Before the Mountains: Sotomayor and Sitting Bull in America

By
Glenn W. Smith
– June 7, 2009Posted in: Culture

For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty,
Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
Your own lips testify against you.
Are you the firstborn of the human race?
Were you brought forth before the hills?

—Eliphaz, in Job 90:5-7


Inge, a young German stranger in a strange land, is a mail-order bride who has come to southern Minnosota in 1920 to marry Olaf. Inge and Olaf don’t tarry, but head straight from the rural train depot to the church, where Olaf’s Norwegian-American community has already gathered.

But Inge speaks no English. Minister Sorrensen is suspicious. She’s German, and America just concluded a war with Germany.

This is the opening of Ali Selim’s moving 2005 film, Sweet Land. One wonders if Judge Sonia Sotomayor has seen the movie and noticed the parallels to her more recent arrival in a land of locusts: “She is not one of us,” says Minister Sorrensen as a dismayed Inge and Olaf stand before him in his church. “We speak a common language, have a common background, common culture. She is not one of us. Do you have papers? Immigration?

“No, no, no. There can be no wedding ceremony today.”

No, no, no, Gingrich said of Sotomayor’s nomination by President Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court. There can be no Senate confirmation today. Sotomayor must withdraw.

“She is not one of us.” Maybe that tragic theme in American history recurs precisely because, in a dappled land of immigrants, the sub-category “us” must always be invented. Or maybe it’s just because ravenous bastards like Newt Gingrich can’t help but ravage all that is good and kind and just in America.

It’s very clear that Republicans are using the Sotemayor nomination to solidify and broaden their support among terrified and insecure white men, especially Southern men already apoplectic at the fact of a black president. It’s only the first stage of the GOP’s strategy for 2010 and 2012. They will begin to superficially moderate their racism once the Troglo-demographic is safely in the bag.

The ravings of Rush Limbaugh, Tom Tancredo and Gingrich, as well as the coded talk of segregation by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, don’t seem to be doing much for the GOP at the moment. But Republican strategists didn’t think they would. Right now they’re just talking to those with old, grey Confederate uniforms in their closets.

The sad thing is, those hidden uniforms are still there, hanging in the dark. They are symbols of a deeper disturbance in the American national psyche. Somehow, the “Sweet Land” of liberty is plagued by murderous fears that one’s freedom depends upon the death, exile or enslavement of some other. In Ali Selim’s movie, it’s largely first or second generation Norwegian-Americans who ostracize Inge, who is really no more nor less a “foreigner” than they are.

In the Book of Job, Job’s old friend, Eliphaz, makes the right argument for the wrong reasons (religious conformity). Eliphaz ridicules those who claim status as the First Man, who are arrogant enough to believe themselves “brought forth before the hills.” That is the terrible claim that’s incited all the racist, intra-immigrant wars of America: We got here first. Of course, the late arrivals to North America murdered millions of the only humans who could truthfully make that claim.

In Sweet Land, Inge and Olaf’s clear-eyed courage and unwavering compassion for those who had ostracized them ultimately prevail. Even Minister Sorrensen is redeemed. Bigotry proves no match for a big sky and a broad land that so clearly tie survival to the spirit of community.

Too often, American life denies such neat endings, though never their possibility. Still, Inge and Olaf, in their quiet, determined ways, show us what human love can do. In the end, it’s empathy and compassion – mocked as weak and sentimental by the Limbaughs and Gingriches of America – that defeats them. As Eliphaz says, their own mouths condemn them.

There’s a beautiful double meaning to the phrase “before the hills.” It may mean prior to, it may mean in front of. Could the acceptance of our temporary and humble place before the mountains erase the arrogant human wish for priority in time? It’s the very Thoreau-like theme of Sweet Land.

There’s a song that captures this theme in the context of one of the nation’s most legendary racial confrontations. The song, which could have been used in Sweet Land, is called “Before the Mountains,” written by Rob Hyman for the album Largo.

Before the mountains before the rivers
A wind is blowing a wind is blowing
It’s come to carry me It’s come to carry you
Bring us together bring us together
And I will see you, oh can I see you there
Before the mountains?

I’ll be your blind man telling my story
‘Bout how I’m always bumping into something
You’ll be my deaf girl talking with your fingers
If I can’t see you and you can’t hear me
We’ll come together we’ll find each other
Before the mountains

If I were Sitting Bull and you were Yellow Hair
What would we talk about when we would walk about
Maybe how strange it is being bound together
How just a moment’s time became forever
We’ll never say goodbye we’ll just lay down and die
Before the mountains
And I will see you yes I will see you there
Before the mountains.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”