A friend linked me to this tacky piece of erotica this other day and I swear I had to read the dialogue verbatim to convince myself that hero really did say: “Fucking her ass. Saving her life.” Because, really, what the fuck is that?! This book takes the place of Marry A Man Who Will Dance, which opens with these immortal words:

The Harley roared and bucked and writhed under his muscular thighs as wildly as a fresh border whore. And since he was half-Mexican and half-Anglo, and oversexed to boot, Roque Mayo was just the man to know.

You know I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. Worst Book Ever Award, this book haz it.

Out of the goodness of her heart, sent me two Cassie Edwards novels that focus on my nation, so good of her after I tortured her (and there will be more torture to come) with winning lines out of Edwards’ Savage Honor, which include but are not limited to: “And Shawndee is smart. She’s read many a book. Book learnin’ makes for smartness.” from the “voodoo” Black slave and/or servant Tootiba; the “voodoo” is not exotic enough, however, so Edwards is quick to sketch out that Tootiba’s grandmother was also possessed and possibly impregnated by Satan. Fo’ real. And because no “Indian Romance” is complete without a princess tribute, the heroine goes on to stutter: “A princess? Truly, I will be a princess, like those I have read about in books? A true living breathing princess?” Yeah, chick you’ll be a Seneca princess and your mama is cool with your marriage because your man has “honor… savage honor!”

I’ll wait for y’all to stop vomiting.

I didn’t think anything could be worse until gave me the lowdown on Savage Grace, in which the heroine is killed on page 30 but is told by The Voice that she may return to earth because of her goodness. Again, I can’t make this shit up. She is so special in her white womanhood that she needs to go back to Earth hence there be a shortage of white wimminz for the Indian Braves. And her kid is named Moses. Maybe you can see why I am only on page 30. I don’t expect much, or anything, from Edwards but the severe butchering of the Cherokee language is going to kill me. She has yet to even get one word right. *smh* I am sure the adventures of Standing Wolf and Shawndee Shaylee will give me much to gag on. The other book, Savage Persuasion, looks as awful, but perhaps, more so since we have two “Indian Braves” fighting for the right to own the Porcelain Vagina Brietta (isn’t that an Italian sedan?).

I did take a look-see over at AAR to see if there were any Edwards novels that include two Native characters and I kinda-sorta found one, Savage Joy but the heroine is “half white and half Iroquois” (which doesn’t make sense to me, she would be one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, yes?) and the hero is Shawnee… and get this, the heroine, her name? Shanndel. Does that rhyme with handle or is it shan-DELL? Either way it’s hideous and I hope Edwards is without offspring because I fear for what they would be called. However, I don’t think I can even take up the experiment of reading another book with prose so purple it explodes with purple:

The tempo of the dance slowed. Panther and Shanndel’s hands came together. “Ni-haw-ku-nah-ga,” Panther said throatily as he pressed himself against her, grinding his loins into her special place, which she arched toward him. “Rain Singing, I take you now as my wife.”

*smh* Now that’s a special kind of we-sha-sha.

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.

It’s a problem, fo’ real; it’s such a problem in the art world that we actually had to enact the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. A law, people, a law?! But okay what about people not trying to get over, they just feel the spirit or use it to boost a side gig? Surely, that ain’t no crime, right? Well, not a crime, but unethical and absolutely positively contributes to the oppression of Indigenous Peoples in the Western Hemisphere. Huh? How? Well, here’s how it works in the USA (and I wish I knew more about how Canada works but I don’t) to be officially a Native American Indian one must belong to a state and/or federally recognized Nation (usually termed “tribe”). The federal government has concluded that you do have a x/y blood quantum and then one must fulfill the unique national/tribal requirements for enrollment. For most of us, this means being born and having your mama do the paperwork, but it’s not always that easy - we’re talking oppressed people with rights to a whole lot of land and the federal government’s greed. The USA government is not stupid: less Indians, more land for sale, development, parks, whatever the hell they want at that minute in time. While our Nations have always had say over who is who ain’t one of us the federal government really got their hands in it with the Dawes Act or General Allotment Act of 1887 which took land from being collectively held by Nations and allotted plots to heads of households. What’s the big deal with that? Well, think about it - heads of household meant men in the minds of the government and definitely meant a household structured as a nuclear family. So a LOT of our land was lost just due to the Dawes Act; well, lost to us and then sold to white settlers heading west to fulfill Manifest Destiny and all. So enrollment becomes really important - to the government because they have a hand in making sure there are less Indians and to individual Nations because it’s about all we have left in determining who is ours. Enrollment is an issue of sovereignty and one we all take very seriously even though we’ve seen it used and abused as of late, it’s still our right… but it’s a right that exists with a context of systemic racism and colonization within the United States. What I am meaning to say is that there are people who should be enrolled and accessing all of their rights as an Indian person to services for Indians but for one reason or another they cannot - and these legitimate claims are not white folks who just miss the blood quantum requirement for Nation X; nine times out of ten we are talking about Black and Brown people who have been disenfranchised because they are of multiple Nations and don’t have enough X blood quantum to enroll with one Nation, they have no paperwork because their ancestors were slaves (of a particular Nation or the mother was a slave), or they are a Nation that has folks on both side of the border and for some reason they can’t enroll with the federal government (USA or Canada IIRC). And this brings me to another point, somewhat off topic but important nonetheless, is that all you white folks out there who feel so disenfranchised from the Nation you supposedly belong to, well, let me tell you, get your asses to the back of the line, there are plenty of folks who are ahead of you who had their damn car stolen and not sold a few generations back, as ’s awesome analogy goes.

Back to Pretendians, they get called out, smoked out and laughed at but at the end of the day are these fools the ones that really suffer? No. It’s the aforementioned folks who are legitimately Indigenous Peoples but don’t have whatever card credentials they need to have when the rest of us tighten our belts in defense. The cycle continues, over and over, Pretendians piss us off and it goes back to who is who with what card where, and damned if we feel like we don’t have to go that route because there’s got to be a line in the sand to tell these we-sha-sha fakes that NO YOU ARE NOT. But the lumps are in the oatmeal and legit folks get plastered to the side of the bowl too as we attempt to smooth that shit out. Long winded, eh? And that’s why I detest these fake-ass, hair-dying, ain’t got a goddamn clue where they from, who their people are (but I’ll make some shit up anyway) Weekendians who flip-flop from being Cherokee to Apache to Chumash to Salish depending on what powwow they crash; not only are these assclowns appropriating the identity, culture, customs and voices of real live people trying to dig a living out of this colonial state but they are further perpetuating the oppression of unenrolled legitimate Indians.

So to all you white people who want an Indian name so bad, want a Lukumi or Vodou god/dess to watch over you, desire to learn all the kumbia and salsa out there while drinking some freshly plucked white tea out of your China teacup straight off the import boat: go back to your own damn culture, do a genealogy, do a family tree, shovel in the dirt for info on your own people and leave us alone. Oh, but I should warn you that there are some actual Irish and German people still out there in the world too, and you may have to answer to them as well. If you steal you will be caught, be prepared to deal with the consequences, preferably without the WWS histrionics.

I’ve decided I am a firefighter today. I don’t know much about being a firefighter, no firefighters in my family but I heard that my great-great grandfather may have worked as a volunteer firefighter in Jackson County back in the day. But, really, I just like the idea of being a firefighter - it’s exciting, well, it *sounds* exciting, and the red truck gets bonus points.

I am a firefighter. I said so. I even Googled “firefighting” to find out a little bit more about what being a firefighter entails (aside from the snazzy uniform and the aforementioned hella cool red truck!) but there was a LOT of information, some of it seemed too academic or too angry (the NYFD seems to be really upset still) so I clicked out of the sites and went to eBay instead to see if I could get a firefighting uniform on the cheap, maybe get it tailored to be a bit more fitted too…

Since I am a firefighter, I am telling everyone all about *being* a firefighter. I keep getting asked what station I work for and who my team is but I shrug it off, no need to get into the deals of work and community - I’ve always been a loner, a solitary practitioner, if you will. I get dressed in the uniform and strut around town, sometimes I even get up the courage to stand near the red trucks (omgtheyaresocooooool!) but I am irritated that people are questioning my right to assert my identity as a firefighter! Who the hell do they think they are? Fuck the haters, I am going to go see about getting a Dalmatian.

I am really getting pissed off that there is this expectation on me to associate myself with other firefighters now. I mean, some firefighters, are, well, less than savory characters. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I was listening to a few police officers go on about a few of those bad apples and found myself nodding with them. I may be a firefighter but I don’t want to be associated with the wrong element, and therefore, I really can’t be expected to socialize with other firefighters, right? Plus, I am new to firefighting and those hard-core, life-long, family-legacy firefighters might question me?! Yeah, I know, who would question me about being a firefighter? I paid my dues! And I don’t do rejection well… and I might be rejected among other firefighters where I am not a novelty (like I am at the Policeman’s Ball).

I finally did go to the local Firefighter’s Barbecue… it’s was okay. Most of the other firefighters were nice and everyone was cordial but they wanted to know about me and my work in the firefighter community - what kind of work did I do, how did I prefer to put out fires, who were my mentors, who trained me, who bossed me around? Huh? I am not getting this over-the-top assumption that *being* a firefighter means that I have to have actually done any of that! I prefer to do my own thing, I am pretty much a rebel, you know?

Seriously, I have the right to be a firefighter if I want to be. I bought the uniform, I even did some research and my great-great grandfather definitely was a volunteer firefighter! This is the Western World where freedom of choice reigns! How dare these firefighters judge me just because they’ve always been firefighters… or active firefighters. It’s not fair, and now I see what all those police folks were saying - firefighters have an entitlement complex and, really, I can see how they contribute to the oppression of those not like them. Fuck this! I am taking off this firefighter hat… I obviously need to consult my shaman Cinnamon Bearclaw about my *true* identity; I always have had an affinity for sous chefs.

The context of this post is layered in this, this, this, this, and especially this.

I was up all night, or rather dreaming all night about these conversations, because this is exactly the issue and almost an exact replica of what took me off the internet almost five years ago. I wanted to become less fat because after five years of undergrad the extra 30 pounds I put off from my stable, comfortable weight of 230-235 had me pretty damn uncomfortable. How had I gained the weight? Lots of soda and Nerds candy. Literally. All day, every day. How did I get that much weight off before going on my first diet - walking and stopping the soda and the Nerds candy. Was that health at every size or was that dieting? I don’t know - I went in with the notion of just stopping what I knew was causing the problem but also of becoming reduced fat.

The thing with dieting (and I think of lots of things in this arena like elective plastics, etc.) is that it’s a body autonomy issue but also a larger social issue. We can’t solve fat oppression by losing weight because fat oppression is just that - oppression - so me losing 30 pounds doesn’t do much, it definitely does not make me an activist one way or the other because I don’t think you can solve larger social problems by changing your body - but you can make yourself whatever, and I struggle with an adjective because who knows how one will feel. I applaud Kate Harding when she writes here that she is not gonna put up with dieting talk on her blog. Fucking ace, thank god someone is making a decision, as I’ve been too overwhelmed with the wishy-washiness of Fatshionista to even think anyone would dare make such a declaration. Maybe she read Delux Viven’s IBARW post? Spaces with boundaries are hella more productive than some of this “open-minded, winner-take-all” shit.

It’s not politically solvent to have macro-issued body autonomy statement for the fat activist cause because dieting is antithetical to a size acceptance movement… but there’s some in between room to maneuver. Frankly, I am for the stay the fuck out of my business route of behavior. What I am eating, how I am moving, is none of anyone’s concern and I want to hear about the virtures of healthy fat people as much as I want to hear about how fat will give you cancer, asthma, well, everything but a new BMW. I am recovering from an ED(s) and I love food the way the kids on Top Chef love food and that’s what I want to talk about - someone call the French in so we can get this shit sorted out, otherwise known as I just don’t care about you’re diet or your HAES plan or if you sit in plaid shorts on your corduroy lounger eating sweet potato fries and watching Adam Beach movies (moi? nevah!) all weekend. Eat what you want, I don’t care, and I care even less when people talk food = disease. Work one week on any floor in a major hospital and you will see there is NO statistical significance to fat and disease, any disease. Studies be damned I know what I’ve seen in five years of being up close and personal in oncology, cardiac, pulmonary, general med, and myriad other floors. If you want to eat X way so that you feel Y so good, go for it! It’s germane to my rant.

If you’re still following me, I want to touch on something even larger than the dieting elephant and that is fat and too fat. I am just about done with the pissing in the wind about how all fat people are equal under oppression. Give me a fucking break already. Not only is there rarely a mention of race, class, gender or geography anywhere in this we are all fat paper dolls bullshit, but there is no recognition that to be 400 pounds and not fit into airplane seats, chairs at movies, booths at restuarants is a whole different can of worms than being niggled by Aunt Patty on Turkey Day that you could be so pretty if you lost that last 20 and got down into a size 10. I love that Natalie writes:

It’s okay to be fat, but not too fat. If you’re really fat, you’ll be grudgingly accepted, but you’ll be made aware of the fact that really, your body’s not acceptable to them, either. If you’re bigger than size 26 or heavier than 300 pounds, you’re off in no-man’s land. There’s lip service paid to being accepting of all fat people, but I’m here to say that I’m not really feeling the love.

Are other non-inbetweenies, fat folks feeling this? Because I sure have, even when I was a size 12 and the thinnest I’ve ever been. I hate fucking flawnologies, as y’all know, HATE them, but damn if this whole thing doesn’t remind me of some colorism. Yeah, we all people of color but some of us take the bat to the head more often simply because of the hierarchy of oppression that to be dark (and usually Black) is the bottom of the line - and other people of color benefit from that blow being directed away from us. So fat folks, maybe take a look at that, yeah, you fat but there is a better, if not right way, to be fat in this western world and it’s usually the hour-glass shape, or any shape that has some thick ass, small waist and some boobs. Hell, I’ll cop to admitting this is the shape I love on women; it’s hot. Damn hot and if you look like this all the power to you (photos appreciated) but those of us without the measurements, the femme look or anything else that makes fat slightly more acceptable, just acknowledge that shit, a little acknowledgment goes a long way - and damn if we don’t need to start talking about all of this *waves hand in circles above my head like a woman with too little coffee* in terms of race, class, gender, and geography. If I read on more POS article about bigger women of color being more at peace with their body and their menz loving our bodies and generally having this experience of love and prosperity, I am going to shoot someone. Hell fucking yes, most some communities of color are not mired down in this thin is in shit but come the fuck on, people of color are everywhere - you don’t think we interact by the minute with white men and women who are intriguingly disgusted with us on every level or get the local news? No matter our size, people of color’s bodies are public domain ’round this world.

Further, I am sick of the we’re all in the same boat or carve out a space for yourself in this movement - I am all for action (solution-focused therapist here!) but how about some folks with a bit more privilege strutting around in the jeans they didn’t have to mail order, leaving some room open for that discussion? I’m just sayin’. Because I am sick and fucking tired of hearing all about how there is self-determination when it comes to deciding if one is fat (because anyone not a size 2 is fat says Cosmo) versus self-determination if one wants to actively do something (HAES or dieting or what the fuck ever) to lose some weight. Self-determination is self-determination, body autonomy is body autonomy, I don’t see how you can have it both ways or lilly-dilly around on some slope where it’s okay 34% of the time but that’s it!

In summation, all fat bodies, all bodies are acceptable, or at least that’s the goal, right? That’s my version of sunshine and butterflies. But. I am also living in a world where my 244 pound apple-shaped, NDN-looking self is not as acceptable as someone who look like Kate Harding or The Rotund/OnceUpon; why is that like screaming fire in a crowded theatre to say? It’s not a matter of me not carving a place out for myself, because, really, is that ever a problem for moi *lol* but a larger issue within an activist community that continually plays the proverbial ostrich by ignoring that the world treats folks differently based on how fat they are, how close their bodies come to the the norm. It ain’t about playing down an inbetweenie’s irritation with her colleagues urging her to diet to get into those new Juicy pants or implying that a thick hourglass doesn’t get shit for not being rail-thin, hanger like model for couture designed for children women. I just would like some realism up in these discussions, some expansions up in these discussions (why are all these folks white as far as I can tell?!), and someone with some ovaries to say yeah, okay fat is good, all fat is accepted in the movement (and should be in this world) but in this life your fat gets you different treatment than it gets me especially when you add some of those innocuous *lol @ my snark* factors like race, color, and class into the equation.

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.

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.

The story is “The Unknown Quantity” by Margaret Gunther. The reader gleans from the article that Margaret is a white woman married to a dark-skinned Southeast Asian man; Gunther even mentions that she believes they were chosen by their son Micah’s birthmother because the husband is dark-skinned and she should have set off flags for her. Insert me going “the hell?” The article opens with the line: “Keisha worries me.” Eh, okay. The next paragraph is all about how Keisha is Gunther’s son’s birthmother and she “is the ticking timebomb in the landscape of my motherhood” presumably because Keisha is mentally ill and a felon; Gunther makes sure to get in quickly that Keisha was just released from a mental institution and has been in and out of jail. The article continues with Gunther sighing that t he adoption did not go as planned, as her other experience as an adoptive mother went, as Keisha did not grieve and “get on with the business of growing up, or finishing school, or whatever it is that she has chosen to forgo parenting in order to do.” Uh, what? I hadn’t realized that it was so cut and dry, thanks for the clarification. Gunther outlines the adoption process and the reader is told that Keisha was 15 and pregnant and being raised by a strict patriarch in a family of mostly boys; Keisha says nothing at the initial meeting to Gunther and her husband, as her father does all of the talking. The adoption is on and then the adoptive is off, of which Gunther says that she felt fine about… but I can’t help but think her quippy attitude is patronizing and reading between the lines I can see her in full drama make-up, back of her hand to her forehead, weeping “another baby born in the ghetto.”

Then the adoption is back on; it seems that Keisha went to visit her grandmother and gave birth in Mississippi, named the baby “Micah” and then decided that she wants Gunther and her spouse to parent Micah. The author and her huz rush off to Mississippi; Gunther relates that the hospital social worker tells her that the babe is in NICU but Keisha has not signed the papers yet. Gunther presses for more information and makes it clear to the reader that she is not stepping a foot out the door until she is sure of Keisha’s certainty. The social worker assures that Keisha will sign the papers. So off on the jet plane the affluent couple goes and they meet with Keisha in the hospital. Now this is where I start to get pissed off. The reader knows that Keisha is 15/16, Black in the rural South, no family around aside from the grandmother, no immediate family support, no mention of the social work/adoption agency support that she is getting (or not getting) and her baby is in the NICU. I am thinking of all of these factors as Gunther describes Keisha lounging about the hospital bed not paying attention to Micah in order to gaze at the tv, not going to visit Micah in the NICU, saying that Micah “has a bad attitude.” Gunther seems to understand that something is not right but the best she can come up with is that a social worker or nurse should have been there! Okay, maybe it’s because I’ve done this work but give me a fucking break. Gunther could not have gone three feet to the nurse’s station and asked for someone?? No. She chose to leave the room and leave Keisha there - alone - knowing that something was not quite right.

Gunther and her man come back a few hours later and baby Micah is ready to go. Gunther then takes the time to compare this surrender with the surrender of her other child and how this one is utterly lacking love and compassion. For who? Since the time period allotted for surrender already passed before Gunther arrived, she takes the baby and that is it - they have a plane to catch.

The rest of the story recounts that Keisha tried to contest the adoption in the first year but had no legal grounds to do so (no mention of race or class privilege is mentioned here… or anywhere in the story, but you know, small details) and that when she is involved with Micah, she acts disinterested, arrives late or not at all… and don’t forget: mentally ill! Felon!!!! But the best part, wait for it, is when Gunther says about her unbreakable bond with Keisha “I’ve been in abusive relationship, a bad marriage that I was able to escape.” I have seen some fucked up flawnologies in my life but this one, damn, this one frosts the three-layer cake. I’ll cut Gunther some slack and say in the last few paragraphs, she seems says that she wants Keisha to improve her position and stay in their lives. But why can’t I, a reader, believe her? Finally, Gunther relays the last telephone call she had with Keisha in which, five years later, Gunther realized that she and Keisha had been using different spellings of Micah; Gunther, of course, using the correct spelling from the Bible and Keisha using “Mykah,” which uses the traditional Afrikan K. Gunther chocks it all up to them being afraid to communicate with one another and then the big heaving sigh. The end.

Aside from the whole story reading like the script for Losing Isaiah, Part II, I am beyond irritated that Hip Mama would publish a story, even it is a memoir, that has no analysis of the privilege and differences between these two mothers. No mention of postpartum depression, no mention of the circumstances surrounding and contextualizing Keisha’s experience that may have lead to the behavior purported by Gunther. I believe that I am suppose to feel compassion for Gunther and her family and maybe a little bit of something for Keisha, something in the realm of patronizing “there, there, dear.” Yet how can I feel anything substantive for Gunther when I do not trust her as a narrator? All of the archetypes of a traditional transracial adoption are there: the loving white mother concerned first and foremost with the baby paralleled with her loving yet absent husband and then the shifty, dark-eyed (dark-skinned) birth mother whose indecision makes everyone ill at ease. *pursed lips* Gunther seems to go out of her way to set the story up as an us verses them and then seems confused when it plays out that way. She sets Keisha up as this wannabe teen mama who doesn’t know shit about shit so that she gets to sigh that she has the patience of Saint Ann to put up with this woman-child.

I will not say that all birth mothers do this or don’t do that… but just in the other stories published in this issue we see that birth mothers, regardless of how they may have come off to the adoptive/second mothers, grieved years into the future, experienced a range of emotions that were nothing like the linear process set up by Gunther, and surely did not “grieve and get on with doing whatever it was they wanted to do instead of parent.” Gunther relays that she saw that something was wrong in the hospital, on the day of the adoption and she chose to do nothing; she displays no empathy for a young woman giving birth in a strange hospital to a child in need of neonatal intensive care all the while having little to no support from family and friends. There is not even a nod in the direction of trying to understand what it may have been like, and that’s what I find the most offensive, the most beyond the pale. Gunther may have painted Keisha as the unstable birth mother, the stereotypical young woman who cannot make up her mind, other woman fighting for control in a relationship, but Gunther, possibly unknowing in her ignorance to construct the scale with her on one end and Keisha on the other, did not succeed with me. Even if it comes from the pages of Hip Mama, doused in the most liberal, bohemian truthiness, I am not going to swallow that this class-privileged white woman is the victim in an abusive relationship where the unstable dark woman is the insane, unschooled criminal.

But regardless of what I think or who I do or do not believe, I hardly matter; I am just a reader. I think: who is supporting Keisha now, where is her story in all of this? What happened to her honor-roll status, straight As in school, and plans for college? Was it depression, did anyone pressure her to place and how did that pressure mount? I send out songs for her and all of the other invisible, unspoken women out there. To-hi-du, v-gi-lv, gaest-ost yuh-wa da-nv-ta.

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.

I am a light skin woman of color. I have written extensively on the need for light skins to acknowledge the privileges conferred upon us by virtue of our lightness; I have written of the burden that is ours to take up off our darker brothers and sisters if and when we are mistaken for white. I believe in responding in love and in truth, communicating with a community vision first and foremost in our minds instead of allowing individualism to consume us. I believe in the plurality of our stories and our right to tell them. I believe that there is not “I” only “We.” I have written of my personal journey to nourish myself with what I carry inside me, from my own gifts, and find validation in what I am and not in external compliments and accolades.

With all of the above in mind I turn to the binary of white and of color that is so often rejected by people of color and people without color. I do not choose to reject the binary because outside the realm of postmodernism, the binary is real. As a light skin standing in the doorway of whiteness, I have felt the lure of being of color and being without color when it is convenient but identity is not convenient when identity is an expression of your essence. Light skins often have a choice if we can pass for white in the larger world. There is cost and consequence if we choose whiteness, and while some would argue that the price is worth it, I would argue that the price is our soul – both the individual and collective soul. I have seen light skins pass as white with and without intention and the internal triumph and turmoil that accompanies it. I believe there comes a time when one needs to choose where one stands because one cannot stand with a foot in whiteness where one can play in the privilege conferred upon one and claim to be a person of color when it is convenient. I see those of us whom may pass to have a responsibility to our communities, and that responsibility is to reject whiteness at every opportunity while still acknowledging the privilege that light skin brings us. Is it a heavy load? Yes. The cost of not carrying it, well, that is math one may need to do on one’s own.

I have come to this conclusion after years of dealing with people describing themselves as parts, pieces, and fractions. I have seen friends, family, acquaintances, enemies and strangers tear themselves into pieces and rearrange them to fit any given situation. We may feel torn, we may feel burdened, we may feel betrayed, we may feel that we are not paying enough homage to kin and ancestors. To this I say: STOP. If one continues on this path – walking a forked road – one will be torn into two. Light skins need to stop the drama, the tragic mulatto bullshit and be who we are at our core, as I believe it is much more difficult to be light skinned than to dabble in whiteness. Yet if that identity is white in the white world with a white mind then so be it, but don’t play in the dark and come out so bright and shiny white when the going gets tough, because it will get tough and stripped to the bone this world sees white and other. Darker people of color don’t even get to think about playing this game much less participate in it; this hopscotch back and forth between identities depending on what is convenient is a slap in the face to those who do not have said privileges and a betrayal of our community.

Strong words, I write. I say this to my light skin brothers and sisters because I care for us. We have our own baggage, so be it. We may be insecure in who we are in this world, we may be wandering astray still looking for acceptance and community, family and kin. We may be stringing together our lives because the consequences of colonization have been fully visited upon us. We have pain. Yet that pain does not give us license to take leave into the white world when it suits us. When we stand so near to whiteness it is our responsibility to fight the assimilation, the appropriation, the pure cannibalization of our peoples. People without color look to us to be bridges – to make the aforementioned more palatable. I posit that it is our duty to stand on the front lines and say NO. I am NOT white. I am NOT going to be taken as white because it will get me out of a shitty situation. I will not cop to being half this or part that because it is more appetizing to the white mindset that greedily consumes anything construed as exotic. White folks don’t want us, let’s not fool ourselves, what they want is for us to want to be them. I refuse to play that game. I will let go of the idea that being a person of color denies a white parent or ancestor; I will let go of the tired myth that I must be wringing my hands over my right to be a person of color or caught between two worlds.

I do not mean to make light of the very real dilemmas light skins face with regards to identity; it is a process because we are made to believe that we have to perform this script that has been written. There is no script, but there is a choice in the privilege that we receive thanks to being so near to that light, bright and almost white ideal. The choice is to take the burden off of our darker brothers and sisters. The choice is to acknowledge differences among us with mutual respect, honesty and humility. Make that choice; carry the water or do not carry the water my elisi would say. My people believe that god gave us each a song so we know who we are – get to know who you are and be that person.

I am the lucky one no matter my struggles. I am blessed, I am grateful. Is there anything better in this world than being Tsalagi, belonging to the historic eastern band, walking strong with my weya clan, being my mother’s daughter, being an extension of Selu and Kana’ti? In my eyes, no, there is nothing more sacred, more special than these. At the end of the day any promise of whiteness and its doors and pleasures are smoke and chaff. I hope it is similar for my sisters and brothers – keep what is sacred close to you.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend about geographical identity. I assert that my primary cultural language is that of a woman of color from the Southeast. I feel most comfortable among that group, and that tends to be my homeplace speak, and everything else is variables of code shifting. Although, I have lived in both the Southeast and the Midwest for most of my life, I know where home is, and I know the bias and misconceptions that most people without color north of Kentucky seems to have about “Southerners.” I want to address this a bit because I think that using the Southeast as the proverbial redheaded stepchild of the country is disconcerting and is based upon stereotypes that allow any person without color not affiliated with the area to puff up in pride that they are somehow supah spechual unique individuals who don’t have a racist bone in their body because they live in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Yes, there is racism in the Southeast.

Fucking duh. I have been followed in more stores, called more derogatory epitaphs, threatened and stalked in North Carolina than I ever have in Ohio; but white North Carolinians also know what ndnz look like, so there’s is that. *smh* There’s overt and covert racism everywhere in this country; Ohio and Indiana were the hotbed of Klan activity following the Reconstruction period. People without color who consistently denigrate the Southeast as this horrid hell of racism while denying that people of color face racism in the most cosmopolitan cities in the Northeast need a reality check. I had someone tell me once that she didn’t understand why the majority of the Civil Rights actions happened in the Southeast; why didn’t folks just move up North where they wouldn’t face that kind of prejudice? *head to desk*

Further, there are a lot of people of color in the Southeast. First, there are indigenous people who have managed to hold on to bits and pieces of our original land holdings. There are mexican@ farmers and labors who have come to work the land. There is a thriving community of Black folks with myriad cultures that encompass all aspects of the African diaspora. There are subsets within subsets, pockets of communities that have persevered through wars, poverty, famine, institutional racism, institutional violence, the legacy of chattel slavery, the legacy of genocide and removal, and do not have any desire to move away from the land they have worked and the communities they have built. Yes, we face adversity, racism, personal and institutional violence, but we fight it, just like our sisters and brothers all over this country, all over this world, fight it.

To be a woman identified with the Southeast is not the same as being a “southern girl” or a “southern belle.” Women of color did not, and I’ll argue still do not, have access to that type of womanhood because the image of the “southern girl” and “southern belle” are based in direct opposition to what institutionalized slavery and genocide disallowed women of color: whole personhood. The dichotomy collapses if there is not a strong line dividing the two. Yet, it is not as if women of color had or have access to white-defined womanhood elsewhere in this country either.

It is not my intent to postulate that the Southeast looks like “let’s give the world a Coke” commercial, as that is laughably false. However, I do take issue with people without color using the Southeast as the example for: racist communities, racist peoples, racist institutions, racist culture, ad nauseam; there is actually a thriving Southeastern geographical culture comprised of people of color who consider themselves to be of or from the Southeast and have no illusion that the North or West would be less hostile to us with regards to race. Further, people without color who wish only to look at the Southeast need to check out the beam in their own eye before commodifying all of the Southeast into a caricature comprised of media stereotypes from Gone with the Wind, Deliverance, The Education of Little Tree, and CMT videos, as there are plenty of strong, educated people of color in the Southeast and just as many white folks playing at being good antiracists as you’d see in any other geographical province.