Ever since I was a little girl, I felt as though I had a spiritual connection with Native Americans. It was if I had their blood coursing through my veins - that I was misbirthed into my family and that an untold secret had been wrapped around my life.
When seeing photographs, I'm transfixed and my soul cries out to join their spirit - I have visions of pow wows and ceremonial chanting, fire burning crackling and animal hides being fitted to my soft virgin body -feathers in my hair. Shaman speaking wise forecasts and smoking calumet pipes in his tepee.
7 comments:
ha! i guess we have something in common I wear Moccasins:) Truly ever since I was in High School bought my first pair. Six Months ago had to buy me a new pair. I wear them proudly.
I'm a Cherokee woman & I will tell you in our spirituality all men, all creatures, in fact, are one...
you are terribly pretentious
Please, please, please, READ THIS
How do you know that you're feeling a "spiritual connection" with an entire continent full of different cultures? Do you go up to Native American and say,"Hey, I'm feeling something in my blood, and I think it's yours. Can you confirm or deny that if I describe the feeling?"
I'm beginning to see a pattern. You have a patronizing and objectifying attitude towards pop singers. You have a patronizing and objectifying attitude towards Native Americans. You seem to be patronizing and objectifying towards a lot of people.
Native Americans are just people like everyone else. People who happen to be the survivours of a genocide; and who, if they're on reserve, live in ridiculously sub-standard conditions compared to the rest of the country; and are targets of a huge amount of prejudice. But they're still just people.
You fetishize Native Americans, but have you ever written letter to your government representative about the conditions under which actual aboriginals live? How do you feel about land claims? Are you willing to pony up tax dollars to do something about conditions on reserves? Can you actually admit to yourself that North American Aboriginals were the target of a genocide, and actually use that term? Are you willing to admit that you personally are benefitting from that genocide, and hence have some responsibility to address it - whether or not you're the descendant of early settlers.
Do you have any notion of the ridiculous amount of hostility with which Native Americans treated in their daily lives, for things as simple as exercising their treaty rights? Do you know that you've probably met Native Americans without realizing it? Native Americans aren't valourized noble savages, they're are actual people.
You say you're transfixed by photographs, but would you look into the eyes of a disheveled-looking aboriginal man - a real live Native American - who's hanging around the Native community and resource centre downtown, possibly panhandling, and tell him about your "visions of pow wows and ceremonial chanting"? Would you look into the eyes of a young Objibwa woman going through law school, who's learning that her people are governed by an act that was designed to erase what's left of them, and tell her about your fantasy of a "Shaman speaking wise forecasts and smoking calumet pipes in his tepee"?
Would you travel to a reserve and tell the youth there - who experience sickeningly high rates of rape, drug addiction, teenaged pregnancy, poverty, high-school drop-outs and suicide - that you feel like you were "misbirthed into your family"?
Native Americans: not some mythical fairy people. They are real people with really problematic lives. Appreciate that.
Your soul sure does a lot of crying. You don't know anything about Native Americans. Please stop fantasizing based on fairy stories. It's hurtful - it just shows how pretentious you are.
Wow, you lot sure are rude. Alisa, this is beautiful. You are beautiful. Just ignore these people who are showing how much NOT Native they really are.
As a child, I, too, felt a strong pull toward the Native people, MY people. I did not find until much later that my ancestry was hidden from me. I encourage you to explore why you may be feeling such a pull.
You may be of a mixed ancestry, such as myself. Native, Greek, Yiddish, Scotch-Irish... I feel a strong pull toward all of them, and have always had visions of each, even before I knew of my connection.
Follow your bliss, what makes you happy, and ignore these angry people.
Pr. Karus
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