BEING INDIAN IS...hearing from non-Indians how rotten the government has treated Indians, but still voting them back into office.
BEING INDIAN IS...listening to people tell you about their grandmother or great grandmother that was a Cherokee Indian Princess.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing other Indians in search for an Indian identity.
BEING INDIAN IS...being greeted by non-Indians with pseudo names from real ancestors of your tribe.BEING INDIAN IS...having to prove with documentation that you are one, when other races and people in the country don't have to.
the flag of the Crow Creek nation
BEING INDIAN IS...knowing that your ancestors were slaughtered like animalsin the name of Christianity, and then being told that Christianity is out to save us.
BEING INDIAN IS...buying "authentic" Indian jewelry made in Taiwan or JapanBEING INDIAN IS...learning of people becoming Indian without having an Indian mother or father.
BEING INDIAN IS...finding out that people think all Indians lived in tipis.
Native American Mashpee Wampanoag woman named Cheryl
BEING INDIAN IS...being told that Columbus discovered America from his ship, when we were watching him from the shore.
BEING INDIAN IS...trying to relate to people who say they are mathematically 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. degree of blood.
BEING INDIAN IS...wearing braids and being called a "hippie" by those who object to long hair.
BEING INDIAN IS...being whipped for speaking your own tribal language when on the school ground premises.
BEING INDIAN IS...watching your elders boast of Indian pride and leadership, between swigs of liquor from a half-empty bottle.
BEING INDIAN IS...having your brothers and sisters that are enrolled in the tribe treat you as second class citizen because you and/or your family chose not to walk the government's path.
Copyright 2001 - The NDN Rights Project - All Rights Reserved. For information on linking and usage contact director@ndnrights.org
Geronimo, Apache war chief, & the bain of the United States advance upon Turtle Island
No comments:
Post a Comment