Insolent NDN

Flawnology = flawed analogy; the majority if not all analogies when it comes to comparing oppressions are flawed and rarely do anything to advance understanding of the issue in any meaningful way. Flawnologies do not build up empathy but they do further marginalize people living at the intersections and into the overlap; flawnologies do rank oppression but in a postmodern speak that focus on individuality of experience at the expense of the community. How many times have I seen that “homophobia is the new racism” or that “being fat now is just like how it used be for Black folks under Jim Crow”? These are blatantly reprehensible and really only deserve a flashing “racism is the new racism stupid” icon.

While these are just two examples I see often, there are many others, often purported by people of color about other communities of color to which they do not belong or have affiliation. I do not see it as racism or even prejudice with hints of discrimination but legitimate and tangible evidence that white propaganda works. Who controls all of the information disseminated on a large and ever-repeating circular scale? Within the media macrocosm it is white folks and their power structures they have built from colonization, genocide, slavery, resource hoarding, and fear mongering. While strong communities of color are a threat to white folks and their structures, communities and groups composed of multiple races and ethnicities of people of color are even more threatening. We do have people in all communities of color writing, speaking, singing and creating art about coming together in our commonality to celebrate our power, so there is dissent aimed at the roaring white voice. In my own community, Rayna Green, Andrea Smith and Joy Harjo have written extensively on the political and social relationships between southeastern indigenous people and Black runaway slaves and freepersons. As communities began to build and an exchange of knowledge, ideas, spiritual customs, songs, arts the communities became stronger, vibrant and this frightened white folks, the plantation owner and the small family farmer alike, and thus, began the campaign to further marginalize anyone who did not want to capitulate to assimilation and become white and this campaign continues presently. White power structures benefit two fold from the white supremacy unloaded into the world: first, white folks are told over and over again that people of color are shifty thugs, stupid, beasts of burden, hot between the sheets, and dregs on society, and white folks see all the news clips and have no idea how to think critically about these issues therefore ingest and digest this like it was straight from the baby Jesus; second, people of color ingest this injustice and falseness as well, but we have no choice but to be critical so we catch the majority of it and throw it back, but it is so pervasive, everywhere that we can’t catch it all – it’s a blood stain that fades but we’re never completely clean.

I do not see people of color hating one another, I see white racism manifesting itself in a different way where white folks seem not to be around but in reality have their tongue wagging all the while. I see white concepts like colorism being swallowed and accepted by people of color but it’s not something we came up with on our own but we continue to wield it like a knife on folks. I believe we have to take responsibility for acquiescing to white wants but we also have to ground that acquiescence in context, where did it spring from, what is the historical context, how does fear-mongering, specifically fear of never having enough for *our own* play into this? I think the aforementioned has everything to do with it.

So when I see claims from other NDNZ that the United States as a whole would never stand for a sports team called the “New Jersey N*****s” I cringe because I have no doubt that it would not only stand but it would be celebrated and justified just like Chief Wahoo and the Atlanta Braves. What would not stand would be an all-people of color team called the “Cape Cod Crackers;” white folks would be up in arms immediately and probably have some people of color at their sides too. I’ve also been privy to Black folks telling me that it’s unfair for Native peoples to be able to own and operate casinos and Nations that participate in casino revenue are becoming more white and more acceptable. I assert that we are not, as casinos have highlighted that contemporary Native people are still living and participating in sovereign economic pursuits to the supposed detriment of the mostly-white surrounding communities. Historically, any time a community of color comes together to economically better the community, white folks freak the hell out because we should not only be dependent on them like small children for every need but we must not show anyone that we are intelligent, critically thinking people (it’s okay to have a shining star every once in a while as long as no one thinks the whole community is a shining star). Further, I’ve been at more than one academic conference where every person of color in the room is telling the Asian student to suck it up because he or she has it better than the rest of us due to the model minority myth. These myths do not serve us; when we perpetuate the white agenda we do harm and when we do not think critically and contextualize why a person of color might readily accept this white-thinking {flawnologies included} we do harm as well. This is not to say that we should not call this backward thinking out or readily accept it into our lives because it does us harm {perhaps even more so when the white-speak is coming from one of our own} but that we have to address it somehow and all the better if it is addressed on the community level.

Next time one of us is so quick to say that Black folks or NDNZ or Asian folks or Latin@s - those other people - have a larger slice of the pie, that the rest of us need to be doing all we can for a larger piece, that they would never know what we are going through because we are so unique I ask that we turn it around for a moment and look for white racism in the assertions and search for ways that we can unify, become more powerful with one another instead of divvying up more of the apple pie that is rancid with aspartame. It is in the best interest of the white power structure for us to be repeating what they tell us about ourselves and other people of color so they will support it, egg us on, tell us that the folks down on Mullberry have more than us and the folks over in Pinetop have even more… all the while not peeping once about how it is orchestrated to look this way as scarcity builds fear and distrust. I am more for getting us all around a kitchen table and start thinking up a recipe for some strawberry rhubarb pie that will feed all of us until we have full bellies and are ready for a game of cards.