The Summit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Museum_of_the_American_Indian
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian was a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco canyon and stream. The museum was owned, and later absorbed by, the Autry Museum of the American West. Its collections dealt mainly wi...
MutantsMichael — 3/19/25, 4:24 PM
@Leonard @Bill B @Madness Dossier
March 20, 2025
MutantsMichael — 3/20/25, 8:20 AM
This Youth Indian Summit was organized in a hurry; propelled by the Rosebud/Crow Dog's Paradise's Ghost Dance and "victory" against the feds who'd tried to infiltrate, many of the non-Oglala Sioux who visited that weekend in late May have brought news of the Ghost Dance along the "moccasin telegraph" to reservations all across the West over the past three months. The rituals each time have been adjusted, with care, to the tribal traditions of each tribe who's received them, but the results have been the same: strange behavior of animals in the wild surrounding the ritual, as if they are actively protecting the lands; overt or covert local and/or federal surveillance quashed or interrupted to the point where the agents have had to retreat from their posts thanks to animals or weather events; and most importantly, a sense of community, well-being, and increased belief in the power of inter-tribal solidarity. Every witness and participant has felt an urge, a "longing," some of them even call it, to bring word of these events to another link in the chain, to carry the word of this new Ghost Dance onwards. All of this has led to the young urban Indian population of Los Angeles hearing word. It's rumored, in these early hours of the Youth Indian Summit, that the kids who were brought to Bunker Hill when they were young thanks to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 have tried the Ghost Dance here in the city and have had markedly less success. Which is one of the reasons why the activists, the anti-war youth, and others involved at the newly-founded United American Indian Involvement Center in downtown LA, have called this summit; one of its goals is to "unite the efforts of reservation youth and urban youth in achieving Indian liberation" but bubbling under the surface is the realization that the medicine doesn't seem to be working for the urban kids as much. Bertha Cody is the official institutional sponsor for this event; she has the trust and respect of a lot of the kids in the movement, and in an effort to make this first plenary session on Friday friendly, there's a de facto "no whites" rule instituted. There are sessions set on Saturday and Sunday where friendly allies outside the Indian community will be invited, but this is an opening session where the kids can rap and plan without the fear of being overheard by any snooping undercovers. Which means for the moment, even though Leonard Crow Dog and the men Roger and Jo befriended are out there, mixing and mingling with other tribal youth leaders, Roger and Jo (and Mystic Kate!) are behind the scenes, in one of the Southwest Museum's storage areas, surrounded by Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, and Southwest Indian artifacts, textiles, art, and weapons. The vibes back here are pretty heavy. The director of the museum, Carl Dentzel, an expert in Central and South American native cultures, was introduced to Roger and Jo under whichever cover identities they'd like to use, and is also here in the spacious storage area, staying late and staying out of the way of the "Indian only" opening session. But from where they're sitting, Roger and Jo can easily hear what's being spoken about out in the lecture hall. Mystic Kate can easily be sicced on Mr. Dentzel to distract him if you two need to do anything. (Mostly I wanted to give Jo and Roger an opportunity to catch up in-character on what has been going on this week; Roger and Rick and the Owls of course and then this news about the Summit... but already the intelligence gathered seems to indicate that the Ghost Dance is working, but the energy of the city of Los Angeles isn't really permitting it to happen here. More will be revealed, of course. If Jo and Roger do want to mingle out there and gather HUMINT in person, read body language, etc. etc., you could always use SANGUSH. Also the rule is technically "no whites" and Roger certainly is not that.)
Bill B — 3/20/25, 12:12 PM
Based on the experience with Crow Dog, Roger is trying to be very respectful. But syncretism is his jam and L.A. his childhood stomping grounds, so he's also feeling very pulled into this energy. He wants to wait until the weekend invitation, but observing them as they first meet and the energy starts to flow is just too tempting. Roger would like to at least get visuals along with audio, if he can. He'll try to briefly get away and some how get up to the edge and look. He's willing to try to see if his mixed race might get him past a few gatekeepers without inquiry. He'll put back that chip on his shoulder about being asked about race all the time, like challenging the next person to call him out on who his ancestors are. But, if he gets directly called out, he'll apologize and retreat respectfully. He wants to see the vibe, and how much ritual these kids even know, or if they're up for making something new.
1
@Bill B
Based on the experience with Crow Dog, Roger is trying to be very respectful. But syncretism is his jam and L.A. his childhood stomping grounds, so he's also feeling very pulled into this energy. He wants to wait until the weekend invitation, but observing them as they first meet and the energy starts to flow is just too tempting. Roger would like to at least get visuals along with audio, if he can. He'll try to briefly get away and some how get up to the edge and look. He's willing to try to see if his mixed race might get him past a few gatekeepers without inquiry. He'll put back that chip on his shoulder about being asked about race all the time, like challenging the next person to call him out on who his ancestors are. But, if he gets directly called out, he'll apologize and retreat respectfully. He wants to see the vibe, and how much ritual these kids even know, or if they're up for making something new.
MutantsMichael — 3/20/25, 12:18 PM
(I'll definitely a roll or two for this, Bill; I'll try to get that to you soon.)
@Bill B
Based on the experience with Crow Dog, Roger is trying to be very respectful. But syncretism is his jam and L.A. his childhood stomping grounds, so he's also feeling very pulled into this energy. He wants to wait until the weekend invitation, but observing them as they first meet and the energy starts to flow is just too tempting. Roger would like to at least get visuals along with audio, if he can. He'll try to briefly get away and some how get up to the edge and look. He's willing to try to see if his mixed race might get him past a few gatekeepers without inquiry. He'll put back that chip on his shoulder about being asked about race all the time, like challenging the next person to call him out on who his ancestors are. But, if he gets directly called out, he'll apologize and retreat respectfully. He wants to see the vibe, and how much ritual these kids even know, or if they're up for making something new.
MutantsMichael — 3/20/25, 12:40 PM
So it feels like this would consist of a Reaction roll because other than Crow Dog and his coterie, Roger's an unknown quantity to 90% of the attendees here. Now obviously, given he has Leonard to vouch for him, and Bertha as a fellow SANDMAN can do so as well. He has the fact he is not white, and of course Roger has a number of skills that could apply here for a +2 bonus to the Reaction roll as well. So let's break down the Reaction modifiers like this. • -3 for the general mistrust/fear of fed infiltration among the various tribal representatives: "Very Unfavorable" is the banner for a -2 to -3 modifier and I think this sits on the harder side of that. • +1 for the fact Roger's not white. He's also not Indian, at least to outward appearances despite his Mexican ancestry, so he gets half of his usual reverse race penalty as a bonus here. • +2 for both Leonard Crow Dog/the Rosebud delegation and Bertha Cody vouching for him. • +1 for you saying Roger would be respectful, float around the edges of the Friday night meet-and-greet at first, etc. That's a wise approach considering the circumstances. • If you succeed on a Streetwise-16 roll (giving you a +1 bonus to reflect how you handled Leonard back in November), you'll get another +2 to the Reaction roll. A crit will give you a further bonus. So first roll Streetwise-16, and then if that's successful, you'll roll 3d6+3 for the Reaction roll. The Reaction roll be a 3d6+1 if you fail, 3d6+5 if you crit succeed. Obviously, higher is better on the Reaction table; to be able to mix freely among the crowd will require a 13 or better (Good) Reaction. With lesser results you could get a "chaperoned" set of introductions; much more formal and brittle, much less free-wheeling.
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/20/25, 12:45 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Streetwise:(2+6+6)= 141
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/20/25, 1:50 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6+3:(2+1+3)+3= 9Bill B — 3/20/25, 1:50 PM
(meh)
MutantsMichael — 3/20/25, 1:51 PM
Poor. Well at the very least it provides us with some interesting RP opportunities to try and improve that Reaction!
[1:51 PM]
And yes, Poor works out to people being "unimpressed," not actively hostile, so "meh" actually covers it, ironically
[1:54 PM]
I would call it "a cold shoulder" until circumstances dictate otherwise. As I said, I'll post a little more in detail tomorow.
Leonard — 3/20/25, 9:35 PM
Jocasta will have her standard Carolyn Preston ID on her, and will dress a little down, looking more like a hippie who might hang around on the fringes of the Bunker Hill kids. She's not armed and doesn't have anything SANDMAN-issue on her. Just an "observer", to any observer. She's going to do just that, for the most part; her intel senses will lead her to look for anything that seems off or listen in on any particularly interesting conversations, but generally she's just there to pick up the vibe. She's especially interested in the contagion of the Ghost Dance -- how far it's spread, how powerful it's gotten, how it's been altered to local traditions. Otherwise, she really just wants to meet with Leonard Crow Dog. She'll engage with Dentzel to the degree he can shed light on the Ghost Dance but otherwise she'll let Mystic Kate handle him; she figures Roger has plenty to do on his own so she won't get in the way of his moves unless needed. At some point, though, she'll have a chat with him about strategy; she hasn't really felt like she had much to say about the direction URIEL should be taking and didn't really know what to do about our new purpose. But she's had an idea, and it's beginning to take shape - and this might be the place to start it.
March 21, 2025
MutantsMichael — 3/21/25, 7:19 AM
(Gonna combine this set of moves for the two of you, @Bill B and @Leonard, and give an impression about how the opening session went that both Roger and Jo can observe. Probably have you both make a couple of rolls too.) Roger gets to meet a few of Crow Dog's most trusted intertribal activists: a Chippewa/Lakota/Dakota man also named Leonard (man, Roger says to himself, there's a lot of Leonards in this gang) who, like Crow Dog, works as an auto mechanic and engineer. Leonard Peltier was in jail during Wounded Knee last year—he missed the end of the siege—but since he got out he's been helping out AIM. He seems much less overtly spiritual than Leonard Crow Dog, which is interesting to Roger—it seems like he gravitated to the only Black man in the room because he figured he could talk turkey with him, not spirituality—but even Leonard P. concedes that his being in jail, his existing on the edges of white society and, it's implied, planning heists and gun runs for AIM activists, is itself a kind of Sun Dance; the barbs of the needles are the wounds Indian activists suffer in their struggle to gain freedom. In other words, Leonard P. looks at the material Struggle itself as a spiritual trial, a metaphor for understanding Red Liberation in the white man's world. Curious cat. When the opening meeting gets underway, both Jo (from the back of the museum) and Roger (at the periphery of the meeting) note the overall discomfort in the room, as embodied by Leonard P.'s mixed metaphor. Yes, this dozen or so set of tribes have taken their own tribal traditions in hand and performed Ghost Dance/circle dance rituals. Historically, the Navajo felt like the original 1890 Dance was a fraud that made the federals come down even harder on them after the concept of the Ghost Dance had spread among the white man and made them fearful and vengeful against the tribes. But none of them, except the urban kids, can dispute how effective these rituals have been. And a new piece of information comes out in these opening consciousness-raising sessions: the weird behavior of animals, the FBI surveillance needing to flee because of intense rains or desert siroccos, all those have been detailed before. But then Leonard Crow Dog's young wife Mary Brave Bird gets up and makes a testimonial about how she's spoken with her long-dead relatives since the Ghost Dance in May. The door was opened, she said, by the time in her teenage years that she took peyote with the Native American Church—she had an experience of a past life, a Lakota village that was burned, raped, and murdered by the white man. But it was the recent Ghost Dance that made her able to establish two-way communication with the ancestors. As if the peyote offers an individualistic window into the other world, but the group action of the Ghost Dance provides a holistic, communal one. Leonard Crow Dog says we may not be able to summon the ghosts of our dead to fight the white man, as Wovoka had believed back in 1890. But the Ghost Dance gives us more weapons, more ghost-shirts to defend ourselves, and wisdom, a perspective outside of these lands of the living, that can save us from this persecution and create a new world in the bargain. It becomes clear that despite the very different experiences of all these young Indians in practicing the Ghost Dance, the goal of this summit will be to discuss the strategy on how exactly that new world can be created, with the help of the dead and of the spirits. Jocasta, Occultism-19; Roger, Religious Ritual (Voudon)-13
MutantsMichael — 3/21/25, 7:30 AM
(From Lakota Woman, Mary Brave Bird, p. 97)
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/21/25, 9:27 AM
@Leonard rolled
3d6#occultism:(3+5+3)= 11Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/21/25, 9:44 AM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Voudon:(5+6+6)= 17Bill B — 3/21/25, 9:47 AM
(booo)
1
MutantsMichael — 3/21/25, 4:13 PM
@Leonard: Jocasta, in listening to these first, tentative testimonials, is confident that on some level, tapping into the ancient spirit memetics is working. She can't help, of course, but think of the moment back on the moors of Cumbria with the ravens forming into an Annunaki glyph, of the flocks of maddened birds descending on Brougham Castle as Morgan emerged from Long Meg and Her Daughters, as these young idealistic Native activists talk about inexplicable flocks of vultures and gusts of wind causing fed spotter planes to wobble in the sky and seek landing immediately. But in the elements, in nature—just as Jo herself has sensed many times, at Half Moon Bay, in Vermont, in Ohio—the memories of the Native spirits of the land have some purchase, and have even more when the belief of these adherents is stronger and deeper. It doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with History B, although it seems the Kings too are able to hook into the natural world when needed, to spread the patterns of belief that lead to Their return. But ultimately, this spiritual technology is in the kids' hands now. And even the ones who don't overtly and openly believe, like Peltier, are starting to think of their material revolutionary actions in the terms of Native cosmology and ritual. That becomes a self-reinforcing buttress of belief that's hard to dislodge once things start snowballing the insurgency's way. Jo feels satisfied—a little scared, because this kind of power has the chance to grow exponentially—but the seeds she and Roger planted over Thanksgiving last year have come to fruition now, nine months later. Once this first meeting breaks up, and the boundaries have come down, Jo really wants to talk with Leonard (Crow Dog). @Bill B: Roger, a little shaken by how little he's been able to hook into things socially and spiritually here, feels himself a bit unmoored. When Mary gets up to talk about her past few years trying to re-establish contact with her ancestors, Roger actually gets a little woozy. The kind of woozy that comes from a shot of rum, even though he hasn't touched a drop tonight. He's almost overwhelmed with the passion and righteousness and huge spiritual awakening evident here tonight, the kind of energy that might lead a rank amateur participant in a Santería ritual to empty him- or herself to the orisha. Even though these kids haven't busted out the drums and singing yet. But Papa Legba guards the door, always; no one can take Roger over without H/his say-so. As Mary sits in the circle giving her testimony about meeting and speaking with her deceased ancestors, Roger makes quick eye contact with Jocasta, peering out from behind the door to the museum's object storage area... and in the shadows behind Jo, he swears he catches the quickest glimpse of the skeletal face of Baron Samedi, grinning theatrically and widely, tipping his top hat and shaking it, hamming it up and casting a literal shadow on Jocasta before he slips back into the shadows himself. Fright Check-12 for Roger.
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/21/25, 4:56 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Yikes:(6+1+5)= 12MutantsMichael — 3/21/25, 5:04 PM
Roger just manages to keep the cold blood running too hard and suddenly in his veins as the leaders of the Summit perform a closing ritual and chant to end the first day. The circle is broken. The locals escort their country cousins out to a night of partying and getting to know each other better at all-night gathers at Bunker Hill. Leonard Crow Dog and the Rosebud Lakota stick around and jaw with Bertha and some of the older folks here from the LA Indian community, the Indian Bureau-affiliated kids from the UAIIC, and representatives from the Native American Church. Interesting how all these folks seem like older-generation-linked conservative figures while the firebrands are all out carousing, and Crow Dog chose to stay here. He definitely seems to be emerging as a man to bridge gaps in generations and in worldviews in the Native sphere. Probably Mystic Kate and Dentzel would emerge at this point, so if Roger and Jo wanted a quick face-to-face in the back of the museum before they catch up with Crow Dog in the lecture hall, that's fine with me.
Leonard — 3/21/25, 5:28 PM
"Roger, you all right?" Jo asks. "You look like you've seen a...well, a ghost you didn't expect to see."
March 25, 2025
Bill B — 3/25/25, 7:13 AM
“Didn’t you feel it too, the breakaway, the unmooring of this place they made happen? Spirits were gathering around close. They are doing the work.” Roger looks at Jo with concern. “There was a presence, one I really don’t like to see. And He had you under the shadow of his wings. Did you feel Him? Like someone walking over your grave? Bad juju, Jo.” (edited)
Leonard — 3/25/25, 10:27 AM
"Sorry, Roger, maybe I'm too distracted with everything that's going on here -- I can feel the spiritual energy for sure, but nothing malevolent like that. I feel like...like something being realized. Like we made a difference, for once. Then again, I more or less always feel like someone is walking on my grave, you know? I walk the path of Death, so Death walks with me." A shadow seems to cross her face for a moment, as if she remembers the skull beneath the skin. "Are you gonna be okay? We can get out of here if you think it's not safe."
Bill B — 3/25/25, 1:18 PM
Roger nods, "Sí mi amiga. You do walk too closely with Death. Something you should worry about. But it is also still an omen-- at the start of this-- so I just can't dismiss it." He looks around. "I'm so proud to have a piece in this... but it also makes me feel responsible, you know? You open the way, you responsible for closing it." (edited)
[1:20 PM]
"I don't want to anger anyone, but I gotta look around and make sure the place is... closed safely for the night. I could use your help to smooth the path; could look really bad to second-guess your hosts as a guest."
Leonard — 3/25/25, 1:56 PM
“At your service, soldier,” she replies. “I’ll want to have a talk with our friend Leonard Crow Dog, but it can wait for more pressing business.”
@Bill B
"I don't want to anger anyone, but I gotta look around and make sure the place is... closed safely for the night. I could use your help to smooth the path; could look really bad to second-guess your hosts as a guest."
MutantsMichael — 3/25/25, 2:03 PM
(I love this. Is the plan to wait for Bertha, the elders, and the Rosebud gang to break up for the evening and then do some spiritual work with Papa Legba to make sure the rest of the Summit goes off well and/or see what the spiritual landscape here in the museum is like without witnesses? Or have Jo act as interference while Roger subtly does his thing? I'm down for anything and everything and I won't hesitate to give you guys the chance to 2-on-1 with Leonard Crow Dog whenever you like.) (edited)
Bill B — 3/25/25, 3:38 PM
(Probably a check-in with Crow Dog first is called for. But then, permission or not, yes, a lot of what you said.)
[3:40 PM]
“No wait needed. Let’s check in with our friend first, see if he’s cool with us being more involved. But then, yeah, even if he doesn’t want us here, I gotta make sure it’s safe.” (edited)
@Bill B
“No wait needed. Let’s check in with our friend first, see if he’s cool with us being more involved. But then, yeah, even if he doesn’t want us here, I gotta make sure it’s safe.” (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/25/25, 3:59 PM
Leonard, feeling less inhibited by social constraints now that it's just the elders, Bertha Cody, and his fellow Ghost Dancers from Crow Dog Paradise, greets Roger more effusively, less tentatively as he might have liked to have when the whole gang of youth activists was present. When Leonard sees Jo coming out of the storage area of the museum, Leonard smiles knowingly, figuring that with Sergeant Martin here, "Jacqueline" was likely to be pretty close behind. Jo's Empathy (Empathy-16 roll made secretly) helps her intercept a few emotional signals from Leonard; a subtle acceptance that Roger and Jacqueline are checking in on him and the movement, the usual suspicions that keep Leonard on guard against white people and/or feds, even if they've proven themselves to be spiritual "double agents," and a real, prominent streak of excitement, of the thrill of all that's been happening since they saw you both last, nearly ten months ago. (As I recall, we only hung out in the garage with LCD and a few of his men (and a couple of the little kids were there too, I think) so neither Jo nor Roger has ever met Mary. Leonard would introduce her and a couple of the other folks from Rosebud that Roger and Jacqueline have never met before. Jo's Empathy shows a similar spread of emotions on those folks' faces, with Mary's expression adding a little more suspicion, reservation, and distance to the mix.) The older folks and the museum staff sort of break off into their own circle of discussion leaving Jo and Roger with Leonard. Leonard's men and women stand beside, not behind him, giving what feels like a united front to their medicine man's words. "Sorry that these kids had it in for you, Roger," Leonard says, with a wry smirk but also real regret at the rejection Roger experienced from the other young Native activists. "A lot of them weren't at Wounded Knee and didn't live through getting material help from the outside, from brothers and sisters who aren't Native."
Bill B — 3/25/25, 4:18 PM
"I think I get it man; when you're finding your own power for the first time in a long time, you want it to be just your own time, revel in it a little. No hard feelings here at all, just want to help. My apologies, and I hope they'll give me another chance tomorrow. It's just... I'm an Angeleno, I grew up in this city, under the whites, like them. My people keep in touch with our ancestors and our spirits in the heart of the city, after centuries of slavery. I think we might have something to share."
@Bill B
"I think I get it man; when you're finding your own power for the first time in a long time, you want it to be just your own time, revel in it a little. No hard feelings here at all, just want to help. My apologies, and I hope they'll give me another chance tomorrow. It's just... I'm an Angeleno, I grew up in this city, under the whites, like them. My people keep in touch with our ancestors and our spirits in the heart of the city, after centuries of slavery. I think we might have something to share."
MutantsMichael — 3/25/25, 4:54 PM
"Tomorrow's morning session was going to be even tighter, I'm afraid," Leonard says to Roger. "No elders, just those who have Danced already, and the kids from LA. But that's mostly up to those of us from Rosebud, since we brought the Dance back. If we can find a way to make it work here..." Leonard drifts off a bit, thinking of what that would mean. "Yeah, you heard them, the kids from the city," Leonard continues, "they've had next to no luck with the Ghost Dance, or, at least, keeping the pigs away by dancing it. Lot of theories on why. I'd be interested to hear what the two of you think. Me and Mary would." Mary Crow Dog, née Brave Bird, steps forward a cautious half-step, her gaze determined. She is looking primarily at Jocasta with a gaze that registers to Jo as being as keen as her own Empathic senses. "Yeah. After all the success we've had this summer, for it to stop at the city limits like this..." Mary says. "I mean, maybe that's unavoidable. But I'd like to know more. And why, for certain." Jo and Roger both in their own ways feel like this is a test. Jo in particular thinks that Mary knows why the Ghost Dance is not working in the city and is trying to use this question as a way of confirming whether Jo and Roger a) have real spiritual power and knowledge and b) are willing to share their knowledge freely, with no expectation of reciprocation or having to sell out their movement. For Roger, the shock of the Baron's appearance and the suboptimal energy with the kids during the opening session have melted away somewhat. And Roger wonders if he really can offer anything; at the very least, Leonard seems very open to hearing what Roger might have to say about L.A. specifically. Leonard knows these kids are profoundly dislocated but have only been here a handful of years in the long history of western Native populations being physically and spiritually dislocated; maybe there is a way for them to learn what the city can teach them or, at the very least, have some kind of reconnection to their history and spirituality. (By the way, this is probably the time for us to have Roger re-spec or buy some Area Knowledge (Los Angeles)... he's been back in the city back and forth long enough since Mission 9 to have re-learned all the old hangouts, gotten wind of the new ones, and assessed what's happening on the streets in the years since he went into the Army and SANDMAN.)
Bill B — 3/25/25, 5:30 PM
(Definitely want to add that AK!)
1
Leonard — 3/25/25, 6:39 PM
"Oh, I could't say," Jocasta responds, trying to be a bit coy in hopes of getting Mary and Leonard to let their guard down a little. "I'm just a dabbler, you know -- the white schools got their hooks into me early. I'm not that different from the freaks and heads and lost souls who come into my bookshop." She takes a little spiral notebook out of the inside pocket of her army jacket. "Of course, the cities are their own places. Each one has its own...what's the word? Terroir." She laughs. "My experience, which isn't worth going into, is that the power of the spirits is tied to the land. And the land in every city - in every town - has undergone a lot of changes, not just since your people first learned to talk to them, but since Wovoka brought the first Ghost Dance. The land in Los Angeles, the land in San Francisco...maybe it's not as easy because they have their own spirits now, and the new children must learn how to speak to them." She flips past a few pages of notes, and seems to find the one she wants. "Maybe that's the problem. Maybe they're trying to talk to new spirits with an old language. Or maybe we should talk to the old ones with new language. But I couldn't really say. I know they never spoke to me. I didn't even know such things existed, and once I did, all I knew was that they were the enemy, and all they knew was to lie and destroy, and that they could only be fought; that it did no good to talk to them even if I knew how. That's what I thought, anyway." She opens up the notebook and holds it in front of her; on its tiny page she has drawn an image of the Underwater Panther as it appeared to her. "But I was wrong."
Bill B — 3/25/25, 8:42 PM
Roger puts his two hands out, and weighs invisible weights. "Old spirit, new spirit, old language, new language, old land, new land... if you are on one side, the spirit on the other, it seems an impossible divide. But it's illusion. I think what most matters is speaking to the right spirit in your own heart's language. But you have to figure out what that language is." "My ancestors had all but the smallest bits of their language stolen from them, a few spirit's names and fragments of the calls. Now we can go back to Africa on a plane, and listen, and our ears can hear all the old words... but our heart still only knows some, not enough to connect that way. You would think us broken away from our ancestors' spirits forever. But instead, I speak to Papa Legba, and I know it is right to speak en français to him. Just as it is right to speak en español to another. The spirits want their rituals, dances, and entreaties, no doubt, but in the form that is most you, most honestly. So what, honestly, is the language of these young people's hearts? The language of their ancestors, yes, but what else is in the language of their hearts? "And you, Jo: as much as I may fear it, that honest, deadly language of your heart, well, the right spirit could hear it, even speaking a white girl's English."
March 26, 2025
MutantsMichael — 3/26/25, 8:31 AM
"The Dance changes," Leonard says in agreement with Jo and Roger. "It has to change. It can't be the same today as 1890, or the same as it was before colonization and invasion." Leonard pauses, gathering his words. "I just worry these kids..." Mary picks up on what Leonard wants to say, while agreeing with him and Jo and Roger broadly, she has a particular concern to address with Roger's assessment, and addresses him. "These kids don't know their ancestors. They don't know their lands, sure, but they really don't know their ancestors, at all. The relocation to the city hurt them both ways, but there's always some land to connect to, like you say," Mary says to Jo, "even if it is covered in concrete and skyscrapers and powerlines. But they do not know—or know how to honor—their foremothers and -fathers." Leonard picks up on this, "Their own parents came here out of sheer desperation; the rez was a hole of grief and poverty—for some of them, a killing ground—so they moved to where they could make money. 'Vocational training.' Just like the residential schools, it was another strategy the white man came up with to destroy their bonds of love and power with their people. Whatever lives they make in LA will be different, but if they want to work the Dance, they'll have to know who came before them. I want to do that work with them tomorrow."
Bill B — 3/26/25, 8:53 AM
"When I was a kid like them, with parents missing, tied up in the grind, I craved family. I bet these kids will too, under their tough exteriors. My grandmothers, they were key-- were for a lot of ghetto kids. If they've got any living, back on the reservations, that's who might open their hearts. Or just helping them find their own ancestral line--names, places in the land. Put a name and a face to their own ancestors. I got a researcher friend... maybe you pick a few, we see what we can find before the weekend is up?" (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/26/25, 2:12 PM
@Leonard @Bill B: Leonard and Mary look at each other. Leonard says some words stiffly in Lakota; Mary leans in to hear, as if she needs to concentrate on the words, and then walks meekly back to Bertha, the museum officials, and elders, turning on her charm and greeting them uncharacteristically effusively. Leonard's men form a subtle wall between Leonard and that group, and Leonard uses body language to sort of nudge Roger and Jo closer to the door to the museum storage area. "You seen what's in there, little lady?" Leonard says to Jo, nodding slightly towards the backrooms of the Southwest Museum. "You were hanging on back there all meeting. Did you have a look?" Jo can tell Leonard's mien and manner has become brusque, slightly condescending and not a little sexist... a simmering anger there, but in a way that seems to connote that Leonard respects Jo and Roger enough to talk straight and bluntly with them.
Leonard — 3/26/25, 2:40 PM
"Yeah, I've seen it. And I've listened and heard your people, and what they're trying to do. I know why you don't like me and don't trust me, and I understand. I'm not here to convince you. I'm here to see the paths that are opening up and who is ready to walk them." She slips the notebook back in her jacket pocket. "I was not raised to see spirits. My father did not see in me a healer. My mother went to her grave and I could do nothing, because they did not speak to me...not then. But I was cast out, and I walked the dark path, and all the while I could not see and did not know the way, but always I listened. And when the time was right, they spoke. Time will tell if what they whispered to me was for good or ill, but I heard. Not one but many. And I found others who heard. "That's why I'm here, to hear and to help others hear whatever voices of the long vanished choose to speak to them. You heard them speak. Do you still? Do you hear the message, or do you see only the messenger?" (edited)
1
MutantsMichael — 3/26/25, 2:46 PM
(Will give Roger a chance to sound off before Leonard puts what's on his mind to the two of you.)
Bill B — 3/26/25, 5:08 PM
Roger looks like he's about to speak; a conciliatory look crosses his face, but then he shakes his head. "Never does any good to say you want to help, does it? I could say that, but I remember exactly how I felt every time some well-meaning 'rescuer' came into Compton to 'lift up the poor colored people.' All I'll say is, we're here."
MutantsMichael — 3/26/25, 5:15 PM
Couple of rolls I think. Jo with Diplomacy-14. Roger with Religious Ritual-16 (bonuses from reverse Social Stigma and the nature of Roger's role as a cheval).
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/26/25, 5:16 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Ritual:(5+5+5)= 151
1
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/26/25, 6:17 PM
@Leonard rolled
3d6:(1+5+1)= 71
1
MutantsMichael — 3/26/25, 6:47 PM
Jocasta stood strong, and Leonard respected that. He lowers his voice to a mere whisper. "What I'm telling you is that on those shelves, in those stacks back there, are the garments, the art, the ceremonial items,... the bones," Leonard fairly hisses, "of Lakota... and a hundred other tribes. Whoever they have on the board here, whoever is the so-called 'guardian' of these objects... this is all plunder. What was stolen and forgotten," Leonard nods at what Roger said earlier about the Middle Passage. "See, this is where the young people knowing themselves starts... right? Something they can see. Something they can touch, and importantly, for the Dance, something that connects them, directly, to their beloved dead." "And if you wanna be 'here' for us, to listen and help," Leonard says, his rage quieting and cooling into something like immense pity and grace for his people, "for these kids in LA, cut off from their history... you just... you just have to give it back to them. And we believe when you do, their grandfathers and grandmothers will speak to them, and finally be able to rest."
Bill B — 3/26/25, 7:48 PM
Roger just stands in silence, thinking about what it would mean to him to have any piece of his own personal African forefathers in his hands.
Leonard — 3/26/25, 11:03 PM
"Like I said, you can never tell what paths will reveal themselves to those who listen," Jocasta replies. She fishes around in another pocket for a business card featuring an embossed lantern in the upper left corner. "Have some of the young seekers from Bunker Hill come by the shop. You never know when we might get some merchandise of interest to their search." She lowers her head respectfully to Leonard and Mary. "I know Roger would love to talk to the you further on this matter, but alas, I must get back. We're hoping to get a lot of new inventory in soon." With that, she excuses herself and departs the museum, deciding for no particular reason to do a Strategic Analysis on the way just in case she ever has to come back and it's not during regular visiting hours. (edited)
1
March 27, 2025
@Leonard
"Like I said, you can never tell what paths will reveal themselves to those who listen," Jocasta replies. She fishes around in another pocket for a business card featuring an embossed lantern in the upper left corner. "Have some of the young seekers from Bunker Hill come by the shop. You never know when we might get some merchandise of interest to their search." She lowers her head respectfully to Leonard and Mary. "I know Roger would love to talk to the you further on this matter, but alas, I must get back. We're hoping to get a lot of new inventory in soon." With that, she excuses herself and departs the museum, deciding for no particular reason to do a Strategic Analysis on the way just in case she ever has to come back and it's not during regular visiting hours. (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/27/25, 6:17 AM
(Ha, I love it. I bet Leonard and Mary would have a reaction a bit like mine; initially thinking it's a brushoff but realizing fairly quickly what Jo is really saying. So I'll make a secret Strategy-18 roll for you here—your 15 supplemented by a +2 for having been in the storage stacks for an hour or two, and another +1 for the feint of leaving early and casing the outside of the museum on your own—while Roger winds down the conversation and feed you both the strategic points for a possible future "visit.") (edited)
Bill B — 3/27/25, 11:58 AM
It takes Roger a second, but after he picks up on Jo's ploy, he'll take on speaking out the Above Board version of things, like suggesting it might be possible to lean on the good faith of a curator to at least ask one to bring out artifacts tomorrow. "At least you'd get to see what they have." He will try to make it obvious in his tone (and occasionally eyebrow rises and maybe even a wink) that he's just building a cover, and is still thinking, but not saying, about other, less legalistic forms of access. If receptive, he might even throw out a quick strategy like picking a particular person's story, and throwing that in the progressive whites' faces until they move the needle on giving back at least some of what's been stolen. For as racist as it was, Uncle Tom's Cabin did help create a person-to-person connection with the horrors of slavery to the white masses. Personal stories can make change. (edited)
1
Bill B — 3/27/25, 12:05 PM
If this just pisses Crow Dog off further, he'll commiserate and stop. He's still hoping to angle to talk to the assembly, briefly, maybe just a quick show-and-tell, about how some other traditions have managed urban-based Practice. Level of actual spirit magic Roger would display to be determined. He'd pitch Crow Dog it could be worth it, as a backup, to show how a people can reconnect with their ancestral progress when on their own. (edited)
@Bill B
It takes Roger a second, but after he picks up on Jo's ploy, he'll take on speaking out the Above Board version of things, like suggesting it might be possible to lean on the good faith of a curator to at least ask one to bring out artifacts tomorrow. "At least you'd get to see what they have." He will try to make it obvious in his tone (and occasionally eyebrow rises and maybe even a wink) that he's just building a cover, and is still thinking, but not saying, about other, less legalistic forms of access. If receptive, he might even throw out a quick strategy like picking a particular person's story, and throwing that in the progressive whites' faces until they move the needle on giving back at least some of what's been stolen. For as racist as it was, Uncle Tom's Cabin did help create a person-to-person connection with the horrors of slavery to the white masses. Personal stories can make change. (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/27/25, 12:44 PM
I would imagine in response to this, Leonard would play at being unsatisfied at these feeble quarter-measures; not kicking up a huge loud vocal fuss necessarily but being cold, calculating, and disappointed. At the possibility of being shown some of these artifacts tomorrow, Leonard would say something like, "Well, that's definitely the least they could do," in Bertha and Dentzel's direction. But Roger can tell, he's in for the long con now. Indian activists have been asking the Southwest to return their people's patrimony since Alcatraz; having the Summit here was a tacit acknowledge that there is, in liberal white parlance, More To Be Done to ensure justice is accomplished. Just when that More will happen is never quite laid out in black and white, of course.
@Bill B
If this just pisses Crow Dog off further, he'll commiserate and stop. He's still hoping to angle to talk to the assembly, briefly, maybe just a quick show-and-tell, about how some other traditions have managed urban-based Practice. Level of actual spirit magic Roger would display to be determined. He'd pitch Crow Dog it could be worth it, as a backup, to show how a people can reconnect with their ancestral progress when on their own. (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/27/25, 12:45 PM
On this front, Leonard can be less canny and more authentically interested. "Yeah, I'd be interested in you talking to the kids, why not. Why don't we wrap up here and head over to Bunker Hill tonight and we can get the vibes a little better. I have a feeling if you come to them in a less stage-managed and stuffy atmosphere than the Summit, without the elders hanging around, we might be able to get a chance at dialogue."
Bill B — 3/27/25, 12:46 PM
“Solid!”
@Leonard
"Like I said, you can never tell what paths will reveal themselves to those who listen," Jocasta replies. She fishes around in another pocket for a business card featuring an embossed lantern in the upper left corner. "Have some of the young seekers from Bunker Hill come by the shop. You never know when we might get some merchandise of interest to their search." She lowers her head respectfully to Leonard and Mary. "I know Roger would love to talk to the you further on this matter, but alas, I must get back. We're hoping to get a lot of new inventory in soon." With that, she excuses herself and departs the museum, deciding for no particular reason to do a Strategic Analysis on the way just in case she ever has to come back and it's not during regular visiting hours. (edited)
MutantsMichael — 3/27/25, 1:37 PM
Jo slips outside and the first thing she does is reach for a cigarette. The Southwest Museum is a magnificent if rambling old set of buildings: the main building erected in 1914, has got that Southern California mission vibe to it, with the big tower and open courtyard; the Poole Wing, added in the '40s, sticks off the main building to the north: it's dedicated to Indian handicrafts: basketry, weaving, fiber art, etc. Finally, the brand-new Braun Research Library sits on the northwest side of the Museum property, it's done in a modernist/Brutalist style. Of course because it's Los Angeles there's a giant parking lot out back. But train tracks run right to the Museum's southeast, with a passenger line depot a little ways across Marmion Way. The Museum itself is fairly isolated, given its position on a hilltop. Across the train tracks, about 100 yards away, there are a bunch of cheap-looking apartments lined up with their rear sides facing the Union Pacific tracks: the AT&SF line that until just this year ran the legendary Super Chief that ran from Chicago and Los Angeles. The Mt. Washington residential neighborhood abuts the Museum property to the west and north as well. On-site security personnel are 24/7 here, of course, given the isolation of the campus—you can't really depend on neighbors or witnesses or passersby when your campus is on a hill like this—but Jo doesn't rate the guards too highly from what she's seen. The physical security around the collections is a bit trickier, with time locks and some combination locks for the various valuable collections of Indian artifacts in the storage on the first floor and in the basement. Certainly not undefeatable by a skilled lockpick/security expert, but tricky. The library and the galleries, from the looks of it, are just mundanely locked at night. Overall, the challenges here seem to range from simple to complex, with the campus location providing both benefits and drawbacks to any prospective heist teams. Jo, Observation-20.
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/27/25, 2:10 PM
@Leonard rolled
3d6#observation:(4+1+1)= 6Leonard — 3/27/25, 2:15 PM
Swish
1
@Leonard
Swish
MutantsMichael — 3/27/25, 2:21 PM
As Jocasta takes a drag off her cig after doing a quick perimeter scout of the museum grounds, she takes a load off at the front of the museum complex, on the southern side of the hill. She looks across the railroad tracks and the narrow ravine and sees, on the roof of the largest apartment complex over on Figueroa—a three-story, roughly fifty-unit job, two pinpricks of orange light: cigarettes, smoked by two shadowy figures just hanging out on the roof of the apartment building... at 9 pm on a Friday night. Their sightline to Jo is obscured by the foliage on the museum mount's south side; plus their elevation is such that they're more aligned with the museum's giant tower. But Jo can see them, vaguely, even from this distance of more than 100 yards. They stand out like sore thumbs. More can't be definitively seen at this distance with the darkness but they look to be two adult males.
1
Leonard — 3/27/25, 2:32 PM
She'll crush out her own square and very casually back into the nearest foliage, then use whatever combo of Stealth and Tracking she can to get a closer look at the two smokers without them being able to spot her. If there's not enough cover to do that, she'll just observe them and then maybe later scout their location after they leave to see if there's any evidence left behind of who they were.
March 29, 2025
@Leonard
She'll crush out her own square and very casually back into the nearest foliage, then use whatever combo of Stealth and Tracking she can to get a closer look at the two smokers without them being able to spot her. If there's not enough cover to do that, she'll just observe them and then maybe later scout their location after they leave to see if there's any evidence left behind of who they were.
MutantsMichael — 3/29/25, 10:10 AM
As Jocasta takes the long, circuitous route to try and get in better position to get eyes on the two men on the roof of the Woodside Apartments across the railroad track, the last of the Summit conferees, including Roger, head to the cars they came to the meeting in. Jo, from her vantage point hidden in the brush of the hillside, sees Roger get into his car after saying a few words to Leonard and Mary and a couple of the Rosebud Lakota heavies; the vibes seem to be fairly convivial. The other elders, Bertha, and Dentzel follow out the front door of the museum, they also leave in their own vehicles after Bertha and Dentzel say good night to the security guard on duty in the lobby. As Jo considers this, she turns her gaze back to the apartment complex and sees the shadows of each of the two men on the roof bend over, fiddle with something on the surface of the roof, and each pick up a small duffel bag, then head to the bulkhead door off the roof and back into the apartment building.
Leonard — 3/29/25, 7:00 PM
Hmm, interesting. Could be a hit team, but if so, everyone's gone, so they're scouting at worst. Could be any number of entities doing surveillance. Could even be another heist team! Too soon to come to any conclusion, so she's going to keep moving stealthily towards the building to get a better look. If it seems like she can climb to the roof without calling too much attention to herself (and falling on her ass), she'll do that; if not, she'll see if it's possible to find someplace where she can look down at the roof from above.
March 30, 2025
@Leonard
Hmm, interesting. Could be a hit team, but if so, everyone's gone, so they're scouting at worst. Could be any number of entities doing surveillance. Could even be another heist team! Too soon to come to any conclusion, so she's going to keep moving stealthily towards the building to get a better look. If it seems like she can climb to the roof without calling too much attention to herself (and falling on her ass), she'll do that; if not, she'll see if it's possible to find someplace where she can look down at the roof from above.
MutantsMichael — 3/30/25, 6:04 PM
(Okay, I made the scene's Stealth roll secretly earlier, and now that Jo is on the other side of the train tracks, in one of the back alleys behind the Woodside complex and ready to climb up to the roof from the outside of the building—this would have taken about 3 or 4 minutes while moving at Move 1 in Stealth, climbing fences, crossing train tracks, etc.) The back of the Woodside Apartments building has plenty of handholds for someone trying to get up to the roof without entering the courtyard or the complex itself: air conditioning units, balconies, light fixtures. The timing will be crucial, though; it's a nice night and Jo can see a lot of curtains billowing past open balcony doors, backlit by flickering TVs. Someone could end up peering out at this weird lady climbing up the walls at any point. (I'll make the Observation roll secretly, but you need to make a Climbing-14 check. DX minus 5 is the default for Climbing, I've added back +1 for Fit and +2 for the climbing-friendly surface. I will consider a failure on this roll just Jo taking Extra Time. A critical failure will be a fall or stumble. One thing I can tell you from Observation is that there's no sign of two conspicuous adult males either in the alleyway or around the courtyard or swimming pool that Jo can now see through the rear gates. Pictured: the rear of the Woodside from Google Maps.)
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/30/25, 9:09 PM
@Leonard rolled
3d6#climbing:(2+5+6)= 131
March 31, 2025
MutantsMichael — 3/31/25, 12:07 PM
Jo makes her way up to the roof. (Tracking-18 roll made secretly). Some discarded cigarette butts, and a couple of sets of footprints sunken into the tar on the roof indicate they were standing in one spot for quite a while. And the comparative depth of the footprints suggest that one of them was carrying something heavy for most of that time; they looked to be relatively the same in weight and stature from what Jo saw while surveilling them. Now that Jo is standing in their literal footsteps, it's striking how much the Museum's tower dominates the area, towering over the museum hill and its tree cover. It's feeling more and more like these guys were pros live-surveilling the Summit meeting, most likely with a radio receiver with a clear line of sight to the tower. Any other short-range surveillance would likely not be strong enough to work through the distance, foliage, and museum/courtyard walls.
Leonard — 3/31/25, 2:04 PM
If any of the cigarette butts are fresh and likely left by our two peepers, she'll pick one up and try a Psychometry read on it. It's a bit of a longshot, and she thinks these two might have just been run-of-the-mill feds, but she wants to make sure if she can.
@Leonard
If any of the cigarette butts are fresh and likely left by our two peepers, she'll pick one up and try a Psychometry read on it. It's a bit of a longshot, and she thinks these two might have just been run-of-the-mill feds, but she wants to make sure if she can.
MutantsMichael — 3/31/25, 2:06 PM
The emotional bouquet on these butts is still very fresh, so there will be no temporal penalties to your reading. Psychometry-16 and of course as with all psi, Corruption is available.
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/31/25, 2:07 PM
@Leonard rolled
3d6#Psychometry:(3+5+6)= 14Leonard — 3/31/25, 2:07 PM
(She won't juice it for the time being, she still needs to figure out her next moves)
@Leonard
(She won't juice it for the time being, she still needs to figure out her next moves)
MutantsMichael — 3/31/25, 2:13 PM
Okay, so no crit here so Jo will only get the broad emotional vibes of the man who smoked this cigarette. I mean, this guy is bored as he sits on this long, drawn-out stakeout pointing his antenna at the Museum tower, listening to these scruffy Indian kids talk about their spirituality and so forth; he only really perks up when they talk about acts of revolt or acts against the U.S. government, which are very few and far between and honestly not really actionable; the Section Chief is not gonna bite at a lot of this talk of birds clogging spotter plane engines or hallucinations created in other agents' minds by a "Ghost Dance." The Summit is scrabbling at respectability here and so much of the surveilled talk seems to be very abstract, almost in code... along with the boredom this federal agent is experiencing comes a sense of frustration as well. One thing Jo is pretty confident of; since these two feds were able to surveil the entire meeting, Leonard Crow Dog et al. are right about the Ghost Dance not (yet) protecting these city kids, because the Feebs probably would have fallen off the roof/had to deal with a sudden and very unexpected LA rainstorm that washed them out of their perch/struck the tower and fried their antenna.
Leonard — 3/31/25, 3:04 PM
Okay, nothing too surprising there. Jocasta is tempted to leave a little tease behind for Hoover's Heroes (maybe her sketch of the Underwater Panther?), but thinks better of it. She'll jot down a few maps of the angles and overlooks and head back home. Once she's ensconced in her seaside bungalow, she's going to try a Telesend to Roger, telling him: Summit under federal surveillance. Tell Leonard Crow Dog to let his people know to talk like they're in the room. Come by the bookstore tomorrow after the conference. If it doesn't work for any reason, she'll just try and catch him tomorrow morning before the summit.
@Leonard
Okay, nothing too surprising there. Jocasta is tempted to leave a little tease behind for Hoover's Heroes (maybe her sketch of the Underwater Panther?), but thinks better of it. She'll jot down a few maps of the angles and overlooks and head back home. Once she's ensconced in her seaside bungalow, she's going to try a Telesend to Roger, telling him: Summit under federal surveillance. Tell Leonard Crow Dog to let his people know to talk like they're in the room. Come by the bookstore tomorrow after the conference. If it doesn't work for any reason, she'll just try and catch him tomorrow morning before the summit.
MutantsMichael — 3/31/25, 3:08 PM
Telesend-14 (-1 for distance of a half-mile, -1 because you can't see him) to successfully send those thoughts to Roger, who will catch them while he's hanging out with the Rosebud delegation. Again, Corruption is available, and you can try again at a penalty if this first roll does not work.
Leonard used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 3/31/25, 5:33 PM
@Leonard rolled
3d6#telesend:(1+4+1)= 6MutantsMichael — 3/31/25, 5:36 PM
Perfectly and clearly sent to Roger, @Bill B.
1
April 3, 2025
MutantsMichael — 4/3/25, 7:01 AM
So! While Roger is out with Leonard Crow Dog and his entourage, Leonard chats away about the finer points of working the Ghost Dance. Leonard, like Wovoka and his Nevada Paiute followers before him, have been spreading the news to other Western tribes; in essence, paying back what Wovoka brought to the Lakota Sioux after the first Wounded Knee back in 1890. As we've discussed, the Ghost Dance has run into a brick wall in the form of the dislocated Indians here in the city. Now, as Roger contemplates this on the drive back to Bunker Hill (we can say Leonard decided to ride shotgun with Roger and the two of them are chatting away), Roger passes by Elysian Park, Chavez Ravine, and Dodger Stadium as they drive Southwest towards Downtown. The whole story there, Roger remembers vividly from childhood; the area's tight-knit Mexican community, who owned their homes in the Ravine, ejected and forcibly relocated to bring the Brooklyn Dodgers west and the ten-year battle that ensued to resist this early postwar example of "urban renewal." Two rolls then, @Bill B: one with your newly-renewed Area Knowledge (Los Angeles)-16 and then one Streetwise-16 as well.
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 4/3/25, 8:19 AM
@Bill B rolled
3d6la la land:(5+2+2)= 9Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 4/3/25, 8:19 AM
@Bill B rolled
3d6these streets:(2+4+5)= 11MutantsMichael — 4/3/25, 8:34 AM
All these forcible relocations... they get Roger thinking about the gangs of his youth (and, indeed, the gangs who came together to listen to Cinque just back in April) and their obsession with turf, who owned this block, whose turf ended on what street, and the fact that all that play-acting by tough Black kids on the street ended up meaning next to nothing, because ultimately the Man owned every square foot of Los Angeles. Same with the Mexicans in Chavez Ravine, and writ even larger, the same with the ancestors of these Navajo and Hopi kids now holed up on Bunker Hill, hundreds of miles from the deserts and plains of their ancestors. The fact a bunch of those Owls in Mitch's little black book (including Trammell Crow, who rented Jolly West his hideout) are deep into real estate, the way They... profaned those giant redwoods up in Monte Rio. Spirits of the land and of place, yes; they exist, people have known about them—even white people!—for thousands of years and honored them appropriately. But what happens when the land your ancestors died upon is stolen from you? New spirits come into being, as Roger spoke about with the Lakota and others at the museum. Syncretism and forging something new, spiritually and materially, out of this dislocation is crucial, but on the material plane it can't just be little ethnic gangs all competing for their slice of a small pie, coloring their parts of the map in with their own conceptions of the City. That's Owl thinking: red lines and ghettoization. If they could bring together everyone who's had their connection with the land severed and deny this tendency towards yours and mine... Roger for a moment isn't sure if he's talking about a spiritual alliance between Blacks, Chicanos, and Natives in LA or a political one and then a thought passes through his mind that maybe there's no difference between the two.
April 4, 2025
Bill B — 4/4/25, 3:45 PM
While he's running these things around in his mind, they cross under the 101, and Roger reflexively gives a little silent nod as obeisance to the Master of such a mighty crossroads. And that turns his mind to wondering if these kids think the same thing of the power of crossroads as his folk. He would bet good money these Indian kids have a "corner" they hang out on too-- all the gangs he always knew of did. And they were tied to that corner, and it to them. And how for every neighborhood kid those corners loomed larger in the heart and soul than the street numbers. Maybe-- maybe the real Owl thinking is thinking it all has to be one map of colored-in areas, square footage "owned" on paper, with crisp, dividing edges exactly along city streets, separate colors for every area, every neighborhood, never the same color next to itself. And nevermind the corners. When really, on the ground, in the mind, in the heart-- it's all crossroads and corners and soft edges bleeding into each other. The Owl thinking... the lie... is more the Community Redevelopment Agency maps coming for Bucker Hill, the designation of "urban blight" in a shadow across what is actual vibrant community, trying to rub out the community knowledge of corners and hangouts and the good and sacred places. Surely, even with such a shadow cast in the world, the spiritual world still reflects all the community's sacred places? Maybe it is the maps of "blight" looming in the nation that's the blocker here. Because to believe, with all those great souls in those sacred places, that no gods see them there, that has to be the lie. Roger knows in his soul: at midnight, even the 101 and 110 are Kalfu's. So how do you fight a map? Or rather, how do you change what is the map? Roger finds his thoughts starting to sound like all the fighting between the Histories again.... except. Hell, this is L.A. There's plenty of maps... there's a different map to the Stars on every corner in Beverly Hills. What map is in people's hands, that's the question. Chinatown is on plenty of maps; maybe Bunker Hill needs to be too. (edited)
[3:48 PM]
Roger turns to Leonard, and asks, earnestly: "Leonard, you ever thought about what it does to these kids to constantly be told they're landless, homeless?"
[3:48 PM]
"And what that does to the spirits?"
[3:49 PM]
"They have a home. And the spirits will visit them there, if they could believe it was a home."
2
@Bill B
"They have a home. And the spirits will visit them there, if they could believe it was a home."
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 4:20 PM
(I really like this. It's hitting Leonard square between the eyes out of nowhere: he will swallow and stare straight ahead in the passenger seat as Roger tells it like it is. If he believes that the Ghost Dance is as much a morale-building exercise as a spiritual working—one for any and every Native youth, no matter where they live—then this strategy, to approach the Dance as "making the best with what you have now, rather than waiting for a distant ideal you don't have possession of yet" could really get through to him, the people teaching the Dance, and then, hopefully, to the urban Indian youth.) (I know Roger's not actively intimidating him, Bill, but I'd like to use Intimidation-16 as a proxy for this kind of very straight talk. That +2 bonus I assessed is due to the RP and how much this argument cuts Leonard to the quick. The last thing he wants to do is demoralize the kids he's trying to inspire.)
Bill B used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 4/4/25, 4:21 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Pushin' through:(3+4+1)= 8Bill B — 4/4/25, 4:22 PM
If Leonard looks open to it, Roger may go off on a small lecture.
1
@Bill B
If Leonard looks open to it, Roger may go off on a small lecture.
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 4:26 PM
"We're in your home, Roger. You know it better than me." Leonard clears his throat, looks out the passenger-side window at the massive crowd of 50,000 Angelenos starting to leave the Dodgers-Reds game. He's definitely open to hearing more. His pride is a little wounded, but Roger can sense Leonard starting to understand where Roger's headed with this.
Bill B — 4/4/25, 4:43 PM
"You ever been to Chinatown, Leonard? Here in L.A.? I mean, San Francisco's has them all beat, but still. I mean, even if you haven't been, you've seen it on TV. Dancing with the dragons, all that stuff. Right in the heart of a bunch of the blandest cities, grid like an iron. But when they've got the firecrackers going for Chinese New Year, that's all for their ancestors. Are you, or hell, any American, 100% sure those folks aren't in touch with their ancestors? Ancestors on the other side of the ocean? Do you have any doubt Chinatown is a different place, with different rules... even though their dragons aren't the ancient silk ones from Shanghai, or wherever they come from? It's their home, they've made sure of it, and made sure everyone else knows. And their ancestors walk those streets." "Now this next bit may cut. For some months there, Alcatraz was maybe gonna be Indiantown. I've heard all the stories living in S.F. But it wasn't a home. And everybody kinda knew it wasn't gonna last. The people there, they weren't rooted. Not good land for roots." "I tell you what. You take over a few blocks-- in Bunker Hill, in the Valley, don't matter as long as it's where people live. You don't need to own it on paper. You put your spirits all over it. You get those kids to tag their rooftops with graffiti of your spirits. You do your dances in a repurposed parking lot. You do it, and you keep doing it, and you let the world see you do it, own it." (edited)
1
[4:44 PM]
"You say, this spot here, this neighborhood-- it has different rules, our rules."
[4:45 PM]
"And you will see the spirits come. I have walked in Chinatown. And in the Cemeteries in New Orleans. Those aren't dead white places anymore."
[4:45 PM]
"And the kids... they will be building a home, not wandering lost."
[4:48 PM]
"Oh, and one more thing about Chinatown. They were from all the provinces of China when they left, but they are all Chinatown now. All the African tribes... they are Voudon now. Different colored dragons, different loa, still... but one neighborhood." (edited)
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 4:54 PM
"I didn't like that museum one bit. Our legacy locked up by white men. That old Bertha, she's a nice lady, but... the whole thing felt like a big cage. Like a stab at respectability." "What if we took the Summit to the UAII Center on Winston Street tomorrow? Stay in the neighborhood. Baba from the Center could probably accommodate all the youth attendees on short notice. Maybe we lay these words on them, give them the right and the power to define themselves instead of me coming off my throne on the rez and lecturing them."
Bill B — 4/4/25, 4:55 PM
"That's what I'm talkin' about! And you name that place with your names, and you call your gathering the First Annual, and you go on like you're going to go on."
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 4:57 PM
Leonard smiles. "Elders gonna be pissed off."
Bill B — 4/4/25, 4:59 PM
"You tell them: better to breathe your own air and live without perfection than suffocate in a cage."
[5:03 PM]
"And if that don't work, get the kids to ask for some help. In my experience, there's always some grandmother that would never give up a chance to show the next generation how things should be done, however imperfect the circumstances."
1
@Bill B
"And if that don't work, get the kids to ask for some help. In my experience, there's always some grandmother that would never give up a chance to show the next generation how things should be done, however imperfect the circumstances."
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 5:48 PM
(I figure at the very least after Jo's Telesend Roger will want to call Jo and let her know that the Summit is being moved for the youth participants tomorrow.) Here's the story of the UAII by the way: https://uaii.org/who-we-are/#History https://lastrealindians.com/news/2016/6/24/jun-24-2016-natives-americans-in-los-angeles-by-pamela-j-peters
Last Real Indians
Jun 24, 2016 - Natives Americans in Los Angeles by Pamela J. Peters...
In 2008, I saw Kent Mackenzie’s film, “The Exiles” (1961), a neorealist film that showcased a true depiction of Indians living in Los Angeles during a time when Hollywood cinema was generating stereotypes of Indians in Western films. I loved “The Exiles” because it gave a realistic portrayal of Amer
United American Indian Involvement
Leonard — 4/4/25, 6:11 PM
I saw The Exiles at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in 2008 - maybe the same screening Pamela Peters was at. It was introduced by one of the cinematographers. It's a great movie if you haven't seen it - it's on my Plex.
1
Bill B — 4/4/25, 8:36 PM
Yeah, reading about just having an Alley, and knowing the cultural weight of the name Skid Row, seizing a chance to refashion that seemed like worth fighting for.
[8:37 PM]
After arriving at whatever place Leonard’s having Roger drive him to, he’d ask to use the phone and call Jo.
MutantsMichael — 4/4/25, 8:39 PM
Cool. I would gather she's reachable either at the bookshop or her SoCal place.
Bill B — 4/4/25, 8:45 PM
He’ll try her place first, since she said meet tomorrow at the bookstore. Given the warning about surveillance, he’ll check to break line of sight and pull curtains over windows, basic SecOps in potential hostile territory. He will not go so far as to call via Phreak.