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Wachinika wrote:
“What do you think and feel about the decision they made to exclude the people?”
I don’t like it … even though I see their point of view. Mostly though, I’ve put it all behind me. I compare it and how I feel about it, to my own family history.
About 15 years ago, I found out that I have a half sister. (It’s a long sordid story, filled with the usual indelicate matters of betrayal, illicit sexual liasons, and a decades long cover-up, all of which are inmaterial to my story.) Anyhow, when my three sisters and my brother and I found out, we were shocked, to say the least. My sisters immediately rallied around my mother and gave my half sister the cold shoulder. My brother remained neutral, or should I say non-comittal. I, on the other hand, thought it was pretty nifty to suddenly discover that I had another sister. The long and the short of it was that my family was cleaved by the sudden “arrival” of my half sister. Feelings were hot and emotions raw. But, as with all things, time passed. After about five years. There settled into our family a kind of truce. A kind of insincere cordiality. And that’s the way it stands today. But here’s the point. While we all acknowledge new sis, we really don’t see her as part of our family. She didn’t grow up with us. She didn’t go to church with us. She didn’t feel the sting of mother’s belt on our behinds when we acted up. She didn’t fidget in the back seat of our 1963 Mercury on those grueling 8 hour trips to North Carolina to see our relatives. She didn’t worry with us at dad’s bedside when he had heart by-pass surgery. How could she have. She wasn’t there! And it’s those shared experiences that create the bonds of love and affection… that create family. Like I said, I think it’s nifty having a new sis, but, really, down deep, I don’t see her as part of my family. She’s dad’s daughter. She’s a friend, but she’s essentially dad’s daughter.
But it’s really just metaphor for how the New York Tuscarora (and most other federally recognized tribes) sees me/you/us/the Lumbee, ad infinitum.
Coharie Roy, Thank you for the gift of your personal story that we might benefit from what it teaches us. 🙂
This could be told as the teaching stories handed to Indian children by their Grandparents. It was pointed out in Contemporary Native American Literature class that the stories would leave off the line that sums up the lesson learned so that the child could think on it and wonder its’ ending and meaning. Then thoughout life as one lives similar situations the story is remembered, related to, understood, and comforting.
I’m thinking like so many here say so often: One small group may deny us but we are still equally present and important in the whole larger picture of the American Indian story. We are strong and enduring. Thanks to the tireless work by the people here there is already so very much we have to give our children and grandchildren instead of the empty longing and unknowing that was ours. Love and graditude to all.
Well I thought that this was about T shirts?
Well there’s so much to respond to;
ED sorry if I have offended you , if I haven’t that’s a releif but if I have I do apologize!
Roy, I really like the metaphor story, but what else can you call a camel?
The Tuscarora issue, well it’s thier right to cash in on a monopolized name if the choose to!
If I had a new sis that would be so COOL, even an old sis is pretty cool, but so far the ones I have are “flighty and airy” just not “ayrie”.
“You can always tell who the indians are because they never really quite fighting, they just simmer and then boil over”!
AND I still like asparagus!
“You can always tell who the indians are because they never really quite fighting, they just simmer and then boil over”!
The reason I don’t drink alcohol: I’m Scot/Irish & Indian. ’nuff said. 🙂
Well, I guess it turned out to be more about what the phase on the T-shirt provokes.
I had a Lakota elder tell me a story that not too long ago 2 crow men showed up at a Lakota’s door and said,
“Your Great-grandfather killed our Great Grandfather!”
He said,
“Indians don’t forget.”
I got the message.
Of all the posts here Rockhound’s is the one that has stuck with me.
“I think the T-shirts are funny, but I wouldn’t wear them myself.
Sometimes you just have to laugh, ya know.”
I decided that said it all. It was funny to me but I shouldn’t really wear one to events because no matter how seriously I take it when going through the greeting process, I’ve actually ended up being well received so I’d better just keep doing what I’ve been doing. I decided the one man is just grumpy.
Boy! This sure was an interesting thread! LOL. I’d LOVE to wear the “I’m part white….” t-shirt to the mall. I’m a daredevil and an “in-your-face” type of person. I’d dress in all black with combat boots on and act like I’m packing. LOL!!!
we have them here too, not as many as there used to be.
They may have been over run by “wangers” or “rubbies” or “something!? “.
I am not sure or they may have been displaced by another sub-species more sinister; but still each year we await thier mysterious migration back (where they leave to in the fall still reamains a mystery).
Oh sorry it’s those “side walk comando’s ” that I am refering to!
We saw these tee-shirts at the Paw-Paw Powwow at Springfield, Ohio last September, – and I am “lite.” Dan and I got a big kick out of seeing them.
I gained weight in my early twenties and had a male “friend” who was mad I wouldn’t date him, mainly because he told me I was old, fat and ugly. I went and bought me a tee-shirt that said “I may be fat, but you’re ugly and I can go on a diet,” and wore this to a picnic we were going to separately. He never called me old, fat and ugly again. And I never dated him.
But I can appreciate the humor of the tee-shirt, especially me being lite, and people asking if I am “Mixed.” I don’t know if I’d wear it, but then again, don’t know that I wouldn’t, either. It took me a long time to like my mixed self and to appreciate where I came from.
Anita B. aka Sparrow
Many of the federally recognized and state recognized tribes do feel that those of us who were seperated from the original tribes are no longer a part of them or deny us because we would be a stumbling block in their getting any federal monies or reparations. That I feel is just another way the government has found a way to limit what we should have a right to as Native people. Why do we keep letting the government controll us over and over again. They do not have our best interest at heart. They are aware that there are many of us who will not be recognized and they want to limit our due. We have to come together and stop playing their game. United we would be a force to be reccond (? spelling) with and they would have to take notice and give us our due. The government likes it when we fight against each other the same as they did so many years ago. WE NEED TO UNITE !
Hey Jade, it was good to see you and Linda at Clarksville yesterday. You are absolutely right about the power of a united front. That is why Becky and I refuse to play the ndn politics game……. too many good people to try to pick and choose who will be our friends based on politics. We try to be an example of unity through our actions and interactions.
To all…. Jade can verify that I bought the “I’m part white but I can’t prove it” teeshirt yesterday and I will wear it proudly. …. but that’s just me 😉
I didn’t like the Cherokee Nation Politics (I can’t think of the proper name of the group right now) excluding Blacks, because I believe some of the Freedmen to have some NA blood. If you are mixed, you are mixed, doesn’t matter what color you are on the outside, as long as you are a Cherokee or other NA tribe descendant IMO. I have met Afro-American NAs where you KNEW they were also NA – and one or two where you couldn’t see it so obviously – one was one quarter Apache and the other Cherokee.
I am disgusted – and sad – to see this partition made in our family of Cherokees.
Anita B. aka Sparrow
[QUOTE=… Why do we keep letting the government controll us over and over again. They do not have our best interest at heart.
Because, like it or not, Indians are still a ‘captive people’ and really don’t have ‘rights’ as far as this gov’t is concerned. They are supposed to be a self governing people, but in reality, the U.S. gov’t has set it up so that they are like children who have to ask a parent’s permission before they can do anything. So until the gov’t really and truly allows Indian nations to be self-governing they will always have to ‘get permission’ or be dependant on gov’t handouts.
Hello my family/ scattered tribe/the people all together,
I started this thread in innocence.
I have been away; gardening, but also applying for disability, and having a Taurus with Aries rising Birthday and Mother’s Day. I come back and find all of these wonderful posts that make me proud to be of you, that reflect our individual and united pain and unite us to the larger Indian community (whether they claim us yet or not), with prayers, that all realize we are the link in the united force that will show the world American Indians are the elders and basis for most all of the good that America represents to the Universe. I want at this time to say to all of you; I love you. Thank you. I believe my family oral history and I am proud to be of you. We are a force to be rececked with! (Peaceably and respectfully, of course.) To God (Generic), Maona (Winnebago), Wakonda (Omaha), Wakon Tonka, (Lakota), Jehova, (my bible).:o , (yes, in comparison to all of the above.)
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