to me, because we were told to assimilate, we were told to change our indigenous people. You talked about canceled culture, people like oh, you're not going to cancel me or you can't like you've canceled out an entire continent of
Kosta Yepifantsev:people. The American government only works. If people similarly can't have a country without immigrants and you can't have a country without indigenous people. Right? Rule number one of coming to America is you have to assimilate, and they applaud you and pat you on the back and tell you how great it is. Proud to be an American and I'm not trying to say that America isn't the greatest country in the world. That's not the point that I'm trying to make. Right. What I'm trying to say is Maybe there's room for more than one type of America.
Sayota Knight:Well, I want to elaborate on my answer because they don't want to lose power. And the power that they're wielding is illegitimate power. They've been living a lie they those who will this authority in this community and other small communities across the nation that have this stranglehold of white supremacy narrative. They've been living a lie for a long time. And anything that speaks truth against their illegitimacy takes away that power,
Kosta Yepifantsev:or they violent, like Are you scared to continue to put this fight forward and continue this fight? Because I'll be honest with you, I am scared all the time. That if I go too far, like this episode, right? That my house is gonna get, you know, shot at or, you know, Justin canoe from the Tennessee holler. We had him on the show a few episodes back and his house was just shot. Yeah, shot up. His kids were in the house. And he is an activist, and he descends from the conservative ideology that a theocracy that is Tennessee, and my gosh, can you imagine the fear?
Sayota Knight:Well, I've lived with this terrorism since like I said, since 2006, My house has had rocks thrown at it. Still, not now. Since things have kind of okay. But my mailbox has been run over. I've had people stop in the middle of the road. And in this time of day, by the way, when it's sun shining, and I'm out Dawn ball with my son, I've had grown older men, stop and cuss at me, or taunt me, and try to ridicule me in front of my children, my family. They feel emboldened because Donald Trump made them feel emboldened, I'm not you the question is, am I afraid? My resolve is not living in fear, I won't let them put me in that. I am concerned about my other relations, because I can't be with them at all times. Are you concerned about your kids? Yes, all my relations and my friends and the people who've stood up with me, I'm concerned about them yourself, you know, and anybody who's stood with me, and I know, for my resolve, though, is that my ancestors went through far worse, that's where I go with my resolve, they lived in more fear than I could ever probably imagine right now. And my mother who raised me, you know, she would always tell me, you want to be able to rest your head at night, knowing that you would not silenced or had the opportunity to speak up, but you fail to not speak up. It's those moments that define you.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Obviously, what I'm going through is like a drop in the bucket relative to what you're going through. And I'm not saying this for any other reason, just to point out that I have access to all of the representatives and senators and elected officials here in this area. And I am terrified to talk to them about this. Because I know that I'm on the opposite side of this. And I know that even if they are on my side, they can't say how they actually feel right to everybody else. Right? I have to not think about it, I have to only think about it with the hopes that the situation that we find ourselves in as a state is going to create change across the entire state into the little pockets and communities. And that people are going to start to have the tolerance necessary to be able to say, No, I don't want a racial slurs a school mascot. And no, I don't care about how much you love Donald Trump. I understand that he was, you know, the only populist president in the last 50 years, and we haven't had one since the early 1900s. But no, we can do better than that. Yeah. As an indigenous person, what does representation and inclusion look like to you? And how are we missing the mark in the upper Cumberland?
Sayota Knight:Well, representation, I had a really healthy conversation with the guy in Dayton, Tennessee, on a powwow. And he was, quote, unquote, a good meaning person who had the same questions, because he took the angle of like, well, I don't want to not have indigenous people being recognized. I don't want us to forget about USA. Whoa, hold up. How are you going to forget about us, man? You've rolled us out of the history books, right? You omit the important things, but only put us in there for Thanksgiving. You're already doing it. What's one less mascot? Here's like, well, we have images about us what was wrong with the Patriots in the windy symbol and awesome, but that's you guys creating those images for yourself? Yeah, I mean, it is the White House after all right, right. Yeah. I said but have you ever consulted with indigenous people to ask us how we would create our own images? He was solidly silent. And I said, additionally, this society is made a monolith of our imagery, right? Everybody thinks an indigenous person is going to have a headdress like the Lakota or the Blackfoot. I said, That's not true. Not everybody looks like that. And then we're very worried, extremely diverse, like this week in Tennessee Tech is going to have an event called windows in the world. And it's to show the beautiful cultures around the world. And that's what it's like, with indigenous people on this continent. We're just as diverse as anybody, right? It's hard and and allow people to kind of categorize one group here, one group here, and it's just one fits all. But I would be remiss if I said, Well, you can't do that to black people, either, you know,
Kosta Yepifantsev:and listen, correct me if I'm wrong? Sure. But my theory is, I know that everybody says, Well, why can't we all just let get along and shadow and get together? And I believe that the only way that we can actually build a homogenous society is if everybody has an equal stake and equality, and they don't feel like they're marginalized. Once we get to that point, then yeah, we can start building everything back up. But first, we have to get to a point to where everybody is, in fact, equal. Right. Right, right. And so when everybody says, Well, why is everybody making such a big deal about this? You know, in terms of African American wealth? Well, it's because African Americans have 1/17 of white Americans wealth, because they've been marginalized and redlined. And every program that's been created has always worked against them in some capacity, maybe not when it was created. But when it was implemented, in terms of indigenous people. They were literally slaughtered. And every single promise that was made, was taken away from them. And they were put, like you were saying, in prisoner of war camps. Yeah. You got to get back to baseline before you can start saying, Okay, everybody, relax. It's no big deal. We're all homogenous already. No, we're
Sayota Knight:not. No. And I want to touch back on a previous question you had because this relates to this situation, as you're saying, that power structure, they lose power. And if you think about this, this is all stolen land, right. And if they abide by the treaties, they really have to give back the land. That's what it's all about. That's why they're trying to restructure things or do terraforming, where they destroy sacred lands. So it's unrecognizable. So they can truly say, well, it's not your land, you don't recognize it. Because those who control the resources, the clean water, the mineral rights, lumber, that's the true wielding of our capital. That's the part they don't want to talk about. Because that gives us the power back because we will control as indigenous people, those those powers, they did not want Deb Holland, in the position of Secretary of Interior, because she now has abilities to say, we're not going to do this as the United States Government on these lands.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And she is just so that everybody understands she is part of the Biden administration, Department of the Interior. And she is the first Native American to be appointed to if I'm not mistaken, a secretary position period. Yes,
Sayota Knight:absolutely. It was monumental. Yeah. And for us, as indigenous people, we were so grateful for that decision and thankful for President Biden to appoint her. And so this idea of power back to that, and the truth of it, like living a lie. You know, people don't realize every inch that they walk on this land is stolen. Literally, the only way they can justify that is to say, well, we're just not going to acknowledge it. And to your point, you're just like, oh, my gosh, how can they that's that's how they're doing it is because if they go the other way, then there's a lot of other repercussions they got to deal with.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And all you're asking for is just for someone to change the mascot. I mean, at this point, your battle is like, relative to the actual battle is like one small, little bit. It's like, come on. Yeah, well, you
Sayota Knight:know what I was, I was asked, well, how far is it gonna go? And I looked at my person asked me this. I said, What do you mean? How far is this gonna go? Well, if you want to, the idea is you give them an inch, the one tick a mile, I knew it was going, they think we're going to take the limb, I've had people tell me, they don't want to a Native American, every president because they're afraid they'll be kicked off this land. Fascinating. That's their fear. They are afraid of losing and having to go back to Europe, because all the things they have supported and done to people, immigrants or anybody else. Otherwise, they're projecting really, they're afraid that's going to be done to them. Sure. And so they're even stifled with their own fear to where they can't make the rational, moral correct decision because they think well, if I do this, I'm losing my power. I'm actually yielding do something that may make me lose my status in society, and I'll be seen as weak where I view it direct opposite. That's one of the strongest characteristics a human being can I have to admit, I was wrong. I want to do better. I want to be better. And give a what we call seven generations down the line chance for our children to do better.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Yeah. We never went down this rabbit hole, we may not be facing extinction and by 2100, right, right, destroying this land. Yeah, three questions, and then we're gonna wrap up right on, how can we better support indigenous people and minorities of all kinds? What do we need to do? And what do you want us to know?
Sayota Knight:So the first thing I think, as far as supporting our or helping indigenous people and other minorities, is to use whatever privilege you have, and speak in the moment. So if you see injustice, speak out against it right then. So like, you hear of water cooler talk or locker room talk. That's the scariest part, because then you've played your cards, you've let people know where you stand. But I've seen that happen, where my mom who raised me a white lady, she did that. And I thought that's how all white people were when I was little, I was like, Yeah, this is, you know, she would speak out against because she married a black man. And so other people felt safe to say stuff in front of her because they didn't know she was married to a black man. And then she would cut them off right then and there and give them the third degree because she let them know, under no circumstances or terms, what they were saying was not just wrong, it was racist, and she was not gonna tolerate it. And they did not do any more around her. That doesn't mean they didn't they change their behavior, but it just means they knew to wash their cues. Right. So that's one thing, I think, changing that environment, by those simple things, speaking out, and speaking up. The second part of that question is what to do, I think falls in line with that, but use your money in a way that, you know, that's part of our democracy using your dollars. So kind of like the histories of the Montgomery bus boycott. A law that didn't change was, you know, African Americans boycott the buses. And for sure, Montgomery was hurt economically. But law that didn't change until the other Freedom Riders got involved as well. And that was your poor white people or college students that were white that got involved as well. snick. Yeah, it was what it was called. Yeah. And that change the trajectory of that moment completely, because then everybody can say, oh, I can see myself doing this. It's kind of cool. It's popular, and it's happening,
Kosta Yepifantsev:but it's happening. So I say all of this to end with. I mean, are you hopeful? Absolutely more more hopeful than you've been in a long time?
Sayota Knight:Yes. I'll end with this. I love baseball, and I watch baseball, and I'm a Chicago Cubs fan. So I'm the ultimate optimist. I think that when they won a World Series in 2016, there is hope they can be done. It may take 108 years, which I hope it doesn't. However, I have a lot of hope for this community. And as far as as much wrong as has done me. Not everybody's bad. I know there's amazing people in this community, I want to leave with saying that. For those who are on the fence with this, or who are undecided about what to do, please have a conversation with me or read some books about this issue or watch a documentary. In fact, I'd like to announce that I'm going to have a documentary screening here. Oh, wow. Soon. And I'd like to invite not just the school board, but everybody to come view this documentary. The details are still to come. I'll let you guys know where can we find the details? I guess I'll just have to email you for now. Okay, if that's okay, because, but like, where are you going to post the details? I'll probably do Facebook. Okay. I can do other social media forms. However, this community has great potential. I believe in the people here in the hearts of humanity, that they can do the right thing. Yeah, they've done it. They've shown it with the tornado that happened here, just down the street. 1000s. And 1000s of people came to show so the capacity is there. It's the willingness of them to do it.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I think that people my age, so 33, who have young kids, people Morgan's age, they want to live in Cookeville. Like they want to live here. So bad. Yeah. And they just need the opportunity, the financial opportunity to live here, right? cats out of the bag. I mean, we're not stopping this train. And in terms of economic innovation, and progress, and local elected leaders and officials are on board. And whether they believe in tolerance and diversity and inclusion, they're going to get it because with economic opportunity come all of those things as well. We see it in the large metro areas that are economic engines for states massive, the only economic engines in some instances. And it all boils down to we want our kids to live here and we want them to feel safe. And we don't know how they're going to turn out. We don't know who they're going to marry. We don't know if there'll be LGBTQ i A or plus. The fact is, is we want the environment to be welcoming and understanding and tolerant. So I'm also hopeful
Sayota Knight:you got to foreshadow this hope that you know we had Nazis marched down the street not too long ago, but even in that I was Hopefully because I saw the next week, the hundreds of people that came out, those are the instances that give me hope and leave me with resolve that I think we will do better not just we can we will do better. Yeah, I'm gonna manifest that I'm going to put that out there because people have to hear that as if, if I'm to be a leader, then I have to lead by my example.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?
Sayota Knight:As my wife, she's honest about everything I've done. She tells us straightforward and I appreciate that you know, and that helps gauge me and keeps me humble.
Morgan Franklin:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com We're better together.