Fort Lewis College abruptly canceled a public event Thursday at which a business owner with a controversial history in Durango planned to deliver a talk titled “Saving Navajo Weaving,” after word spread that Indigenous activists planned to protest.
Jackson Clark II, who is white, owns Toh-Atin Gallery at 145 W. Ninth St. He is regarded by many – including Life-Long Learning Series organizers with the Professional Associates of Fort Lewis College – as an expert in Navajo (Diné) weaving. According to a description published by the hosts, Clark planned to “argue that without the influence of traders, the art form would likely have expired.”
But Indigenous organizers in Durango said the talk would have given Clark a platform to peddle a “white savior” narrative that reflects a misunderstanding of, and ignorance toward, native people.
“’Saving Navajo Weaving’ – that is white saviorism. That is problematic,” said Trennie Burch, co-creator of an advocacy group named Four Borderless Corners.
FLC offers a tuition waiver to enrolled members of federally recognized Native American tribes, and 39% of the student body identifies as Native American.
As would-be protesters applauded the college’s decision, Clark criticized the move as stifling of his free speech, and said the cancellation is a reflection of a broader political moment.
It’s not the first time that Burch, a member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe with Diné roots, and Clark have butted heads. Burch was among those who led protests in 2021 calling on Clark to remove a cartoonish statue of a Native American, known as “The Chief,” that stands outside his gallery.
Burch was among those who contacted the college in advance of Clark’s talk and requested it be canceled.
She reached out to incoming FLC President Heather Shotton, who takes office July 1. Burch never heard back, but news of the planned protest caught college officials’ attention.
Clark was contacted Thursday by someone from the Professional Associates and informed of the controversy. The group of current and former professionals was impaneled in 1999 to advise the college president and now hosts the annual Life-Long Learning Series.
A history of rugs – that some say has been swept under the rug
Jackson Clark II, owner of Toh-Atin Gallery, had planned to give a talk Thursday at Fort Lewis College about the role of white traders in preserving Navajo weaving.
The lecture, he explained in an interview with The Durango Herald, detailed the history of trading posts on the Navajo Nation. According to Clark and many dominant historical narratives, white traders collaborated with Diné weavers to adapt traditional woven blanket styles into rugs that had value as a commodity outside the reservation, launching a large expansion of the Navajo textile industry.
“Working together with the weavers, they (traders) were able to save this art form and turn it into an income for the weavers,” Clark said.
That’s not a narrative with which all historians or Diné people agree.
“It’s the weavers that saved the traders,” argues Kathy M’Closkey, an anthropologist at the University of Windsor, whose doctoral studies focused on the “hidden history of Navajo weaving.”
“On paper, it really does look like traders saved weaving, no doubt,” she said.
But the dominant historical narrative – the one Clark planned to discuss Thursday – is the product of scholarship that ignores certain primary sources and instead focuses purely on economic receipts. Those receipts indicate a massive escalation in the Navajo textile economy, which was a $30,000 industry in 1890 and had grown to a $1 million industry by 1930.
It was other economic forces that drove the escalation in Navajo rug production, M’Closkey said.
Indigenous activists who planned to protest Clark’s lecture said the concept that colonial capitalists saved their cultural practice is offensive.
“This is thousands and thousands of years of teachings and cultural and traditional items that we pass down,” said Trennie Burch, co-creator of an advocacy group named Four Borderless Corners. “I have no question that without him (Clark), or any other white savior, that would still be going, or still be happening, or still being taught.
“The Diné people sell their art and their beautiful teachings now,” Burch noted. “It didn’t start that way.”
Clark said he spoke with FLC interim President Steve Schwartz, who told him the college wanted to postpone the event and have him meet with the community to explain his talk and seek their approval.
“Obviously, I said I’m not going to do that,” Clark said. “That’s censorship. … I know more about Navajo weaving than anybody in the room that I’d be with. Why would I want to try and get them to approve what I was going to say?”
It remains unclear whether the event has been permanently canceled or could be rescheduled.
Burch applauded what she sees as a clear statement from FLC that “racism and harmful narratives have no place in our learning institution.” Clark said he was denied the opportunity to deliver a talk on a topic he considers himself an expert in because the college “caved.”
FLC said neither perspective reflects the institution’s official stance.
“Fort Lewis College upholds the free exchange of ideas and we recognize that it is important to have discussion, especially on complex topics,” said FLC spokeswoman Nardy Bickel.
Schwartz and event organizers had concerns about the college’s ability to ensure safety after learning, with little notice, that protests would occur.
Protest organizers, including FLC student Stephanie Dressen, said they never threatened violence. That fear was rooted in a stereotypical image of the “rowdy Indian,” said Dressen, who is Apache and Diné.
Gary Rottman, a retired physicist who organizes the speaker series, said Clark was chosen by a small group of associates who meet with lectures in advance to ensure their professionalism – something, he indicated, those who objected to the talk may have lacked.
“(Clark) is a very good speaker. He’s very knowledgeable. And those are the things that we’re interested in a speaker,” Rottman said. “We’re not interested in someone who’s a rabble-rouser or something.”
Another member of the group said he hoped the talk could occur sometime in the future.
“We know our stories, we know our history,” Burch said, pushing back against Clark’s expertise. “We don’t need a white man to sit up there and tell us what this looks like and how it is. We already know that. And I think the fact that he feels like he’s the right man to do this explains how racism works in his mind.”
Whether the talk eventually takes place may, for scheduling reasons, fall to incoming President Shotton, the first Native American to lead FLC. The speaker series has concluded for the year and is not scheduled to resume until the fall.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
