The Untouchables: The Brain-washed, The Self-haters & The Proud

      Encountering ignorance is something we all deal with. Albert Einstein has an often repeated quote about the infinity of human stupidity, and like so many of his mathematical equations, it's true. I sometimes speak with unseen persons via internet that claim to be American Indian and support Native Mascotry. 

     Nothing I tell them touchs them in a way to make them change their position. Usually, they don't identify their tribal Nation or elaborate. I never question anyone's status as an Indigenous person. I find it offensive to myself personally to try and prove that to anyone, so I give others that same respect.

     That may come as a surprise to some. However, as long as they are trying to speak solely for themselves and not for every American Indian person I've no issue with them declaring themselves as Indigenous even, perhaps especially, when our ideas disagree. 

     I thought of them in two groups, until recently. The first group I thought of as The Brain-washed. And like the group's name, that is what they are. Throughly brain-washed in colonial thought. They only bring up their Indigenous identity to try and win a debate when all else has failed them. Somehow the image of the character, Stephen, in the movie Django fits this group perfectly. I have never met a person of this group in a real setting. I am convinced that is because they have totally forgone their Native American identity in real life and only reveal it in the sanctum of the internet. They have moved past the second group-The Self-haters.

    

     Self-hater is pretty identifying. They hate themselves and tend to blame other Native Americans for hating themselves. You may laugh, but in all seriousness I have witnessed this in person to person. 

     My parents brought me up attending a very orthodox Southern Baptist church. When I was thirteen, the church hired a new youth pastor who was also a citizen  of a local tribal Nation. I was really excited at the time to have a leader that was both Christian and vocally American Indian. 

     The youth pastor arrived shortly after being appointed to give a welcome sermon. He stepped up to the podium dressed in a dark suit. His hair was short and spikey in the front. He had a sad expression on his pox marked face. I sat calmly next to my mom as he started to explain how he hated himself and his alcoholic family. He wished God had let him be born to Caucasian Christian family. The youth pastor said that American Indians needed to put away the old ways, like him. He believed that God had made him Native in order to be a voice against the evils of being Native. 

     I had never heard anyone talk that way. My family was always saying be proud of who we are. My mom seemed to not be paying any attention. I was distressed and wanted to leave. I wanted her to stand up with my father and yell "Shut Up Liar!" They didn't. I whispered that I needed to go to the bathroom. After glaring in anger at the ladies room wall, I left wandering the hallways. I ended up in the nursery in actuality and played with the infants. Something I did often because I was a helper. 

     Later, I asked her why we didn't just all get up and leave. Mom said she wasn't giving anyone the satisfaction. I was confused, but I didn't argue. I spent the next several weeks avoiding youth group meetings by joining the bell-ringers and begging to help in the nursery more than I was needed. I felt sorry for him in a way, a lot like Bilbo did for Gollum. 

     I didn't have to avoid the youth pastor for long. He left the church in infamy. He raped a girl from another youth group he helped with. The youth pastor narrowly avoided prosecution for his statutory rape by marrying the girl. I don't know what became of him after that. Most likely, he is still blaming his ethnicity for his wicked soul. All the Self-haters are the same, hating themselves and American Indians worse than George Washington.

    

     The last group, The Proud, is something not new to me. I generally thought of as The Brain-washed though. That is until I viewed a recent talk show, thanks to the group EONM (Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry) that I helped "instigate". I came to see them as not actually brain-washed. The show, Totally Biased is available on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/EMGhnOa5eZU

     In it, the host, W. Kamau Bell, and artist/activist Gregg Deal @the_lame_sauce, debate Mascotry with Hochunk Nation Elder, Andy Thundercloud. 

     Mr. Thundercloud simply was not offended by any Mascotry. I don't think that should be confused with the fact that it is offensive. He is proud of who he is and nothing anyone does or says diminishes that for him. I can understand the determined ignoring of ignorance. After all, wasn't that what my mother and father had done in the face of such absurdity? 

    However, it does not follow that ignorance never hurt the innocent. It certainly caused a great deal of stress to my thirteen year old self. Ignorance about Indigenous people left to breed unchecked has become so ubiquitous in our country and where we live that our own unique identities have been drowned out. I can see how racists can exploit our proud citizens for their own evil gain. 

     So among the reasons I hold as truth as to why Mascotry must go, I submit this to you proud hold outs:

     Maybe The Proud will let this idea touch them. Ignoring Mascotry is robbing us of our social identity, and rising against it doesn't need to invoke a personal identity crisis. Because as long as mascots and slurs are around to define us, no one is going to ask us about ourselves. 

     

     Maybe it doesn't have to mean whether or not you are personally offended by the ignorance of racists and others. Maybe eradicating mascots and slurs can mean bringing our varied, unique, and truly spectacular voices to the forefront. It beats having to shout over Mascotry and 007Racists with a patent license to discriminate & appropriate.