Insolent NDN

Due to the flat-out stealing because I have no soul Margaret Seltzer’s memoir fakeoir, I am getting pretty steamed at the we-sha-sha Pretendian crowd. Oh, and we cannot forget Mrs. Cassie Edwards and her Cheyenne grandmother whom she cites as inspiration for her “Indian Romances” like Savage Honor [review forthcoming].

But, okay we got some white women playing at being Indian, ain’t nothing new there, that shit’s as old as the work day is long; I’ve done wrote parody on that shit. It’s a fab combination of the new White Man’s Burden (all the Indians are dead so we need to take up the knowledge and safekeep it for our white children), guilt over living on stolen land and the need to make a legitimate claim on said land (my granddad was 1/24th Chickasaw so we’ve been here a LONG time), and the noble savages being somehow different or better than other People of Color (their governments and schools were so good/they’re so spiritual/they’re so polite/clean/articulate/almost white). And since most white folks think all Indians are dead or if they do know one of us we’re not “real” because we’re light skinned, Black, Hawaiian, Rican, wear blue jeans, have short hair, use pronouns and do not speak in the third person; we’re written off right quick in order to save their fantasy that real Indians are stoic, hard-bodied warriors or demure maidens - think Dances with Wolves, everyone else seems to, right?

So what’s the big deal, it’s irritating but no real harm done, right? WRONG. Here’s my reasoning on why Pretendians are dangerous as all hell and need to be called out, revealed, drug out from behind the curtain and all that shit.

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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.

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I bought me the new Hip Mama as a cheer-me-up gift; it was a lovely surprise, as I let my subscription lapse and have not been keeping up with the zine. Hell, it was news to me that AG is pregnant again. *lol*

Like all of the other issues I am familiar with, this one has a theme - open adoption. Interesting. I found myself entranced by the stories of birthmama’s who birthed in “mother houses” in the deep South in the early 1970s (”My Secret Son” by Lani Jo Leigh) and then had their babies scurried away to an awesome story (”Wide Open Adoptions” by Zoe Francesca) by a second mama who talked about her deep friendships with both of her kids’ first mamas and how the mamas are in their lives on almost a daily basis*. There were other great stories as well, and then there was the article that pissed me off and I am prolly going to write a letter to the editor, or a letter to Ariel, challenging the stereotypical “oh it’s my experience” subtle but it can’t be racism! all up in it.

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My people view at the world in what English language refers to as dualism or binaries. We look for the balance in two opposites and seek to keep that balance. We believe in roles, we believe in callings. We believe that our creators gave us each a song and we are to live in a way that brings harmony to the community. Pre-Columbian historians have written that the Cherokee were more dualistic, more rigid in our roles than other nations surrounding us. Perhaps. Depending on the lens utilized to analyze our traditions, we may appear inflexible, or we may look secure in our lives, roles and callings.

I share the above because I believe it is crucial to understand the a bit of the lens I use to view the world – the template I use to organize my personal narrative so that the following is not set within European terms that may appear similar, but, in fact, are in opposition to my peoples’ traditions because our traditions were not conceived in greed and birthed in colonialism. Cherokee separation of roles is based in mutual respect for the other person’s power – not in fear. The following assertions are based in the same mutual respect; I honor a person’s right to identify as one chooses but I do have thoughts on the process of light-skinned people of color and mixed identity where one may identify as white and ___________ or white with some color down the pike.

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