Jentz: That’s true; that’s their reaction. You got that right. It’s interesting though in that they’re much more closed off than the people of the Pacific Northwest. The Oregonians did not circle the wagons against me, an outsider, coming in to dig up their dark past. And they could have. They could have felt shame because of me. After all, I was the actual victim. If they had held the perpetrator accountable for his brutality earlier, he would never have been able to hurt me. So they had a lot to be ashamed of, but they were willing to open up and try to get to the bottom of it. They were willing for it to be made right. Which is not what I sense happening in South Dakota. So far the Europeans don’t want to talk about it, at all, period.
The MOON: Don’t you think that’s a current running through our culture? We don’t want to recognize or acknowledge at all the crimes which we’re collectively responsible for. We don’t realize the gifts that can only come from atonement. From the simple act of saying we’re sorry.
Jentz: Yeah, or from revealing what has been swept under the carpet.
The MOON: Yes. It takes a lot of psychic energy to keep things buried.
Jentz: Yes, which is what I’m dealing with right now in this little town in South Dakota. There’s some law there that requires you to pay the court reporter if you want copies of the proceedings, which are part of the public record; they were recorded with taxpayers’ money. But you can’t just go request them yourself; you have to pay the reporter. So I had to track down this woman to get permission to get the copies myself, but she insisted that she would do it. Which was fine, as I was in California, not South Dakota. But she wouldn’t send them electronically; she said she would never send electronically proceedings that were so traumatic to this community. She said should would mail them, but only if I sent her a cashier’s check first. So I asked her if I could interview her. “No!” she said. “I don’t want to talk about anything so traumatic.” I wrote to her about how I understood trauma; that I’d been through it; and that it could be healed by opening up to it. She never responded. She wanted to have as little to do with me as possible. She shut down. This is of course why I’m exploring the issue.
The crime itself was horrible, and it was a flash-point for racial tensions nationwide. It was all over the media—The NY Times, Tom Brokaw was there—it even got international coverage. When I mention the crime now to either whites or Natives in South Dakota they react as if I’ve delivered a body blow. That tells you this is a very potent story that needs to be told.
The MOON: I’ve had some experience with reconciliation between whites and Natives due to a process that took place in Okanogan County, Washington. It has been incomplete, probably, but it has accounted for progress. There was a documentary made about it called Two Rivers.
Jentz: Really. Because there’s been no reconciliation process that I’m aware of that’s taken place in South Dakota, despite the promising reports of reconciliation processes that have occurred elsewhere, such as in South Africa. I think the Pacific Northwest is a little more open than the Dakotas, which are pretty remote.
The MOON: Yes, and you have to have a certain hardness to survive up there, don’t you?
Jentz: Yes you do, indeed! Like the court reporter. She was going to drive one hundred fifty miles in below-zero weather to get the court proceedings, because that was her duty. I was going to pay her for it, but she was going to do it, despite the joylessness of it for her. I come from that area. I survived those forty-below winters as a child.
The MOON: You’ve alluded to this a bit, but please tell us more about how your life has changed now that you’ve reclaimed yourself.
Jentz: I think I reset my fear rheostat. I’m not excessively fearful anymore. Occasionally something will trigger me, but I really can’t tell whether that’s from the attack, or whether it’s from childhood—and I just had the normal, garden-variety childhood traumas. But I’m not afraid of the dark, of being alone, of going camping; I sleep well—I’m one of the best sleepers on the planet. I get a merit badge in sleeping.
One of the things I tell people is that it’s important to incorporate trauma, to integrate it, not push it away and try to move on without it. I think this idea that we’re going to leave it behind is not helpful. Trauma can teach us so much if we let it. We can use it to motivate activism, to teach us compassion, to sensitize us to what others might be going through. When people freak out—when they overreact to a situation—I can really relate. I recognize it as a symptom of past trauma. Severe kinds of dispossessions—of a home, a loved one—can cause a wound that a far less significant loss can re-trigger, provoking a response that is out of proportion to the current incident. That’s classic PTSD, and I understand it—emotionally, not intellectually—now. It’s not really the current situation they’re reacting to; they’re re-enacting a response from the past. They’ve gone back in time. They’re not really present to what’s here now. I work with myself on this all the time, trying to stay really present to what is here now, not going back in my mind to some place that’s frightening.
I’m also fascinated with how trauma gets passed down from generation to generation. I want to understand more. That’s why I’m so committed to this Native American story. Native Americans have dealt with such a long legacy of trauma that just keeps getting compounded. Excavating these layers of trauma is something that I feel compelled to do. That’s another way that I have changed since reclaiming myself. I got so much out of reintegrating my own trauma that I want to reintegrate other people’s traumas.
I went to Auschwitz in 1997 and I was drawn to walk into this particular barracks. When I did I felt as if a dagger went through my chest—right where the truck had run over me. It physically hurt. I learned later that the barracks had been the place they tortured prisoners; yet I had been drawn to it. I felt as if I took some of the pain of torture into my own body; and if I did that, perhaps I can transmute it. I want to understand it; I want to help heal it. If it’s happening, I want to know about it. I’ve become the opposite of a person who wants to close my mind and eyes and ears to the horrors that are going on.
The MOON: That’s interesting. One of the frustrations in my own life is this spiritual notion that we’re only supposed to focus on the positive. And yes, no matter what horrible things are happening, there is still beauty and joy and compassion in the world. But there’s also bullshit. I can’t reconcile turning a blind eye to the bullshit just so I can enjoy the beauty.
Jentz: Yeah. Well, we appreciate the light because we have known the darkness. I do think it’s possible that I’ll get to a point in my life where I won’t feel compelled to keep unearthing trauma, but it’s not going to be while I’m working on the story of the murder of Candace Rough Surface, that’s for sure.
The MOON: Have you forgiven your attempted killer?
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