Turning stereotypes on their heads is sometimes the only thing we can do.
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I read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee when I was 15 years old. Or rather, I started it, but about three quarters of the way through I became overwhelmed at the history of the Native American’s, a history I had never learned in school and could barely comprehend. How could it have been so horrific? I reverted to magical thinking, wanting nothing more than to travel back in time and change the entire course of history, to right the wrong after wrong after wrong that had happened. When a college application asked for the essay, “What was your favorite book?” that was the only book that came to mind. Not because it was a good book for a college essay, not because it had been enjoyable reading, but because it had completely and profoundly changed my worldview like few things had til that point.
And after that, my understanding of Native American culture all but disappeared. There were so few books, or movies or conversations. It seemed to me that the White settlers had been so successful in erasing Native Americans that they were no longer in my own personal sphere of existence.
Enter, the Internet. At last I got a chance to process all that I learned as a slight teenager with no possible way to right a great wrong. Say what you will about online discourse—it gives people a way to see how they can be a part of social change. A concept like “racism” previously held no nuance, no understanding of systematic oppression, no weight of history. Racism isn’t when someone says a slur about someone behind closed doors (although when it happens over and over and gets passed down to generations, it can be.) Racism is the entire 512 page book that details the systematic destruction and decimation of the people who originally lived in the North America. This type of racism, as Jackie Summers brilliantly describes in his post The End of Racism [Thank You Donald Sterling] – this type of racism is what made America an economic superpower.
The internet gives us a way of talking about this type of injustice and the many ways it continues today. The meme at the top of the page was taken from the tumblr site LastRealIndians. It flips on its head the microaggressions that Native Americans encounter after all this time. Looking at the list you have to think “Who would really say something like that!” And yet we still haven’t grown up enough, not as individuals, not as a nation, to treat humans as humans. Instead we treat whole classes of people as a cartoon, a joke, a throwaway stereotype.
And so—we fight jokes with jokes. We try to change the language, the culture, the symbols, the stories of those who have been treated unfathomably unfairly though the course of history. We continue to tell stories and develop empathy. And if Jackie Summers has his way, we fight racism at the economic roots that started it all—you make racism unprofitable.
Don’t you think it’s the least we can do?
Read also The End of Racism [Thank You Donald Sterling] by Jackie Summers
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One of the funniest questions I was ever asked came from a black woman who said, “I don’t want to sound racist, but why do white people need so much ammo?”
Jesus. Can we not just get to somewhere even resembling people are just people???? I could care less about your background, your race, your country of origin, or your neighborhood. What I do care about is your character. For Pete’s sake. Whose getting all the fun from keeping this crap alive. White folks with guilt so they feel great, or other folks who have learned how to hit the buttons?
Re: #9 – “I’m part white myself, you know.” It is rude and presumptuous for a white person to tell a native that he’s part native himself. And yet… Membership in a native tribe hangs on this very question. Tribal membership is based on a minimum “percentage” of native ancestry. Anyone can apply to be a member of a tribe. Whether the application is accepted or not depends on how many Native ancestors you have. Tribal organizations keep track of this and make important decisions based on “how native” you are, so this is not just meaningless, offensive information. I… Read more »
Unfortunately, there’s a fundamentally faulty assumption in that list:
It assumes a person cannot be both white and Native American. It’s a funny list, and very thought-provoking, but it also reinforces a very old racist assumption, which is that you can tell a white person from a Native American by looking at them. The fact is that not all members of Native American tribes “look like” what people assume they’re “supposed to look like.”
Saying that because you live on the east coast you’d probably never meet an American Indian is just as racist as any other stereotype. There are many if us who live on the east coast. Or do you still believe that the only REAL Indians live in tepees on a reservation in South Dakota?
Thanks for calling that out Jane. That is how stereotypes are formed — a combination of experience (I had not run into any Native Americans) and perception (given the insularity of my very homogenous suburban neighborhood, it seemed unlikely). It was also one reason I left. But I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression. Stereotyping and prejudice (of which I am sure that statement smacked of) is different than what I talk about when I talk about racism — the systematic oppression and denial of rights. However both are wrong. I am going to change that sentence because… Read more »
Lisa,
You may have met a native American and just didn’t know it. It may just be a case of expectations not matching reality, thanks to the cultural stereotypes all around us. I know a card-carrying member of a native American tribe who has light brown hair and green eyes. I’m embarrassed to admit that my own prejudice kept me from believing him at first.