Well said. I was born and raised in the state that became the end of the Trail of Tears; a state, once given to the Native Americans forced there, now run by white people who claimed it as our own during the Land Run just a few years later.
Support art made by Indians. Support “real” Indian films - made by, written by, and starring Indians. Keep their words and art alive.
Sorry to hear about your recent de-Vikingization. My girlfriend is half Lumbee, but her DNA test showed that her Indian family was entirely African American. At first we thought she could just shift down a few letters from I to POC, but unfortunately she looks like a white girl. I can’t even racially fetishize her anymore. Hey wait! She’s part Scottish — probably descended from some red-headed warrior Queen! I’m gonna go find her family tartan on Etsy.
It is indeed absurd to lump all indigenous nations and cultures together with hundreds of other ethnicities, national and regional heritages, and skin colors as one acronym that’s used as a noun and an adjective.
I assume that’s true because it’s logical. It’s also true that there are more than a few fascists in every sizable group of people, regardless of ethnicity.
So good to know that others see this too! Great open and truthful article. Sick of elite extremists trying to define us and be the experts on Native Americans. The latest was a nonnative Mexican supervisor of mine wearing a shirt during pride month which said "our queer ancestors are sacred". It was decorated with southern Native design with rainbow colors. They are trying to say Native Americans are part of he LQBQT community. Why are we letting them get away with it? We're letting the government again dictate our narratives. I've met my tribal governor. Each tribe is different and there is even differences amongst clans within the same tribe. Also, one of my old classmates and friends is gay, and he doesn't like the word "queer". He considers himself a conservative.
Someone I admire once suggested/commanded, "Don't live up to your stereotypes." Here you take that suggestion and begin to provide the How and the Why and the What-the-Fuck that should spur us to follow your suggestion/command. I rarely run into anything you write that doesn't go in. Far. Here you write something I want to distribute to the part of the world that knows how to listen, think and then act accordingly. Thank you.
One under-discussed problem with social justice politics (or wokeness, or whatever you want to call it), is its parochialism. Social justice activists often seem to have little understanding of or interest in the complexity of cultures and societies other than their own.
Several years ago, activists in Portland compiled a list of “appropriative” restaurants—that is, restaurants owned by white people which allegedly specialized in the cuisines of people of color. The list included a number of restaurants that serve Latin American food, including Argentine and Mexican restaurants.
If you know anything at all about Mexico, you know it’s an extraordinarily diverse country. It has 68 recognized indigenous groups, but is also home to millions of people of largely or exclusively European extraction, as well as significant Black or Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. Argentina’s demographics are different, but it’s similarly diverse; a majority of Argentines are primarily European (from a wide range of countries), but the country also has millions of Arabs and East Asians.
Returning to Portland, what does it mean to say that white people should not operate a Mexican or Argentine restaurant? Is an Italian-American chef not permitted to operate an Argentine steakhouse, even though a majority of Argentines (like the Pope) have some Italian ancestry? There are tens of millions of white people living in each of these countries, and quite a few of them make and sell food for a living. Not only that, but Mexican and Argentine cuisine have been influenced by Spanish, Italian, French, German, and other European traditions as well as indigenous cuisines. I’m not an expert on Latin America—I don’t speak Spanish, and I’ve never even been to either of these two countries, outside of a day trip to Tijuana—but I know all of this because I’m interested in the world.
It’s possible the Portland activists who created the restaurant list are aware of this complexity and decided it’s irrelevant, but I suspect they didn’t even think about it. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t know much about Latin America. And that includes many of the most aggressive social justice activists and identitarians. Progressives like to imagine that it’s only ignorant right-wingers who are clueless about the rest of the world, but American social justice activism also has powerful flattening and anti-cosmopolitan tendencies, which are at least in part a product of pure ignorance about not only foreign cultures but sub-cultures within our own country.
Total pretendian. I'm jealous of Canada, outed pretendians usually suffer cultural and professional consequences. In the USA, they almost always keep the same jobs they obtained BECAUSE they were assumed to be Indian.
I asked my friend and former dean what he would do if a teaching applicant came in declaring some particular identity (think Ward Churchill, CU Boulder). He says school protocol dictates he must accept declared identity as truth--no questions asked. You certainly remember it took 17 yrs to expose Churchill!
And he still has defenders. I’ve written about this. Pretendians hide behind a leftist political identity in white leftist spaces. where “inclusion” is gospel. Self-identity becomes the only thing that matters.
Sherman, I tried fwd’g this to Jamie Pedersen and my niece, whose children are 1/4 Blackfeet. Couldn’t get the site t to work so am using this method to contact you. Could you please send me 3 copies of the essay (I’m in a nursing home without access to a printer) so I don’t have 1for myself and send the other 2 to Jamie and Carole. (Google Jamie; he’s grown up to become a BFD in State politics.) My name and address: Mirra Lee, 2818 NE 145th Street, Shoreline, WA 98155. Thnx - MIRRA LEE (ML), leemirra7@gmail.com
I am curious: how do you think that the adoption of "American" values - "Democrat, capitalist, socially moderate, remarkably magnanimous, and only intermittently passionate" - does or does not go with the idea of Native cultural genocide? Considering that values like "Democrat" and "capitalist" seem to be European in origin. Why would these have greater genuine appeal amongst the population?
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
Well said. I was born and raised in the state that became the end of the Trail of Tears; a state, once given to the Native Americans forced there, now run by white people who claimed it as our own during the Land Run just a few years later.
Support art made by Indians. Support “real” Indian films - made by, written by, and starring Indians. Keep their words and art alive.
Sorry to hear about your recent de-Vikingization. My girlfriend is half Lumbee, but her DNA test showed that her Indian family was entirely African American. At first we thought she could just shift down a few letters from I to POC, but unfortunately she looks like a white girl. I can’t even racially fetishize her anymore. Hey wait! She’s part Scottish — probably descended from some red-headed warrior Queen! I’m gonna go find her family tartan on Etsy.
It is indeed absurd to lump all indigenous nations and cultures together with hundreds of other ethnicities, national and regional heritages, and skin colors as one acronym that’s used as a noun and an adjective.
I assume that’s true because it’s logical. It’s also true that there are more than a few fascists in every sizable group of people, regardless of ethnicity.
So good to know that others see this too! Great open and truthful article. Sick of elite extremists trying to define us and be the experts on Native Americans. The latest was a nonnative Mexican supervisor of mine wearing a shirt during pride month which said "our queer ancestors are sacred". It was decorated with southern Native design with rainbow colors. They are trying to say Native Americans are part of he LQBQT community. Why are we letting them get away with it? We're letting the government again dictate our narratives. I've met my tribal governor. Each tribe is different and there is even differences amongst clans within the same tribe. Also, one of my old classmates and friends is gay, and he doesn't like the word "queer". He considers himself a conservative.
Someone I admire once suggested/commanded, "Don't live up to your stereotypes." Here you take that suggestion and begin to provide the How and the Why and the What-the-Fuck that should spur us to follow your suggestion/command. I rarely run into anything you write that doesn't go in. Far. Here you write something I want to distribute to the part of the world that knows how to listen, think and then act accordingly. Thank you.
Wonderful write up. Thank you!
If those two Oklahoma Congresscritters wore turquoise and silver bolo ties, they might have a better chance.
This is a great piece.
One under-discussed problem with social justice politics (or wokeness, or whatever you want to call it), is its parochialism. Social justice activists often seem to have little understanding of or interest in the complexity of cultures and societies other than their own.
Several years ago, activists in Portland compiled a list of “appropriative” restaurants—that is, restaurants owned by white people which allegedly specialized in the cuisines of people of color. The list included a number of restaurants that serve Latin American food, including Argentine and Mexican restaurants.
If you know anything at all about Mexico, you know it’s an extraordinarily diverse country. It has 68 recognized indigenous groups, but is also home to millions of people of largely or exclusively European extraction, as well as significant Black or Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. Argentina’s demographics are different, but it’s similarly diverse; a majority of Argentines are primarily European (from a wide range of countries), but the country also has millions of Arabs and East Asians.
Returning to Portland, what does it mean to say that white people should not operate a Mexican or Argentine restaurant? Is an Italian-American chef not permitted to operate an Argentine steakhouse, even though a majority of Argentines (like the Pope) have some Italian ancestry? There are tens of millions of white people living in each of these countries, and quite a few of them make and sell food for a living. Not only that, but Mexican and Argentine cuisine have been influenced by Spanish, Italian, French, German, and other European traditions as well as indigenous cuisines. I’m not an expert on Latin America—I don’t speak Spanish, and I’ve never even been to either of these two countries, outside of a day trip to Tijuana—but I know all of this because I’m interested in the world.
It’s possible the Portland activists who created the restaurant list are aware of this complexity and decided it’s irrelevant, but I suspect they didn’t even think about it. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t know much about Latin America. And that includes many of the most aggressive social justice activists and identitarians. Progressives like to imagine that it’s only ignorant right-wingers who are clueless about the rest of the world, but American social justice activism also has powerful flattening and anti-cosmopolitan tendencies, which are at least in part a product of pure ignorance about not only foreign cultures but sub-cultures within our own country.
Buffy Ste Marie (SantaMaria): mi'kmaq, Cree/Piapot, Italian/English, faux Indian, pretendian?
Canada cares more; USA mostly yawns
Total pretendian. I'm jealous of Canada, outed pretendians usually suffer cultural and professional consequences. In the USA, they almost always keep the same jobs they obtained BECAUSE they were assumed to be Indian.
Agreed.
I asked my friend and former dean what he would do if a teaching applicant came in declaring some particular identity (think Ward Churchill, CU Boulder). He says school protocol dictates he must accept declared identity as truth--no questions asked. You certainly remember it took 17 yrs to expose Churchill!
And he still has defenders. I’ve written about this. Pretendians hide behind a leftist political identity in white leftist spaces. where “inclusion” is gospel. Self-identity becomes the only thing that matters.
I've been poking around online looking for your writing on this. What with my academic bottom-feeder researching skills, I can't find it. ;)
Excuse the imposition: Would you direct me?
Thx.
You’re too Rez for me.
Sherman, I tried fwd’g this to Jamie Pedersen and my niece, whose children are 1/4 Blackfeet. Couldn’t get the site t to work so am using this method to contact you. Could you please send me 3 copies of the essay (I’m in a nursing home without access to a printer) so I don’t have 1for myself and send the other 2 to Jamie and Carole. (Google Jamie; he’s grown up to become a BFD in State politics.) My name and address: Mirra Lee, 2818 NE 145th Street, Shoreline, WA 98155. Thnx - MIRRA LEE (ML), leemirra7@gmail.com
I am curious: how do you think that the adoption of "American" values - "Democrat, capitalist, socially moderate, remarkably magnanimous, and only intermittently passionate" - does or does not go with the idea of Native cultural genocide? Considering that values like "Democrat" and "capitalist" seem to be European in origin. Why would these have greater genuine appeal amongst the population?
You make a stilleto look like a badminton racket.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
You make a stilleto look like a badminton racket.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
holy shit!!!