By Guest Contributor Debbie Reese, cross-posted from American Indians in Children’s Literature

In October of 2011, ABC broadcast “Children of the Plains” on its 20/20 news program. Watching the promos for it, I shook my head. Diane Sawyer gave her viewers a very narrow program that did little to portray Native youth in the fullness of their existence.

Today (December 13, 2011) I’m sharing a rebuttal to Sawyer.

Please watch More Than That, and share it with as many people as you can. Those of you who work with children’s literature in some way, keep this video in mind when you’re reviewing books. We need literature that reflects the entirety of who we are rather than an outsiders romantic or derogatory misconception.

Update: 6:15 AM, Wednesday, December 14, 2011

After posting the video yesterday, I watched some of the other videos the students have on Youtube. They do a video news broadcast at their school. That’s what the first part of the video below shows, but the second half is a series of outtakes. While More Than That… blew me away, 12-12-11 (below) made me smile. These students are terrific! Right now, the school features More Than That… on their homepage.

Native Science understands that nature is technology – a compost pile is a massively-tested super-applicable multifaceted waste management system resulting from four billion years of research and development where you put food waste in and get high-yield fertilizer out and the whole process is carbon neutral!

I imagine a Steampunk North America (Turtle Island) in which the buffalo population wasn’t deliberately eradicated for genocidal purposes and which thus still enjoys the resources of vast areas of tall grass prairie (you need buffalo to have prairie as much as you need prairie to have buffalo because many seeds will not germinate correctly or thrive without passing through a buffalo’s digestive system unless human intervention is applied). I imagine a Turtle Island in which deforestation is severely curtailed and vast areas of old-growth forest are deliberatly maintained. I imagine city architecture utilizing rammed-earth walls and green roofs on large communal buildings, and time-tested local building technologies on smaller, private residences. I imagine populous cities designed for walkability and communal pedestrian culture. I imagine a North America in which the Black Hills are not defaced with gigantic carved graffiti of doofy white dudes.

By the 19th century in my alternate timeline, Turtle Island has a thriving, technologically advanced pan-Indian culture, a collective of independent nations with distinct regionalisms that has a UN-like organization to engage with the global community. A group of nations that meets Europe as equals and trades technology and cultural influences as such.

- From “Musing About Native Steampunk”

“The time when Pendleton came into existence, the 1900s, was the all-time low for native communities,” Metcalfe says. “This is at the height of the reservation era, when we were confined, we were essentially prisoners on these small plots of land. But in that same breath, while our cultures were under threat from this outside force, that’s when we turned internally to protect what we had, and we also get some of the most beautiful beadwork and most beautiful jewelry coming out of that period of great stress.

“Connected with that great assimilation movement was the height of collecting. The late 1800s was when a lot of our stuff left our communities. On the one hand, you have this push for trying to absorb or get rid of ‘The Indian Problem.’ Then, they were taking all of the items that embody that culture, to collect them and put them in museums and claim ownership on them.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, top American designer Ralph Lauren became enamored with Navajo rugs, Plains beadwork, and Apache pottery. He launched his Santa Fe line of clothing featuring concha belts, petticoat skirts, “Indian patterned” sweaters, and blanket jackets in 1981 as another defining aspect of American culture. In the 1990s, the Pendleton and other Native American-inspired designs swelled in popularity again with the return of “Southwest” style and rise of “new country” music.

In recent years, Pendleton has been going to town with collaborations using the iconic Indian trade blanket patterns. It had sold these patterns to Vans, famous for making skateboarder shoes; produced high-fashion lines with Manhattan couture company Opening Ceremony; and it is even offering products through Urban Outfitters. With Levi’s, Pendleton launched a line of jean jackets and cowboy shirts called Navajo Cowboys, hiring Navajo rodeo champions like Monica Yazzie as models.

- From “Why the ‘Native’ Fashion Trend Is Pissing Off Real Native Americans,” by Lisa Hix

By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet

Mythili Rajiva is associate professor of Sociology at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Her research focuses on girlhood, the Canadian South Asian diaspora, and racialized identities. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Canadian Review of Sociology, Girlhood Studies and Feminist Media Studies. She is the co-editor of Reena Virk: Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder.

BCP: Why a book on Reena Virk?

MR: The idea of working on the case had been in my head from about 2004 onwards, maybe because of a shift in my own identity from being a graduate student just starting a ph.d. in 1997 to where I was in 2004, finishing my thesis. I think it was Salman Rushdie who once said that the journey creates us; writing a thesis on South Asian Canadian girls’ experiences of racism in adolescence made me realize how much I cared about social justice issues.

The case had always haunted me, but up to this point, it had been at a visceral level. When I started analyzing it through the scholarship on racism and identity that I’d read for my thesis, I realized the case mattered to me deeply, both at a personal as well as a political level. But when I started doing research, I found very little academic work.

What little there was, was excellent, and informed much of my thinking around the topic; but the scholars who were offering a more complex and critical reading of the case seemed to be writing into a void, as if no one was listening. It seemed even stranger to me that such a highly publicized case would not be taken up at the very least by criminologists or other researchers in a more sustained fashion. But it wasn’t. Before we published this collection, the only book available on Virk’s murder was Rebecca Godfrey’s True Crime novel, which, as a couple of authors in our collection point out (see Atluri; also see Byers), offered a problematic re-telling of the story.

So I was reading this great scholarship, and wondering why there wasn’t more, and then I met Sheila and we talked about doing some kind of project together. I decided that we needed to encourage more critical scholarship on this case, a next generation so to speak, and even more crucially, we needed it not to disappear from public view, as most academic work does, in a single article in a journal or book. I initially considered a special issue in a journal, but this didn’t seem to offer enough scope, especially since I felt that anything written on the case would have to locate itself in relation to the earlier material. I wanted to bring both the existing and new material together; I think like any solidarity movement, there’s strength in numbers. People are more likely to pay attention to a bunch of people yelling about something than one person, right? So that’s where I got the idea for the book, and then all I had to do was talk Sheila into it, which wasn’t that hard!

BCP: What was the process in putting this book together?

MR: Once we decided we were going to do a book, and that it was going to be an anthology that included the existing material, we got in touch with the scholars and asked if they’d be willing to have their work included as reprints. I have to say that they were incredibly gracious and very supportive of the project from the beginning. Then we sent out a call for papers on the internet, on both social activist and scholarly websites. We got a lot of responses, and some great abstracts, and for awhile we were worried that the project was getting too big.

However, like with any project, life happens; not everyone who originally signed on was able to complete but we were really pleased with the final chapters. Our job as editors was to shape the process and guide the work along, but our contributors really made the substantial contributions.

BCP: How long had you been thinking about ReenaVirk before the book came about?

MR: As I’ve already mentioned, the case had been in my head since it first happened, kind of like those terrible stories you hear and no matter how much you try to excise them from your mind, they linger. It was also a personal thing. My thesis subject was on South Asian girls and racism, and I was a South Asian Canadian girl who had experienced racism in childhood and adolescence, in the form of racial epithets or having “friends” make racist comments or jokes around me.

Obviously, though painful in their own way, I’m not saying that my experiences are comparable to Virk’s, but I think it’s important to point out that they’re on a continuum of racism that people of colour have experienced and continue to experience in our supposedly tolerant and multicultural country. The book is about making links between the ordinary everyday experiences of racism and the more serious acts of violence against people of colour. So I was personally invested in the case, from the beginning.

BCP: Who, or what, are your influences and reasons for doing this kind of work?

MR: That’s tough because there have been so many. But I could name a few scholars that have given me a theoretical lens through which to interpret my own struggles with belonging, as a racialized minority girl growing up in a primarily white society.

Frantz Fanon’s moving work on the pychic violence of racism; Homi Bhabha’s writing on the “unhomeliness” of the immigrant experience and the trauma of the ordinary: when who we choose to love, where we are allowed to sit, what streets we are allowed to walk down etc. become points of political contestation; Chandra Mohanty’s beautiful call to arms, “to make feminist analysis dangerous to empire”, which I sincerely hope is part of what we’ve done in this book; and queer feminist philosopher Judith Butler’s work, especially her post 9/11 writing, where she asks what role grief plays in the service of the national imaginary; why we grieve for some lives but not others, and how we might conceive of a politics of grief that does not justify violence, and retaliation but instead recognizes the mutual vulnerability that constitutes us all as human beings, that we are all capable of being injured and committing injury. According to Butler, “the struggle against violence accepts that violence is one’s own possibility.”

An ethical stance in the world is, therefore, about recognizing one’s own rage and then seeking to limit the injury you might cause through this rage.

BCP: The book is raw at some points, challenging, honest, and stimulating. What are you as co-editor trying to convey to your readers with these 9 selected essays?

MR: So many things but I guess, overall, I want readers to re-think the discourse of violent girls on the playground perpetuated by the media and certain “experts”. Instead, I would like them to think about how Reena’s life and death are a troubling reminder of the racism that pervades Canadian culture, as painful as that may be to acknowledge.

When “we”, which is to say, members of the dominant group (white, Christian middle class, Anglo Canadians), view certain groups as “immigrants” regardless of how long the community has been in Canada; when we see brown or black skin as the opposite of “Canadian”; when we construct certain communities as having barbaric cultural practices without looking at our own social problems, we create an “us” and “them”, with the former being constructed as superior. It’s a seamless transition then to treating those we think don’t really belong as second class citizens. And this sense of superiority is false anyway.

The Canada that we think we know through our mythologies (“the true north, strong and free”, the peacekeeper, the multicultural democracy), is a nation founded on the brutal exploitation and marginalization of indigenous peoples, built through the labour of many migrant groups, not just French, English or European, but people of colour, some of whom paid the high price of alienation, explicit state racism and even violence and death. This history has to be acknowledged so we can have a radical revisioning of what makes someone a “real” Canadian.

BCP: How long were you working on your essay “The Killing Season: Interrogating Adolescence in the Murder of Reena Virk”? Can you briefly give the crux of it?

MR: I wrote and presented a draft of the paper in the fall of 2005 at a conference on child rights, so the final chapter was a long time in the making and went through several iterations before it was published in the book. The main argument is that the Canadian media’s ubiquitous descriptions of growing girl violence and the refusal to ask whether social relations such as race, gender, class or sexuality played a part in the murder, were influenced by a discourse on adolescence pervasive in North America.

So, when incidents like the Virk murder take place, we have a moral panic where people talk about girls becoming more violent and adolescents in general being out of control with boredom, hormones and a lack of moral subjectivity. This really pathologizes teenagers, as if they are the only ones capable of bullying, aggression and murder.

Last time I checked, adult society was winning that competition, but this reality gets erased systematically in news coverage. The teenagers involved in the case were treated as if they symbolized the degeneration of youth in general. But who raises youth? Who schools them? Who offers particular media frames and images up to youth that tell them who belongs for what reasons? Who implicitly encourages the social and peer hierarchies that develop so strongly in adolescence? Adult society does, and then it wants to blame young people as solely responsible for violent behaviour.

For example, children and adolescents don’t learn racism in a vacuum. Sure, children identify differences among themselves at a very young age, but at what point do they realize which differences are important and which are not? They learn it from parents, teachers, larger culture and peers. They pick up very quickly that adult society values certain people and not others, and then they create their own social hierarchies that are partially informed by larger social relations. But this can’t be acknowledged at a societal level, because then we would have to say we are actually not doing a great job of raising children who see others as equals, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality or ability. In the Virk case, this played out in the media’s refusal to acknowledge racism as even a possible motive. The handful of times that racism was raised in either tv or newspaper articles, it was immediately dismissed, as if it was impossible that these white kids could be racist. They could be vicious, murderous and without remorse, but not racist, because of course, then that might mean that the larger adult society that they were learning their values from, was racist too.

BCP: While reading the book I had to put it down several times because of them descriptions of the murder and the horrific way the media represented the case. Was writing and putting the book together a painful experience?

MR: Yes it was a very painful experience. I didn’t realize how hard it would be when I started.

I was reading and watching all the media, and encountering the brutality that characterized the case. I think being forced to live day in and day out with a recognition of the horror that people are capable of inflicting on one another left some scars. On the other hand, I think that my reaction also speaks to my own first world, middle class privilege. My life is, and has always been, far removed from contexts of brutal and violent domination; I know that a significant portion of the world, including people in Canada, are not so lucky. Violence is simply a daily part of their lives.

So the case threatened my comfort zone, and that is a good and necessary thing for people with any kind of privilege to experience. I felt a similar wrenching at the end of the project.

Alongside a pride in the work and relief at its completion were worries about whether I had ever had the right to embark on this project, and whether it was fundamentally exploitative – stealing Reena’s voice, as it were. I spent a lot of time thinking about this as we wrapped up the introduction to the manuscript as well as a lot of time interrogating my own privilege in relation to Reena. I think none of that is particularly surprising; it’s a form of survivor guilt for those of us whose identities are not simply fashioned through the myth of the western liberal subject. Women, racial, sexual or other minorities, those people who belong to marginalized groups, are always seen and see themselves as something more than individual selves. Their “I” is always linked to a “We”.

In my case, being second generation and South Asian, and experiencing racism growing up, was what made me feel a connection to Reena Virk, a sense that this could’ve been me. But part of my discomfort stemmed from the fact that alongside my marginalization, I had certain forms of privilege that Reena didn’t have access to and, so, in another sense, maybe it couldn’t have been me. I think it’s both my marginality and privilege that pushed me to do this book in the first place, and it’s where I think real social change has to take place. It’s not enough to focus on the forms of marginality we encounter as individuals or groups. As black feminist scholar bell hooks points out, we also have to acknowledge and surrender our own privilege and participation in forms of domination, if we want to change the world.

BCP: What was most disturbing to me was the fact that Reena was not only erased in books and media, as was race, and Reena was not being mourned. The focus, and sadness, was that white girls were on a social decline as opposed to a young Brown woman being killed by such girls and a boy.  What disturbs you most about this case?

MR: I think you’ve summarized exactly what I find most disturbing. Whenever I saw or read media reports on the case, I would feel so angry. While Virk’s image appeared repeatedly, and her tragic story was re-told, it was always through a politics of pity; she was presented through a framing that implicitly constructed her as an Other; as not belonging to Canadian peer culture because she didn’t look like a “normal” girl. She was killed because she failed to fit in. For myself, and I think many other subjects who live their marginality through their embodiment ( racialized, transgendered, poor or differently abled bodies, to name a few), it was pretty easy to read the code behind this hegemonic storyline: she wasn’t thin, white, middle class, heteronormative, she wasn’t the ideal Canadian girl. But the media simultaneously used these images and storylines and yet refused to ask if there might be a problem with the ideal itself; that maybe a lot of Canadian girls didn’t “measure up” to this standard. That maybe the standard was racist, homophobic, elitist and ableist. They never asked if there was a problem with the ideal, just as they never explored whether a group of mainly white girls viciously beating up a Brown girl might raise some serious doubts about our success in fostering racial equality among children and adolescents, let alone in adult society.

BCP: Do you teach this case at your University? If so, what do you make sure your students get from your work? And how do you get them to understand the brevity and complexity of the case? How do white female students respond?

MR: I have taught the case a little bit recently as the manuscript was wrapping up. In some ways, I think I was too close to it, and living with it for a good four years made it kind of an obsession. I needed to have spaces where I could teach and think about other forms of oppression otherwise my concerns with social justice would’ve shrunk to this particular case. Some of the class discussions that did take place were difficult; like most Canadians, the students were horrified and felt very sad that this could’ve happened, but they wanted to keep it at the level that the people involved must’ve been monsters, rather than the murder being an inevitable, if extreme, consequence of both the history and contemporary reality of racism in Canada. The focus was often on whether or not the girls involved in the beating or its witnessing had ever said anything racist, because if not, clearly racism was not an issue.

The fact that Virk was an outcast, at least in part because she was brown, was something many students didn’t want to see. For some white female students, they pointed out that even among white girls, there is a lot of “mean girl” behaviour if a person doesn’t fit in in terms of looks, weight or clothes.

The Virk case for them was another example of this, rather than anything to do with racial belonging. One way I tried to get them to complicate this was to ask if there is an ideal girl image to which Canadian girls aspire. There was often a general consensus that there was, and then I would ask them to describe this girl as she appeared in their minds. After the descriptions, I would ask them whether the fact that this ideal girl was always white, often blonde, thin, middle class and heterosexual, told us anything about how difficult it might be to fit in if you couldn’t meet some or all of those standards.

I think this type of exercise was helpful, because some students did begin to see what I was trying to get at.

BCP: To me, Reena Virk was first a face without a name and later a name without face. That might be the case for many people. Why is there no picture of Reena Virk in the book?

MR: The media continually flashed one particular picture of Virk over and over again. We thought about using this picture maybe as a cover, but almost immediately felt that it would sensationalize the book. Many people are familiar with that picture, but we didn’t want to “sell” the book in this manner. We also did not want to use the picture because it seemed to us that Reena’s appearance was the focus of media attention and the implicit reason given for why this happened (she was awkward, a misfit etc.), yet this was not accompanied by any explanation of what she didn’t fit into. We wanted to move away from this line of thinking to focus on the systemic issues in the case.

BCP: Does the Virk family know about the book? Do the killers? Media and authors critiqued in the book?

MR: I don’t know whether or not the family knows. We thought about contacting them initially, but we also felt that as an act of scholarship, we needed it to be honest in ways that might not have pleased Reena’s family. I also don’t know whether or not Warren or Kelly knows about it. The mainstream media has, for the most part, ignored the book, which is not unusual for an academic book. Of course, given that it’s a searing critique of their hegemonic “take” on the case, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s why they’re not interested. But it’s hard to say.

Watch a roundtable discussion on the Reean Virk case with Rajiva’s co-editor Sheila Batachary, book contributor Tara Atluri, and community member Mandeep Kaur Mucina.

By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet

Amazing!

If I could get away with a one-word review the above would be it.

But let’s go a little deeper.

My first introduction to Roger’s work was last year and via her spoken word CD Firewater.  That too was amazing.

Unearthed is poetry on the page.  It’s different but just as powerful.  And Rogers has not strayed off her anti-colonial path.  Her words are just as fierce and poignant as ever.  And if they could be physically felt there would be a lot of people laying flat on their backs with a copy of Unearthed at their side.

While laying in bed reading Unearthed I was being uncovered.  Rogers peeled back layers with every sentence.  I smiled, laughed, stopped to think, and felt like someone knew what I was going through, specifically in terms of past heartbreaks.

Rogers isn’t just a tough Mohawk.  I’m sure she can stand at the front lines if need be but I saw a different side to Rogers.  The anthropologist hating Mohawk woman (“we create deep tracks for anthropologists to make fiction of our past”) was there but so was the woman who wrote about love loss in a good way, not Harlequin-novel style.

In “Free To Love,” Rogers writes of being honest, free, and in pain.  It’s not a tragic poem about never being able to love again.  That shit’s overdone.  ”Free To Love” is about those hardships that come when you make yourself vulnerable: the gamble, the courage, the ride with no final destination in sight.

Rogers writes of being “wounded and all” and that “passion should not be confused with romance although it all lives in the same neighbourhood”.  She believes in her actions and responsibilities but also in a higher power.  Her descriptions of agency, “we are the train, we are words, we feel pain, we make medicine”, are followed by “The Great Mystery does not inspire questions but holds answers.”

Although Rogers has seen a lot, written about her experiences, and travels sharing her knowledge, she is not afraid to show that she does not know it all.  As she writes of Great Mystery knowing the answers she share her questions in “Many Things Greater”:

What happened to love?

Where is honour and support?

When did men begin to believe women are disposable?

Where are the miracles?

Rogers knows she doesn’t have all the answers so she spreads questions on the page, into our minds, and out into the universe. The title, “Many Things Greater,” shows her humble side and speaks for itself.

The activist side to Rogers is ever present. Her spirituality shines but so does her in your face attitude. With Aboriginal issues gaining more press and the Brown face of this colonial land now having a stronger voice, peoples want to know more but they often want to be spoon fed. Rogers has a message, plain and simple, in “It Can Happen:”

I am not your teacher

I am a poet.

Rogers might not tell or teach you straight out but she definitely shows you. “What The Carver Knows” is just that. I was taken back to a time when I was in Vancouver for a student journalism conference. Ninety-nine percent of the conference was white. Outside our hotel sat a Native carver who worked his craft day and night, wet or dry, cold or warm. He was Brown and had long black hair like me. And I was the only person I would see who would say, “Hi,” to him via a nod or words spoken.

“What The Carver Knows” is about a homeless Native carver who works wood past, present, and future, and so much more. He sits on the sidewalk “transforming yellow cedar” while sipping on coffee. People walk by, ignore, or don’t see him, or don’t want to see him:

he claims the cement as home

on a damp street corner

in a city which see so many like him

it rolls its eyes as numbers grow

he moans and bleeds

lets droplets fall

onto a thirsty earth

seeping down to meet

the bones of those who’ve gone before

we live envious

of his skills and ability to survive

while we complain daily

of superficial hardships

and spoiled-rotten hardaches

Janet Marie Rogers does not spell it all out. Neither will I.

“Easy Time” resonated with me a whole lot. As someone who’s been assaulted by cops, arrested several times, and incarcerated twice I appreciated Rogers’ exploration of our current prison system. While reading the poem you can see that Roger’s has thought about this topic, this reality, this extension of colonization that now houses mainly men of colour, 25% of which are Native to this stolen land.

Rogers writes of hyperamasculinity and the masking of pain:

alpha-boys

challenge and retreat

they beat the bars

and feign bravery

on the range

men, impressing men

they pretend

it doesn’t hurt

If Rogers was not a woman I would’ve thought the poet had done time with men. Although the poem is not about her you can see that she does hurt, the poem is pain, and unlike the men who hide their emotions Rogers writes it.

Unearthed is an uncovering of so many issues, emotions, real lives who society would rather walk by, ignore, tuck away in a closet.  Through poetry Rogers shares her life and experiences and thoughts.  She stays true to her challenging nature and shows the reader her loving side as well.  As a Mohawk keeper of the land, poem by poem, page by page, Rogers herself is unearthed.

By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet

I’ve got Scandalous by Psycho Realm playing as I write.

It’s a Brown thing.

Brown Pride more like it.

That’s what this is about.  It’s also a fitting song since I’ve been referred to as scandalous, angry, mean, and I love this one — reverse racist.

Being Brown in a place that doesn’t have many Brown faces with colonial Spanish names in the media has you starving sometimes.  Similarly, I remember my Anishinaabe friend Deb Daynard saying she never saw a Brown face (Native American) on T.V while growing in Winnipeg, Canada.  For me it was never having a Brown writer with a name like mine to follow as a kid.

I grew up reading Gordon Korman and Judy Blume.  Both were funny and had me entertained for years but I couldn’t relate to their characters.

What the f-ck did I have in common with white boys attending private school?

My teen years saw me reading books on the Columbian cartel with dreams of being the next Pablo Escobar.  Maybe if I had some Brown writers to follow I wouldn’t have been looking up to a notoriously violent drug lord.

A few years ago I discovered writers like Jimmy Santiago Bacca, Ana Castillo, Luis J. Rodriguez, Gloria Anzaldua, Sherman Alexie.  I’ve also had the privilege and pleasure of studying with Indigenous greats such as Simon Ortiz, Marilyn Dumont, and Lee Maracle, and a soon to be great Daniel Heath Justice.

I remember jumping up a couple of years ago while reading Ernesto Quinonez’s Bodega Dreams.  There’s a scene where the main character goes to the fridge to grab a bottle of malt to accompany his rice and beans.

I saw myself.  I was at home in Quinonez’s novel.

Gracias Ernesto!

Still, I had no writer in my life who I could really relate to.

Before I go on you have to know my history and who I am, or what a white woman at a party last week asked, “What is your ethnicity?”

I’m mixed and proud.

My mom, born and raised in Peru, is Mestiza (Indigenous and Spanish), quarter Chinese, and has some Basque roots.  My biological sperm donor (I don’t say dad cause he’s didn’t raise me) is Arab.

“That’s some angry people!” said an acquaintance of colour when I told him my mix.

Anyway, last week I attended the International Festival of Authors in Toronto.  Really, it’s the festival of white authors with sprinkles of colour here and there.

I met someone important this week.  Important to me, not the higher ups.

One of my main goals for the week was to meet Ojibwa/French poet David A. Groulx.  I saw his face, a Brown face, in the festival guide and read that he was a poet.

“Perfect,” I thought.  “Someone I can meet and tape for blackcoffeepoet.com.”

It turned out to be way more than that.

I saw David across the room at a party.  It’s hard to miss a six-foot-something, 225 lb. Brown guy in a sea of white people.

“David Groulx,” I said with my hand out to shake his.  “I’m Jorge Antonio Vallejos. I run blackcoffeepoet.com.”

“Oh, you’re Black Coffee Poet!  I watch your site!” said David.

Music to my ears!

We chatted, laughed, met a couple of other rejects in the room (Brown South Asian poet Sheniz Janmohamed and her friend K Rock who the rest of the room would probably label as white trash), and parted ways.

The next day saw us talk on the phone and we made plans for the following night.

I attended his reading which also featured my writing mom Lee Maracle.

David’s poems told stories of uranium mines destroying Indigenous land, racism, cops killing Native men and getting away with it, appropriation of culture, and warnings to white folk.

I was home again.

It was again my Indigenous side, the Mestizo in me, jumping up.  You could argue it was my Basque roots too since they are Indigenous to the lands now called Spain and France.

There were no rice and beans and malt, nor a colonial Spanish name, but there was a mixed race Brown face reading good writing, challenging colonialism, and showing pride in who he was and where he came from.

Another party followed the reading that saw David, Lee, and I chilling in a corner as the white literati sipped wine and made connections.  A Brown guy from Trinidad walked up to us and said, “I thought I’d join the Brown corner.”  We welcomed him with open arms.

One more party happened, as did a dinner, but more importantly I got alone time with David.  We talked Fanon, Alexie, colonialism, peoples with white privilege who don’t come from white backgrounds, being Brown with long hair in a society that sees that as a threat, and our love—poetry.

I felt like I found an older brother.  Someone a little older, who I look like, and who not only has similar history but who has similar day to day experiences when walking the rough terrain that is this white run society.

People of the dominant class don’t understand that.

I was telling a white writer on the weekend how I was so happy to have met David.  I mentioned all the reasons listed above.  He looked at me like I was nuts.

On our last day together David gave me a copy of his first book, The Long Dance, and a three page bio.  I noticed that he was published in 191 different places!  I thought I was doing good.

This year alone David has had 3 collections of poems published.  He showed me his latest, hot off the press, at our last dinner together.  His big smile gobbled shrimp as he had his new book on the table.

While in bed that night I thought of David and how happy I was to meet him.  A Brown guy who was humble, kind, funny, had bang on politics, and who was published in almost 200 places, and who published three books in one year.  If he could do that so could I.

David signed his book for me:

To Jorge,

I’m really glad we met.

Your friend,

David A. Groulx 

Kind words to match a kind Brown face who some label scandalous.

David, I feel the same!

By Guest Contributor Gabriel Canada, cross-posted from Racebending

Under happier circumstances, Billie Frechette would have been my great aunt. She toured around the country for five years with my great uncles as part of the “Crime Doesn’t Pay” stage show. There, she recounted her six months with their son and brother John Dillinger–and her own two years in jail that came as a result of her fateful romance with him.

It was true that crime didn’t pay for the family. John Dillinger served several years in prison and was later killed by Federal agents.  People in Indianapolis,  Mooresville or Martinsville were not lining up to risk dating the daughter, or the niece, or even the cousin of a member of the “Dillinger gang.” It was a hard life–and an odd one–because if the family wasn’t making a great deal of money of off John, the media certainly was.

The Crime Doesn’t Pay tour was only a small part of the cachet industry that popped up, whetting the appetite of a gangster crazy nation. It is undeniably strange to see replicas of a relative’s death mask on sale as a collectible alongside wanted posters and wooden guns. Nothing–save perhaps J. Edgar Hoover and his fledgling FBI agency–reaped more from the life and death of John Dillinger than Hollywood.  Soon after his death, Humphrey Boggart would play a fictitious Indiana bank robber in High Sierra (1941)–his break through role as a leading man. Warren Oates, Mark Harmon, and Johnny Depp would follow suit, raking in more money than a bank robber ever could.  Just this week, Leonardo Di Caprio can be seen in the trailer for the biopic J. Edgar (2011) alongside Dillinger’s death mask.

When Hollywood sought to adapt the story of my ill-fated, almost-aunt Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, they made it clear that despite the fact she and her sisters were actresses  they would not have been welcome at the casting call.  She was the victim of “racebending” in its most unadulterated form. The kind that transformed Audrey Hepburn into an “Indian”, saw Michelle Phillips, a singer from the Mommas and the Papas, turned into Billie onscreen. A Menominee girl who grew up on reservation and went to a mission school was portrayed by a white pop star.

What is most infuriating (other than seeing my uncle portrayed as an errant cop killing psychopath, which was far from the truth) is that the film adaptations which include Billie take pains to let the audience know she’s “half Indian,” and more to the point, that she’s been discriminated against because of it.

When we first see her onscreen in Dillinger, Warren Oates tells her “They don’t serve Indians here” and a blonde haired Michelle Phillips explains that it’s okay, it’s her French half that drinks.

The blonde hair should have been the first cue that historical accuracy was not a high priority in 1977, but the opening minutes of the film get much worse for the real life story of Billie and Johnny. He robs the bar and kidnaps her. In the next scene, he introduces her to his gang, calls her an “injun,” and tells them to never let her drink. This is followed by a gratuitous rape scene.

I had high hopes that such terrible inaccuracies wouldn’t be repeated three decades later when Universal Studios took on the retelling of Dillinger’s life for Public Enemies (2009). From the start, historical accuracy was respected with director Michael Mann shooting on location at the banks, hotels, prisons, and hideouts where the real events took place–even going so far as to have his set designer restore many of them, creating tourist havens for local communities. The actors and film makers even descended on the Dillinger family farm.

That is why it was even more disappointing that–though Billie’s romance was central to the plot of this new film and it was closer to the truth in almost every way–”racebending” was still employed, unapologetically.  Marion Cotillard still introduces herself as half-Indian in her first scene. She makes it clear that she’s been scorned for it, saying that most guys don’t like that about her. (I am left with the impression that it isn’t “most guys” who wouldn’t like that about Billie, but rather “most guys in Hollywood.”)

Which is baffling. Michael Mann, the director of Public Enemies, was also the director of Last of the Mohicans and Heat. He played a large part in launching the careers of actors of color like Wes Studi and Eric Schweig in the 1990s. Though Mann keeps the context of Billie’s heritage intact in the film, and has a history of working with First Nation actors, we are left with Cotillard–who, like  Phillips before her, is far removed from the Wisconsin reservation where Frechette lived most of her life. The only way to let the audience know Cotillard is playing an Indian is for the actors to come straight out and say it, as if denied the use of a buckskin dress, Hollywood simply didn’t know how to introduce an audience to a First Nations woman in a speakeasy.

Billie Frechette is the sole heroine in these Dillinger films, where tough guy gangsters are mowed down in hails of bullets and G-men don’t bother to flash their badges before opening fire. Yet, the first thing the film makers want the audience to know is that she is half Indian. It makes me wonder: If that detail about her is so important, why was this overlooked by the casting directors?

We are meant to feel sympathetic for Billie in Public Enemies and Dillinger. Not much good happens to her. She goes to jail and is tortured by the FBI for little more than falling in love with the wrong guy.

The films take pains to suggest she was with that wrong guy because no one wanted to dance or drink with an Indian. Well, if anyone is responsible for that last plight of Billie onscreen, it is Hollywood itself. Crime may not pay, but Hollywood–for whatever reason–still thinks racebending will.

By Guest Contributor Jaymee Goh, cross-posted from Silver Goggles

I’m currently re-reading Angela Davis’ Abolition Democracy, and her interviewer, Eduardo Mendieta, in response to her reiteration that “we need a new age–with a new agenda–that directly addresses the structural racism” (30) about multiculturalism: “very smart strategies are being used, ones that displace attention from issues of racial justice by speaking in terms of multiculturalism” (31).

Over the last year or so, I’ve become incredibly disillusioned with how the term “multiculturalism” is used in various spaces, including steampunk.

I’ve always loved the term, and multiracialism as well. In Malaysia, we are openly a multi-racial society; you see food stalls with Chinese lettering and Indian mamak shops. Wherever you go, there are clear signs that any given space caters to the needs of specific races, and it’s only hyper-consumerist spaces that cater to as many people as possible, that are, ahem, “race-less”. (Neocolonialism, you see, strips a country of its cultures, and replaces it with a singular culture of buying and selling and marathon window-shopping.)

We’re super-imperfect, and there are a ton of things I do not know about the different races and cultures within Malaysia alone. Partly because it’s simply not part of regular interracial interaction and thus it never comes up in conversation. Partly also because sometimes these practices are deeply private and specific to certain groups, and we kind of don’t see why we HAVE to tell others about it. But at functions, we are fairly happy to see each other dress appropriately, and in the cultural clothes associated with the race of the host.

Contrary to the politics of Malaysia, I really do think that the Malaysian people get it right sometimes, or at least, it did. Recently I’ve come to believe that our taciturn attitude towards talking about our cultures has become a wall and now we stand around awkwardly and don’t really know how to talk to each other about our cultures anymore.

Multiculturalism is much unlike what France and Britain’s leaders think. When those prime ministers bleat about how multiculturalism has failed, they’re really saying, brown people refuse to get in line. Non-white people are refusing to learn the language properly (by abandoning their own and their funny accents) and they are refusing to integrate properly (by entering and staying in white spaces that alienate the shit out of them). Multiculturalism to these people has failed because these immigrants have refused to play by the rules set by the white people who so nicely let them into the country. (Sara Ahmed’s chapter on the Melancholic Migrant in her book The Promise of Happiness talks about this.)

I’ve said this before, but it is worth saying again: culture is about the people, not just the stuff. A culture isn’t just about the clothes and the language and the literature. It’s also in the way people interact and behave, the way we think, the way we live.

And I just don’t see this happening in steampunk very much.

Now, I get why. If you’re white, you can’t very well pass as someone of another race without engaging in some squicky, racist-as-fuck colour-face. And I don’t deny that some folk do some fine work adapting the fashions of non-Western European cultures into workable, lovable clothing that looks good, makes sense, stays true to the original garb, and doesn’t bank on racist stereotypes.

But here’s what bothers me most: the fact that when we say “multicultural” in steampunk, I’m often hearing “non-white”. It’s just another way of saying “ethnic” which is also code for “not white”. And “exotic”, which means “foreign.”

This bothers me, partly because it’s semantically incorrect (there are various ethnicities associated with people lumped into whiteness, and multiculturalism includes interacting with whiteness as well, or European-derived cultures, but from what I can see, “multicultural” currently signifies anything that’s not Western European), partly because it’s another way of celebrating some mythical post-racial state (“we’re all human! let’s celebrate each other’s cultures by raising awareness about them through these clothes we are wearing on our white bodies!”), partly because… I just don’t see anything that really engages with what it means to be multicultural.

Multiculturalism, in its very name, indicates the interaction between multiple cultures. Which could be very different cultures. With some major disagreements between them. Living in one space.

And, in our racist world, these disagreements have some shitty consequences that include but are not limited to work discrimination, disproportionate crime rates, exclusionary laws, and flat out shitty behaviour that receives no punishment or is outright supported. In our world, the presence of multiculturalism means that certain cultures get to be dominant, and stick the others into disadvantaged spaces (aka ghettos).

I have never encountered a space which consists of a plurality of cultures living alongside each other, elbow to elbow, where each community has the wherewithal to take care of itself, and members feel free to speak to other communities without fear of reprisal or discrimination. A space where any neutral ground has rules negotiated upon by representatives of different groups (like in Nancy Fraser’s articulation on public spaces in plural societies, as opposed to hegemonic societies).

And let’s face it, this shit ain’t happening in steampunk. Non-white people are expected to play by the rules. We’re expected to mess around in the Victorian era. We still come in by way of Western European, specifically English, frameworks and paradigms. If we’re there as purposefully non-white, we’re nifty, but… beyond that? What do we mean to white steampunks who dominate the scene? How is someone like Monique Poirier supposed to comfortably do Native American steampunk if random folk will joke about the “steampunk Trail of Tears” around her?

That is why I can’t get behind a celebration of multicultural steampunk that really seems to bank on being able to create and dress in costumes and clothing and props of other cultures. Something different and something fun to do. Something cool to research. Something interesting to get to know, and maybe learn something about a different culture. But for all your knowledge about how we dressed and what the gender norms of 19th century China were, what is being done to ensure POC steampunk feel safe? Feel more than just tokens? Tony Hicks of Tinplate Studios said to me at GearCon, “sometimes, you just want to be.” And sometimes, that being also means being able to talk about some of the dumb shit we experience and being understood for that, being comfortable that no, we’re not alone.

Before you start bleating about how it’s a multicultural world and ain’t we all human and race doesn’t matter and we should all be free to use different things from different cultures, let me reiterate once more: culture is more than just things. It’s about people. And people of colour live in the still very racist system that dictates the discourse on what multiculturalism should be like. And thus multiculturalism is co-opted, not to begin critical conversations between peoples, but so white people can get their jollies off dressing like an exotic non-white person, eat weird foods, learn about foreign cultures, as a nifty thing for the day, without necessarily doing the hard work of confronting how difficult living in a multicultural world can be, when certain cultures are privileged over others.

And this needs to change.

Dear Person that decided to dress up as an Indian for Halloween,

I was going to write you an eloquent and well-reasoned post today about all the reasons why it’s not ok to dress up as a Native person for Halloween–talk about the history of“playing Indian” in our country, point to the dangers of stereotyping and placing of Native peoples as mythical, historical creatures, give you some articles to read, hope that I could change your mind by dazzling you with my wit and reason–but I can’t. I can’t, because I know you won’t listen, and I’m getting so tired of trying to get through to you.

I just read the comments on this post at Bitch Magazine, a conversation replicated all over the internet when people of color are trying to make a plea to not dress up as racist characters on Halloween. I felt my chest tighten and tears well up in my eyes, because even with Kjerstin’s well researched and well cited post, people like you are so caught up in their own privilege, they can’t see how much this affects and hurts their classmates, neighbors and friends.

I already know how our conversation would go. I’ll ask you to please not dress up as a bastardized version of my culture for Halloween, and you’ll reply that it’s “just for fun” and I should “get over it.” You’ll tell me that you “weren’t doing it to be offensive” and that “everyone knows real Native Americans don’t dress like this.” You’ll say that you have a “right” to dress up as “whatever you damn well please.” You’ll remind me about how you’re “Irish” and the “Irish we’re oppressed too.” Or you’ll say you’re “German”, and you “don’t get offended by people in Lederhosen.”

But you don’t understand what it feels like to be me. I am a Native person. You are (most likely) a white person. You walk through life everyday never having the fear of someone mis-representing your people and your culture. You don’t have to worry about the vast majority of your people living in poverty, struggling with alcoholism, domestic violence, hunger, and unemployment caused by 500+ years of colonialism and federal policies aimed at erasing your existence. You don’t walk through life everyday feeling invisible, because the only images the public sees of you are fictionalized stereotypes that don’t represent who you are at all. You don’t know what it’s like to care about something so deeply and know at your core that it’s so wrong, and have others in positions of power dismiss you like you’re some sort of over-sensitive freak.

You are in a position of power. You might not know it, but you are. Simply because of the color of your skin, you have been afforded opportunities and privilege, because our country was built on a foundation of white supremacy. That’s probably a concept that’s too much for you to handle right now, when all you wanted to do was dress up as a PocaHottie for Halloween, but it’s true.

I am not in a position of power. Native people are not in positions of power. By dressing up as a fake Indian, you are asserting your power over us, and continuing to oppress us. That should worry you.

But don’t tell me that you’re oppressed too, or don’t you dare come back and tell me your “great grandmother was a Cherokee Princess” and that somehow makes it ok. Do you live in a system that is actively taking your children away without just cause? Do you have to look at the TV on weekends and see sports teams with mascots named after racial slurs of your people? I doubt it.

Last night I sat with a group of Native undergraduates to discuss their thoughts and ideas about the costume issue, and hearing the comments they face on a daily basis broke my heart. They take the time each year to send out an email called “We are not a costume” to the undergraduate student body–an email that has become known as the “whiny newsletter” to their entitled classmates. They take the time to educate and put themselves out there, only to be shot down by those that refuse to think critically about their choices.Your choices are adversely affecting their college experiences, and that’s hard for me to take without a fight.

The most frustrating part to me is, there are so many other things you can dress up as for Halloween. You can be a freaking sexy scrabble board for goodness sake. But why does your fun have to come at the expense of my well-being? Is your night of drunken revelry really worth subjugating an entire group of people? I just can’t understand, how after hearing, first-hand, that your choice is hurtful to another human being, you’re able to continue to celebrate with your braids and plastic tomahawk.

So I know you probably didn’t even read this letter, I know you’ve probably already bought and paid for your Indian costume, and that this weekend you’ll be sucking down jungle juice from a red solo cup as your feathers wilt and warpaint runs. I know you’re going to scoff at my over-sensitivity. But I’m telling you, from the bottom of my heart, that you’re hurting me. And I would hope that would be enough.

Wado,

Adrienne K.

PS- I wonder if you saw these posters? Because I think they illustrate my point really well.

UPDATE 10/27: Have a look at some of the costumes I’m talking about. I think it makes my arguments a lot clearer.

Earlier:
But Why Can’t I Wear a Hipster Headdress?
Nudie Neon Indians and the Sexualiztion of Indian Women
A Cowboys and Indians Party is just as bad as a Blackface Party 
Paris Hilton as a Sexy Indian: The Halloween Fallout Begins (includes lots of links about the costume issue)
Mid-Week Motivation: I am not your costume

Longtime Racialicious readers know this time on the calendar has prompted the R to read someone (or several folks) about their racist costumes or some other Halloween-related foolishness. Well, this year, Ohio University’s Students Teaching about Racism in Society (STARS) put on posters what we’ve been putting into words for quite a while.

I think that, for the most part, the campaign deserves the accolades, coverage, and support it’s been getting around the web, from Angry Asian Man to the 17,575 (and counting!) responses on the STARS president’s Tumblr to The Root to Bitch to the former Racialicious owner Carmen Sognonvi .

Of course, we can argue, among other things, that phenotypes don’t equal culture and cultures aren’t static or even talk about the historical-religious appropriation of Halloween itself.

My only quibble with the campaign is that I may have chosen photos where the models conveyed different body language. Not that the models didn’t pose how they wanted, being a student-driven campaign. What I do think is quite a few photographers rarely get The Shot in one shot; in fact, several photographers submit several photos for clients/collaborative partners to choose from.

I would have chosen, say, the Latino looking down at the photo, the East Asian woman giving the “geisha” picture the side-eye. Or all of the models giving their respective photos the side-eye. Or all of them looking out at the viewer. Or all of them looking down. As is, the photo of the East Asian woman looking down may suggest non-confrontation (“meek Asian girl”)

juxtaposed with the men of color (the photo at the top of the post and this one)

and the Black woman

may  inadvertently suggest stereotypes of anger and aggression (“angry Arab,” “Latino with a temper,” “aggressive Black woman”). Just a thought if and when STARS decides to tweak this incredible campaign.

But, again, that’s my only quibble. STARS did a wild-applause-and-rose-tossing job with this campaign.

Others, however, have taken this serious and timely message and parodied—if not downright attacked–it. (Color me unshocked by this, Racializens.) Now, some of the parodies made me chuckle, like this Avatar-based one

and the zombie one

mostly due to the ideas of the creatures being symbols for people of color.

The ones about white people, especially poor whites, produced mixed results mostly because the parodies don’t quite grasp that, yes, poor white people do have a mitigated privilege via their skin color and that white people of various class standings making fun of poor whites may be viewed as “inside joking,”

but white poverty is also thoroughly ridiculed and dismissed—and, therefore erased–in US society by that very same mitigated privilege.

Oh, and let’s not forget the sexism and the fatphobia in these parodies.

As we’ve witnessed in our posts about racism in costuming, people have rushed to defend their choice to dress up in racially offensive Halloween garb in some of the comment sections about the campaigns, with the usual mixture of the “I got my rights!”, “my best [insert race and/or ethnicity here] friend/partner/co-worker/neighbor didn’t find my costume offensive,” (bonus points if the person saying this is a person of color wears the stereotyping costume of a PoC culture), “y’all are being oversensitive/overemotional/hostile,” “you’re the racist for calling out my racism,” and other derailing techniques.

Some of the Derailing/Apologist/Other-Blaming hits and remixes?

From “Jerry Stein” at Autostraddle

OMG, get a life. This is pathetic. Would an Asian woman be OK to go as a Geisha on Halloween? If not why not? And if so are we now saying that only people of the exact origin or race can have fun dressed as a CHARACTER on Halloween? Stop being so sensitive. If America is to get passed all of this nonsense then it needs to get some perspective and start smiling again.

Watch any movie or TV show and you will see a racial stereotype. Are all stereotypes negative NO! Why is it that this campaign only sees that.

This country is dividing itself. Nobody wants to be American. Everyone is so narcissistic and self important it makes me sick to my stomach. Bring back people with humility and a sense of humor before we all end up selfish deluded idiots thinking the world owes them something.

Based on this all costumes which feature Cowboys, Irish Leprechauns, Michael Jackson, Lady GaGa, Bin Laden, OJ Simpson, Madonna, Jersey Shore cast members will all now be banned because they offend the Irish, African Americans, Italians and Muslims. Thats pretty much Halloween cancelled.

This country is becoming a laughing stock for the wrong reasons.

Mohamhead from GOOD

I am not white myself but I don’t see what’s wrong with people doing that kind on stuff on Halloween. I might even dress up as a white guy. Is that racist too? Or is it only racist if white people do it? Hypocrites.

didimydoe3, also at GOOD

I don’t mind stereotypical costumes of my race because I’m mature enough to know it’s a costume.

Sometimes it is offensive. Mine is. It’s the only reason I’m doing it. I’m going blackface.

Oh, I could go on and on and on with these kinds of comments–because these comments are out there ad nauseum–but you get the jist.

But see, here’s the thing, People Who Defend Racist Costumes: you all are proving STARS’—and Racialicious’—point…and quite well. You’re welcome.

As Bitch’s headline says, don’t mess up as you dress up, and have a Happy Halloween!

Image credits: Uproxx and Hard to Be Humble When You Stuntin on a Jumbotron

In the midst of her excellent takedown of Urban Outfitters’ “Navajo” appparel line, Sasha Houston Brown focused on one suspiciously-named piece of underwear:

I doubt that you consulted the Navajo Nation about using their tribal name on sophisticated items such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty”. In fact, I recently became aware that the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent your company a cease and desist letter regarding this very issue. I stand in solidarity with the Navajo Nation and ask that you not only cease and desist selling products falsely using the Navajo name, but that you also stop selling faux Indian apparel that objectifies all tribes.

Wednesday, Sasha passed along an update to the story from the Indian Country Today Media Network: a few days after UO spokesman Ed Looram said the company had “no plans to modify or discontinue any of these products,” the word Navajo has been completely scrubbed from its’ website.

In a release, the Navajo Nation Justice Department told the Associated Press Wednesday the move was “more consistent with the corporation’s responsibilities than previously demonstrated.”

As of Wednesday, items with the word “Navajo” in their description are now referred to as “Printed,” like the infamous Hipster Panty, which went from this:

to this:

Of course, the name “Hipster Panty” still makes it sound like it was made out of hair from Zooey Deschanel’s unicorn PBR puppy or whatever. But regardless, congrats to the Navajo Nation on this victory, and to Sasha and everyone who posted about this issue for pushing UO into the change!

By Arturo R. García

As it entered its’ second week, the San Diego arm of the Occupy Wall Street movement has taken at least one crucial step: forging alliances. The group’s Oct. 15 rally and march to downtown San Diego highlighted speakers from different organizations, and a greater acknowledgment of struggles in both various communities of color and the LGBT community.

This wasn’t always the case: though OSD had developed quickly after launching successfully on Oct. 7 – organizers said around 3,000 people attended its’ opening-night occupation of Children’s Park downtown – matters of race took a backseat opening weekend, as the group attempted to get its’ house in order. One protester addressing POC-specific issues that first weekend was a U.S. servicewoman carrying a sign opposing the recent anti-immigration laws in Alabama and Arizona:

Otherwise, the bulk of OSD’s Oct. 9 General Assembly dealt with a fundamental issue: the matter of consensus – settling issues by unanimous approval, a core tenet of the OWS movement. But as San Diego CityBeat’s Peter Holsin observed, reaching a consensus about consensus wasn’t easy:

The debate came to a head at Sunday’s General Assembly meeting. ISO comrade Cecile Veillard argued that consensus will slow the group down and make it harder to build, but full-time occupier Abel Thomas pointed out that the entire camp so far had been built using consensus. Soon, the group started proposing modified forms of consensus. Amir Shoja, a graduate student at SDSU, introduced a motion for a simple majority vote for “insubstantial” issues and a consensus vote for “substantial” ones, but then he withdrew it when people asked whether they’d need to vote on which issues were insubstantial and which substantial. Later, Veillard introduced a motion to change the group’s process to a 90-percent majority vote, but instead of sticking around for a discussion when people voted against it, she walked away to join a separate meeting in front of the ISO tent.

Almost two hours into the meeting, one of the organizers stood up to announce an update from Occupy Houston: “They just passed a proposal and action for a de-investment campaign. What are we doing with our GA? Let’s get back on track, guys.”

The meeting eventually fell apart, but there was a slight glimmer of hope. Throughout, people mostly followed bureaucratic procedure. They used hand signals to voice their opinions, waving their hands in big arcs to express agreement and putting their arms in “X”s to disagree. They raised their hands to be added to the “stack”—the list of people slated to speak—and made a triangle shape to make factual and procedural clarifications. For a group that could barely follow procedure the night before, that alone seemed like a step forward.

The week that followed was hit by both tragedy and adversity: on Oct. 10, a man unconnected to the group fell to his death near its’ campsite at the Civic Center downtown; later in the week, most of the occupiers removed their tents and supplies after warnings from local police. However, some stayed behind, leading to this encounter with authorities Oct. 14 (Trigger alert):

The SDPD asked the occupiers to vacate Civic Center because the area had been reserved by a dance event over the weekend. But it could hardly be called a coincidence that OSD was asked to leave the premises around the same time as others such as Denver, Dallas and the original NYC protest a day before the Oct. 15 occupation rallies and marches around the world.

With its’ supplies relocated to Balboa Park near downtown, OSD’s rally featured speakers from the Islamic Labor Caucus, a local LGBT activist; several statements of solidarity from speakers about the immigrant and Native American communities; the news that the California Federation of Teachers was endorsing the occupation; and the emergence of the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice as a possible ally:

That same day, I also spoke with two Latino protesters, who mentioned that the group had celebrated Oct. 10 as Indigenous Rights’ Day, before having to deal with the relocation issue, and discussed how the occupations can reach out to POC communities – and vice-versa.

By Guest Contributor Harsha Walia

I wish I could start with the ritualistic “I love you” for the Occupy Movement. To be honest, it has been a space of turmoil for me. But also one of virulent optimism. What I outline below are not criticisms. I am inspired that the dynamic of the movement thus far has been organic, so that all those who choose to participate are collectively responsible for its evolution. To everyone – I offer my deepest respect.

I am writing today with Grace Lee Boggs in mind:

The coming struggle is a political struggle to take political power out of the hands of the few and put it into the hands of the many. But in order to get this power into the hands of the many, it will be necessary for the many not only to fight the powerful few but to fight and clash among themselves as well.

This may sound counter-productive, but I find it a poignant reminder that, in our state of elation, we cannot under-estimate the difficult terrain ahead. I look forward to the processes that will further these conversations.

Occupations on Occupied Land

One of the broad principles in a working statement of unity (yet to be formally adopted) of Occupy Vancouver thus far includes an acknowledgement of unceded Coast Salish territories. There has been opposition to this as being “divisive” and “focusing on First Nations issues”. I would argue that acknowledging Indigenous lands is a necessary and critical starting point for two primary reasons.

Firstly, the word Occupy has understandably ignited criticism from Indigenous people as having a deeply colonial implication. It erases the brutal history of genocide that settler societies have been built on. This is not simply a rhetorical or fringe point; it is a profound and indisputable matter of fact that this land is already occupied. The province of BC is largely still unceded land, which means that no treaties have been signed and the title holders of Vancouver are the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Tseilwau-tuth, and Musqueam. As my Sḵwx̱wú7mesh friend Dustin Rivers joked “Okay so the Premier and provincial government acknowledge and give thanks to the host territory, but Occupy Vancouver can’t?”

Supporting efforts towards decolonization is not only an Indigenous issue. It is also about us, as non-natives, learning the history of this land and locating ourselves and our responsibilities within the context of colonization. Occupation movements such as those in Boston and Denver and New York have taken similar steps in deepening an anti-colonial analysis.

Secondly, we must understand that the tentacles of corporate control have roots in the processes of colonization and enslavement. As written by the Owe Aku International Justice Project: “Corporate greed is the driving factor for the global oppression and suffering of Indigenous populations. It is the driving factor for the conquest and continued suffering for the Indigenous peoples on this continent. The effects of greed eventually spill over and negatively impact all peoples, everywhere.”

The Hudsons Bay Company in Canada and the East India Trading Company in India, for example, were some of the first corporate entities established on the stock market. Both companies were granted trading monopolies by the British Crown, and were able to extract resources and amass massive profits due to the subjugation of local communities through the use of the Empire’s military and police forces. The attendant processes of corporate expansion and colonization continues today, most evident in this country with the Alberta Tar Sands. In the midst of an economic crisis, corporations’ ability to accumulate wealth is dependent on discovering new frontiers from which to extract resources. This disproportionately impacts Indigenous peoples and destroys the land base required to sustain their communities, while creating an ecological crisis for the planet as a whole.

Systemic Oppression Connected to Economic Inequality

In creating a unified space of opposition to the 1% who hold a concentration of power and wealth, we must simultaneously foster critical education to learn about the systemic injustices that many of us in the 99% continue to face. This should not be pejoratively dismissed as “identity politics”, which for many re-enforces the patterns of marginalization. The connection between the nature and structure of the political economy and systemic injustice is clear: the growing economic inequality being experienced in this city and across this country is nothing new for low-income racialized communities, particularly single mothers, all of whom face the double brunt of scape-goating during periods of recession.

The very idea of the multitude forces a contestation of any one lived experience binding the 99%. Embracing this plurality and having an open heart to potentially uncomfortable truths about systemic oppression beyond the ‘evil corporations and greedy banks’ will strengthen this movement. Ignoring the hierarchies of power between us does not make them magically disappear. It actually does the opposite – it entrenches those inequalities. If we learn from social movements past, we observe that the struggle to genuinely address issues of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, age, and nationality actually did more, rather than less, to facilitate broader participation.

In order to this we need to critically examine the idea of “catering to the mainstream”. I do not disagree with reaching out to as broad a base as possible; but we should ask ourselves: who constitutes the “mainstream”? If Indigenous communities, homeless people, immigrants, LGBTQs, seniors and others are all considered “special interest groups” (although we actually constitute an overwhelming demographic majority), then by default that suggests that, as Rinku Sen argues, straight white men are the sole standard of universalism. “Addressing other systems of oppression, and the people those systems affect, isn’t about elevating one group’s suffering over that of white men. It’s about understanding how the mechanisms of control actually operate. When we understand, we can craft solutions that truly help everybody. ” This should not be misunderstood as advocating for a pecking order of issues; it is about understanding that the 99% is not a homogenous group but a web of inter-related communities in struggle.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, Tar Sands Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, wrote to me: “Our own Indigenous Rights movements are gaining momentum which means that we all must continually be educating new folks getting politicized. We can all be working towards a larger convergence that is strongly rooted in an Anti colonial, Anti Racist, Anti Oppressive framework.” In a similar vein, Syed Hussan writes, “Understand that to truly be free, to truly include the entire 99 per cent, you have to say today, and say every day: We will leave no one behind.” Just as we challenge the idea of austerity put forward by governments and corporations, we should challenge the idea of scarcity of space in our movements and instead facilitate a more nuanced discourse about inequality.

Learning from History and Building on Successes

While it is clearly too early to comment on the future of the Occupy movement, I offer a few humble preliminary thoughts based on Occupy Wall Street and the nature of the Vancouver organizing. Those who us who have been activists rightfully do not have any particular authority in this movement and as many others have cautioned, more experienced activists should not claim moral righteousness over those who are just joining the struggle. But we also cannot claim ignorance either.

It must be re-stated that Occupy Together is brilliantly transitional. As has been repeatedly noted, it is has been a moral and strategic success to not have a pre-articulated laundry list of demands within which to confine a nascent movement. Peter Marcus writes “Occupy is seen by most of its participants and supporters not as a set of pressures for individual rights, but as a powerful claim for a better world… The whole essence of the movement is to reject the game’s rules as it is being played, to produce change that includes each of these demands but goes much further to question the structures that make those demands necessary.” Similarly Vijay Prashad says that we “must breathe in the many currents of dissatisfaction, and breathe out a new radical imagination.”

The creation of encampments is in itself an act of liberation. Decentralized gatherings with democratic decision-making processes and autonomous space for people to gather and dialogue based on their interests – such as through reading circles or art zones or guerrilla gardening – create a sense of purpose, connectedness, and emancipation in a society that otherwise breeds apathy, disenchantment, and isolation. This type of pre-figurative politics – a living symbol of refusal – is a ways to come together to create and live the alternatives to this system. I am reminded of the modest (Anti) Olympic Tent Village in our own city in the Downtown Eastside last year, which was deemed ‘paradise’ and a place where ‘real freedom lives’ by many.

One issue I would stress is building awareness about police violence and police infiltration. In some cities, Occupy organizers have actively collaborated with police. While many do this on the principle of ‘we have nothing to hide‘, the police cannot be trusted. This is not a comment on individual police officers who maybe “ordinary people”, but their job is to protect the 1%. The police have a long history of repression of social movements. Plus, people who are homeless, racialized, non-status, or queer routinely experience arbitrary police abuse. We must take these concerns seriously in order to promote participation from these communities. We must also learn to rely on ourselves to keep ourselves safe and to hold ground when police are ordered to clear us out. This seems insurmountable, but it has been done before and can be done again.

In the heels of the Olympics and G20, a recurring issue is diversity of tactics. Despite a history in community-based movement-building, based on a debate about diversity of tactics with an ally whom I respect, there has been unnecessary and misinformed fear-mongering that those who support a diversity of tactics “fundamentally reject peaceful assemblies”. For me, supporting a diversity of tactics has always implied respect for a range of strategies including non-violent assembly. As G20 defendant Alex Hundert, who has written extensively about diversity of tactics told me, “It is important to recognise that a belief in supporting a diversity of tactics means not ruling out intentionally peaceful means. These gatherings have been explicitly nonviolent from the start and in hundreds of cities across the continent. Obviously this is the right tactic for this moment.”

It is noteworthy that Occupy Wall Street has not actually dogmatically rejected a diversity of tactics. It appears that the movement there has understood what diversity of tactics actually means – which is not imposing one tactic in any and every context. The Occupy Wall Street Direct Action Working Group has adopted the basic tenet of “respect diversity of tactics, but be aware of how your actions will affect others.” In my opinion, this is an encouraging development as people work together to learn how to come keep each other safe within the encampment, while effectively escalating tactics in autonomous actions.

Finally, we may want to stop articulating that this is a leaderless movement; it might be more honest to suggest that We Are All Leaders. Denying that leadership exists deflects accountability, obscures potential hierarchies, and absolves us of actively creating structures within which to build collective leadership. Many of the models being used such as the General Assembly and Consensus are rooted in the practice of anti-authoritarians and community organizers. There are many other skills to share to empower and embolden this movement. As much as we wish we can radically transform unjust economic, political, and social systems overnight, but this is a long-term struggle. And there is always the danger of co-optation. Slavoj Zizek warned Occupy Wall Street that “Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat, they will try to make this into a harmless moral protest.” Which means that we will need to find ways to do the pain-staking work of making this movement sustainable and rooting it within and alongside existing grassroots movements for social and environmental justice.

“We have begun to come out of the shadows; we have begun to break with routines and oppressive customs and to discard taboos; we have commenced to carry with pride the task of thawing hearts and changing consciousness. Women, let’s not let the danger of the journey and the vastness of the territory scare us — let’s look forward and open paths in these woods. Voyager, there are no bridges; one builds them as one walks.”
- Gloria Anzaldua

A version of this article originally appeared in rabble.ca

The Occupy Wall Street protest has become a matter of debate in Indian Country. Some have chosen to be included under the slogan – “We Are The 99%; others, like me, have chosen to be excluded from the 99%. Many of those who support it have come up with their own slogan – DECOLONIZE WALL STREET. I simply don’t believe that the indigenous nations on Turtle Island are a part of that 99% equation, let alone that the Occupy Wall Street movement is about decolonization.

One protester, Brendan Burke, said: “Everyone has this problem. White, black. Rich or poor. Where you live. Everyone has a financial inequity oppressing them.”

I assume from his statement that Burke only sees things in white and black. Apparently he is color blind when it comes to red and the brown. As far as financial inequity is concerned, we, the red and the brown peoples of the Americas, have suffered financial inequity ever since the oppressors first invaded our shores. Financial inequity – perhaps better termed as socio-economic inequity – began with the subjugation of our lands through treaties. Annuity payments were often late and were never the amount negotiated under the treaty. Supplies and food rations that were part of annuity payments were often appropriated by Indian agents and resold for higher prices.

The tragedy at Gaa-mitaawangaagamaag (Sandy Lake) exemplifies the socio-economic inequity of annuity payments. In the fall of 1850, nineteen Anishinaabeg bands from Wisconsin journeyed to Gaa-mitaawangaagamaag for annual annuity payments and supplies. The annuity payments and supplies were late and the people had to wait until early December before they received limited sums of money and available supplies. Trying to survive on spoiled and inadequate government rations while waiting for the annuities, 150 Anishinaabeg people died from dysentery and measles at Gaa-mitaawangaagamaag. Two-hundred and fifty more, mostly women children and elders, died on their way back home to Wisconsin. This is but one example of the economic inequity that has been part of the indigenous experience in the United States.

One of the things that the Occupy Wall Street organizers have repeatedly stated is that the inspiration for their protest is the Arab Spring movement. If this is the case, one may ask how did the indigenous peoples of the Middle East fare from the Arab Spring?

On September, Daniel Gabriel, the SUA Human Rights and UN NGO Director, stated: “While the media focuses all its energy on the Palestinian search for Statehood and the ‘Arab Spring’, it is the reduced indigenous populations of the Middle East who continue to lose out. Time and time again, the world demands justice, democracy and freedom in the Middle East, but it fails in its obligation to demand the same for the minority groups like the Arameans. Today we barely survive in our homeland. But tomorrow we may silently vanish from existence. The SUA pleads with the global bodies such as the United Nations and the world community and media to prevent this imminent tragedy from happening.”

If the Arab Spring didn’t flourish for indigenous peoples in the Middle East, how can we expect it to flourish here?

If the indigenous peoples in the Middle East are barely surviving in their homelands, can we expect the Arab Spring inspired movement on Wall Street to lessen the oppression in our homelands? Will the actions on Wall Street abate our youth crisis, our teen suicide rate, our domestic and sexual abuse, or our alcohol and substance abuse in Indian Country? Will it heal our broken families and communities? Will Wall Street stop the rape and plunder of Mother Earth by the mining, oil and energy interests? Will it halt the ecocide, ethnocide, lingocide, and genocide of the indigenous peoples in North America? If Gabriel’s words offer any insight, then our historical trauma will not lessen but increase. It will increase in the present generation to the Seventh Generation – and beyond.

Then there is the matter of decolonization. The question is – the decolonization of what, of whom? How can decolonization be a part of the process if the occupiers are occupying occupied land?

Perhaps the most notable feature of the Occupy Wall Street movement is its lack of diversity. According to columnist Michelle Malkin: “When Occupy Wall Street activists call themselves the ‘99 percent,’ it turns out they mean 99 percent non-diverse (by their own politically correct measurements). It’s as pale out there at Camp Alinsky as MSNBC’s prime-time lineup or the New York Times editorial board. Not counting the cameos by Jesse Jackson and Cornel West, that is.”

The dominance of a white majority involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement explains why decolonization isn’t included in the proposed list of demands issued on September 3. The list of demands includes 1.) Separate Investment Banking from Commercial Banks; 2.) Use Congressional authority to prosecute the Wall Street criminals responsible for 2008 crisis; 3.) Cap the ability of corporations to contribute to political campaigns; 4.) Congress pass the Buffett Rule, i.e., fair taxation of the rich and corporations: 5.) Revamping Securities and Exchange Commission; 6.) Pass effective law to limit the influence of lobbyists; 7.) Pass law prohibiting former regulators to join corporations later.

Where in this proposed list of demands is there anything remotely connected to decolonization? At its core, Occupy Wall Street is about corporate greed, financial accountability, and economic inequity. It’s about a change in the system, although, as Gabriel points out, an Arab Spring doesn’t bring change to the voices of the indigenous. If change is the basic tenant of the Occupy Wall Street movement, then this change should not be the exclusion of indigenous populations in the United States, rather, change should in inclusive.

According to Raul Garcia “The struggle for a fundamental socio-economic change is not separate to the struggles of the Indigenous people. For if we want to have a humane and just society we need to deal with the issues that affect all people. In order to have fair and humane society it shouldn’t be just about money.”

As Garcia points out, the Occupy Wall Street movement is, at the present time, about money. The core message seems to be that corporate America and the wealthy needs to share the profits. Certainly, one can’t argue with that. But the question is – how are those profits made? The profits of the wealthy are made through the industries they own. These industries fuel and generate profits. And they create jobs and programs.

The mining, oil, and energy industries generate enormous profits. And those profits come at a cost to Indian Country, to say nothing of the environment in general. The new Indian Wars is about the opposition to ecocidal legislative policies and industries that endanger our homelands and our Mother Earth. Part of the struggle is trying to rise above the marginalization that began with colonization and continues through the corporate policies of the mining, oil, and energy industries.

According to Brenda Morris, ”Marginalization is as much a result of colonialism as it is corporatism. One is social, the other economic; I question the competence of the Occupy Wall Street movement to bring about fundamental socio-economic change – at least directly. Rebellion does not necessarily equal revolution. From the indigenous standpoint, while it is true that the struggle does not and cannot exist in a vacuum, it must not allow itself to be subsumed by a movement that, to date, has shown little – if any – recognition of it, let alone respect for it.”

As evidenced by their proposed list of demands, the Occupy Wall Street movement has no intentions of recognizing indigenous concerns or demarginalizing indigenous peoples in the United States. And that’s because the mindset of the majority of occupiers is an intergenerational extension of a colonized mindset. In her Foreword to The New Resource Wars, Winona LaDuke provides insight into the colonized mindset. Regarding “Industrial society, or as some call it, ‘settler society,’” LaDuke writes:

In industrial society, ‘man’s dominion over nature,’ has preempted the perception of Natural Law as central. Linear concepts of ‘progress’ dominate this worldview. From this perception of ‘progress’ as an essential component of societal development comes the perception of the natural world as a wilderness. This, of course, is the philosophical underpinning of colonialism and ‘conquest.’”

This way of thinking is also present in scientific systems of thought like ‘Darwinism,’ as well as in social interpretations of human behavior such as ‘Manifest Destiny,’ with its belief in some god-ordained right of some humans to dominate the earth. These concepts are central to the…present state of relations between native and settler in North America and elsewhere.

The “settler society” that LaDuke refers to isn’t from the historical past. It is present in non-indigenous society today. It is the mentality of this “settler society” permeates the mindset of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Their demands aren’t about decolonization. Rather, their demands are about wanting a share of the profits, profits that come from the rape and plunder of the earth and our indigenous homelands.

This isn’t to say that the Occupy Wall Street movement lacks merit. Economic inequities, corporate greed, the mortgage crisis, the unequal distribution of wealth are legitimate concerns. But those concerns have nothing to do with neither decolonization nor environmental justice. As such, the 99% slogan is not inclusive of the myriad of environmental problems that plague both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in the United States.

Wendy Makoons Geniusz writes: “Because of the colonization process, many of us no longer see the strength of our indigenous knowledge. Our minds have been colonized along with our land, resources, people. For us Anishinaabeg, the decolonization of gikendaasowin (Anishinaabe knowledge) is also part of the decolonization of ourselves.”

Geniusz points out that biskaabiiyang means to “to return to ourselves, to decolonize ourselves.”

For many of us, biskaabiiyang is a lifelong process. It is a journey to heal our traumatized inner spirit of the historical past and the historical present. For many of us, our involvement in the struggles our communities and our homelands face is a part of that healing journey. From this prism, the Occupy movement can be viewed as recognizing the national trauma endured under Corporate America. But it isn’t about the biskaabiiyang of the American people. Rather, it’s about the collusion of corporations and the government to keep us under the yoke of economic inequity and the public’s demand for reformation of a corrupt capitalist system that has infested the world under the umbrella of globalization. And it is the reformation of this system that has led to the present movement of people on the streets of America.

However, should any kind of reformation occur, indigenous peoples will undoubtedly continue to be marginalized and their natural resources exploited. And, as before, we will continue our struggles in the shadows of democracy.

We will need to do this lest we silently vanish from existence.

This past weekend, I had the unfortunate experience of visiting a local Urban Outfitters store in Minneapolis. It appeared as though the recording “artist” Ke$ha had violently exploded in the store, leaving behind a cheap, vulgar and culturally offensive retail collection. Plastic dreamcatchers wrapped in pleather hung next to an indistinguishable mass of artificial feather jewelry and hyper sexualized clothing featuring an abundance of suede, fringe and inauthentic tribal patterns.

In all seriousness, as a Native American woman, I am deeply distressed by your company’s mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor. I take personal offense to the blatant racism and perverted cultural appropriation your store features this season as “fashion.”

All too often industries, sports teams and ignorant individuals legitimize racism under the guise of cultural “appreciation”. There is nothing honorable or historically appreciative in selling items such as the Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask, Peace Treaty Feather Necklace, Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt or the Navajo Hipster Panty. These and the dozens of other tacky products you are currently selling referencing Native America make a mockery of our identity and unique cultures.

Your corporate website claims to “offer a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual”. If this is the case, then clearly you have missed the mark on your target demographic. There is simply nothing educated about your collection, which on the contrary professes extreme ignorance and bigotry.

My primary concern with your company is the level on which you are engaging in cultural and religious appropriation. None of your products are actually made by Indigenous nations, nor were any Native peoples involved in the production or design process. On the contrary, you have created cheap knock-off trinkets made in factories overseas. Selling imported plastic and nylon dreamcatchers disrespects our history and undermines our sovereignty as Tribal Nations.

Did I mention that marketing inauthentic products using Native American tribal names is also illegal? The company’s actions violate the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts act of 1990 and the Federal Trade Commission Act. According to the Department of the Interior:

“The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian Tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States. If a business violates the Act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000”.

I doubt that you consulted the Navajo Nation about using their tribal name on sophisticated items such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty”. In fact, I recently became aware that the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent your company a cease and desist letter regarding this very issue. I stand in solidarity with the Navajo Nation and ask that you not only cease and desist selling products falsely using the Navajo name, but that you also stop selling faux Indian apparel that objectifies all tribes.

Urban Outfitters Inc. has taken Indigenous life ways and artistic expressions and trivialized and sexualized them for the sake of corporate profit. It is this kind of behavior that perpetuates the stereotype of the white man’s Indian and allows for the ongoing commodification of an entire ethnic group. Just as our traditional homelands were stolen and expropriated without regard, so too has our very cultural identity. On this day that America still celebrates as Columbus Day, I ask that do what is morally right and apologize to Indigenous peoples of North America and withdraw this offensive line from retail stores.

Sincerely,

Sasha Houston Brown, Dakota
Santee Sioux Nation

A search for “Cherokee” on the Urban Outfitters website reveals 1 result. A search for “Tribal”: 15. A search for “Native”: 10. “Indian”: 2. But Navajo? 24 products have Navajo in the name alone.

This post started as a massive Urban Outfitters take-down, I spent an hour or so last week scrolling through the pages of the website, and adding anything to my cart that was “Native inspired” or had a tribal name in the description. I got through JUST the women’s clothes and accessories (no mens or apartment), and had 58 items in my cart. So, then, like any good researcher, I began to code my cart for emergent themes, and the one that jumped out far above the rest? Urban Outfitters is obsessed with Navajos.

I want to show you some examples, and then talk a little about the issues with using tribal names in products that are decidedly not-. Finally, I want to share what the Navajo Nation in particular is doing about it, and the action they’ve taken is pretty cool.

Without further ado, some of the “Navajo” products to grace the pages of Urban.

From the basic:

To the totally random:

The Antiquated:

And, finally, the totally offensive:

^{Navajo Hipster Panty}

Of course, there are many more if you head over to the site and search “Navajo”.

So what’s inherently wrong with using Navajo in product names? And what can tribal nations do about it?

First of all, these products represent a stereotype of “southwest” Native cultures. The designs are loosely based on Navajo rug designs (maybe?) or Pendleton designs, but aren’t representations that are chosen by the tribe or truly representative of Navajo culture. Associating a sovereign Nation of hundreds of thousands of people witl a flask or women’s underwear isn’t exactly honoring.

Additionally, it’s more than likely that Urban chose “Navajo” for the international recognition–to most of the world Navajo (and Cherokee)= American Indian (my Jamaican friend didn’t even know there were other tribes in the US until she met me). This conflation of Navajo with “generic Indian” contributes to the further erasure of the distinct tribes and cultures in the US and solidifies the idea that there is only one “Native” culture, represented by plains feathers and southwest designs.

Navajo has taken a bold step, and actually holds trademarks for 12 derivatives of “Navajo”, three of which I’m citing below:

2061748: NAVAJO Sportswear; namely, slacks, shorts, skirts and jeans.

2237848: NAVAJO Clothing; namely, tops, vests, shirts, sport shorts, polo shirts, golf shirts, * jackets, * T-shirts and sweat shirts.

3602907: NAVAJO Online retail store services; namely, on-line ordering services in the field of clothing—specifically, men’s and women’s sportswear, namely, jeans, tops, shirts, sport shorts, polo shirts, golf shirts, T-shirts and sweatshirts.
I’m no law expert, but it feels like the products above might be violating the trademarks?

A few months ago, they Navajo Nation Attorney General actually sent a cease and desist letter to Urban Outfitters, and there are some great quotes from the letter (I’ll try and post it in full in another post):

Your corporation’s use of Navajo will cause confusion in the market and society concerning the source or origin of your corporation’s products. Consumers will incorrectly believe that the Nation has licensed, approved, or authorized your corporation’s use of the Navajo name and trademarks for its products – when the Nation has not – or that your corporation’s use of Navajo is an extension of the Nation’s family of trademarks – which it is not. This is bound to cause confusion, mistake, or deception with respect to the source or origin of your goods. This undermines the character and uniqueness of the Nation’s long-standing distinctive Navajo name and trademarks, which—because of its false connection with the Nation—dilutes and tarnishes the name and trademarks. Accordingly, please immediately cease and desist using the Navajo name and trademark with your products.

As a Nation with a distinguished legacy and unmistakable contemporary presence, the Nation is committed to retaining this distinction and preventing inaccuracy and confusion in society and the market The Nation must maintain distinctiveness and clarity of valid association with its government, its institutions, its entities, its people, and their products in commerce.When an entity attempts to falsely associate its products with the Nation and its products, the Nation does not regard this as benign or trivial. TheNation remains firmly committed to the cancellation of all marks that attempt to falsely associate with the institution, its entities, its people or its products. Accordingly, immediately cease and desist using Navajo with your products.

I haven’t heard what the response was from Urban, if any, but I think it is a bold and positive choice for the tribe to take matters into their own hands and push back on instances of misrepresentation and cultural appropriation.

What do you think? Should tribes go the route of Navajo and trademark their tribal names? Do you think this will be an avenue for positive change or just mean tribal courts will be mired in lawsuits, taking away time from other important tribal business?

The first is a short video. Directed and narrated by Irish, Anishinaabe, Metis writer Beth Aileen Lameman and edited by Beaver Lake Cree filmmaker Myron Lameman, the video looks at really common stereotypes being deployed in game narratives. Lameman points to the common framings of “cowboys vs. indians,” guides, and “wise old Indians” and heavy doses of the white savior narrative and the “half-breed hero” trope.

The second is an essay over at Project COE that tackles the politics behind representation:

“How many kids will play this game and then carry what they’ve experienced into their interactions with real, live Apaches and other Native Americans?” the Association for American Indian Development asked video game publishing giant Activision in a public letter accusing the company’s 2006 PC and console title GUN of containing “some very disturbing racist and genocidal elements toward Native Americans”. The AAID went on to launch an online petition demanding that Activision “remove all derogatory, harmful, and inaccurate depictions of American Indians” from the game and reissue a more culturally sensitive version, threatening to campaign to have the game pulled from store shelves internationally. Although Activision thereafter issued an apology to anyone who may have been offended by the game, they justified the content of their product by pointing out that such depictions had already been “conveyed not only through video games but through films, television programming, books, and other media”. The AAID’s subsequent attempts to have the game recalled were barely acknowledged.

As evident in Activision’s defense of GUN, many negative stereotypes about Native American culture are so ingrained in mainstream media that the near-genocide of an entire culture is rarely treated with the same sensitivity with which we regard similarly tragic occurrences like the Holocaust, or African American slavery. The AAID argues that video games like GUN undermine the severity of the atrocities committed against First Nations tribes by the European settlers and marginalize this violence in a way that negatively affects the image of contemporary Native Americans. Millions of people play video games, and entertainment can leave long-lasting impressions on consumers, making it important to be able to criticize misconceptions and separate fantasy from reality. The impact of media on our mentality towards people and events certainly cannot be underestimated, so it is understandable that an organization such as the AAID should be concerned about what kind of images audiences are exposed to, but were their claims about GUN‘s potentially damaging effects warranted?

By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet

Joanna Shawana is Anishnawbe from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve.  Author of Voice of an Eagle, Shawana makes and sells Aboriginal crafts and works at a women’s shelter. Her poetry shows us all that there is beauty beyond abuse. Voice of an Eagle is a collection of poems and aboriginal teachings that walk us through her struggle of abuse and show us that no matter how dark the situation looks that we can break free and be with the “eagle’ to find our voice and say NO MORE! Joanna plans on writing another book explaining the signs of abuse and how both men and women can break free from the chains holding them.

BCP: Why poetry?

JS: Poetry is the only way I can express my feelings, my thoughts, what I see, and what I hear.  And when I write, it is another form of releasing; this is the only way that I can  express. The more I write and I have never really re-read what I have written till months later, this is when I started putting my writing in a form of poetry.

BCP: What is your process?

JS: Process…just sit and write. No, really, at times it just comes to me and I just start writing till all the thoughts and feelings are gone. Other times, the city is so busy, I’m unable to think, unable to write when something comes to me and at those times, I need to be around the water, around nature, so that I can concentrate on what I need to write.

BCP: How long have you been writing poetry?

JS: The first time I started writing was in the late 80’s and back then I never kept anything that I had written. I would tear up my writings, burn them and the reason for this because I did not want anyone know how I was feeling, what my thoughts were. I kept all these feeling deep within. But, the poetry writing did not start coming to me till the mid 1990’s.

BCP: Who are your influences?

JS: My influences? I would say my father (who passed away in 1993) and my children. My father was a believer in the church and by that time, I had started to learn my culture and for myself I was not much of church person.

One day, a gift was given to my father for donating game meat (moose, deer and fish) to Anishnawbe Health Toronto to help feed the homeless that were living on the streets but, also for the memories that took place. He never asked for money for this game meat, so in return he received a gift, this was given to me to hand to him. This gift was a book, a book which was called Wisdom of the Elders; man I kept this book for a few months, too afraid, too scared to give him the book, knowing how he felt in the life I have chosen to follow and which he did not believe in. But, I knew I had to give him this book, it took a lot of courage to hand him this book.

A month later, I went back home to the rez to visit him. As I walked in he had two books with him, one was the black bible and the other Wisdom of the Elders. I sat quietly waiting for the lecture from him, but the words that I heard that day was, “This is what I have been trying to say” (putting his hand on the book of the Wisdom of the Elders) but I had been following this one (hand on the other book, the Bible) When I heard those words, I felt some relief coming over me. When I heard those words, I knew he was fine in what life I had decided to follow. Through our visit, he showed me what he had written based on his own teachings he had learned throughout his life, based on what he had read. He wrote, “These Are Our Responsibilities”, and this is what he believed in and tried to teach his children and grandchildren.

A month later after I had the visit with him, he passed away. For me this meant, he had come to terms within himself, what he believed in. And this is when I started writing.

Other influences are my children; they have always encouraged me to start putting a book of poetry together. Till this day, they still give me that support and encouragement.

BCP: Why did you title your book Voice of an Eagle?

JS: Coming up with a title for this book was hard, a lot of thinking things through. In my early years of writing, putting all my poems together sharing them with people in my life. I called it Heart of Gold. The Heart of Gold was based on the person whom I have become. A woman that shares what comes from her heart. After sharing the writings with the publisher, and as we went through all the poems, she asked me to find another title for the book based on a voice of a First Nations woman, and me being from the Eagle Clan. With those two combined together, I decided on Voice of an Eagle.

BCP: Your poetry is emotional, honest, and stimulating. What do you try to convey to your readers?

JS: I guess, what I am trying to say is, “Don’t be afraid to speak up, don’t be afraid to share your experiences in what you have been through, only by sharing, it’s one way of letting go the negativity that one is feeling”. There as too many women, men and children that keep holding on to their negativity and this negativity only destroys who we are. But, we need to keep in mind by letting the negativity go, we replace it with the positive things that we experience in life.

BCP: Your spirituality plays a large part in your writing. Is that intentional or does it just happen that way?

JS: Native Spirituality is not what I grew up with. I remember the first time when I heard spirituality, cultural teachings, I was so against it, I did not want to learn. As time passed learning the culture, the teachings, it grew in me and now it will always be with me.

When I start writing (poems) the spirituality just comes out, there is no intention, the poems just come the way they do.

BCP: Do you see poetry as a form of prayer?

JS: There are a couple of poems, I can say “yes” too. The one that I can share is the one that I wrote when I went on a hunting trip with my brothers and my father. This is the same year that my father passed away. On this hunting trip, I was too sick to travel with them throughout the weekend. I stayed in a tent while the others went out. As I was going through my sickness, I prayed to Creator to give strength, and as I was going through this, I heard nature around me, heard water rippling, the birds sing and I gave thanks to Creator for what I heard and experienced. This poem is called I Offer. This poem was also used in a documentary back in 2008 and this documentary is called Living through Dying.

BCP: Is poetry a form of healing for you?

JS: All my writings are healing for me. As I mentioned earlier, I did not have anyone to talk to about my thoughts and feelings, the struggles that I had encountered throughout my life. The other part of me is, I am a very shy individual, I get nervous when I start sharing with people that I meet. So, when I am writing I don’t have that shyness within myself, I don’t get nervous because there is no one there to judge me in what I am writing about. The only person that would judge me is “myself”. So, I am free to express myself the way I want to in my writings.

BCP: Do you share your poetry with your clients at the shelter you work at?

JS: I like to share a bit of this work. I remember the first time I did my placement work with Nellie’s, I felt I was out of place and being a First Nation’s woman, I really felt odd. The women that I worked with had more experience in this field of work and it did not help much being “shy” and not outspoken. Years went by and each month I was getting comfortable working in this field, the women were very encouraging, gave me confidence within myself that I can do the work.

The first time I shared my poems and writing was in a group that a co-worker and myself started. This support group (Violence Against Women) would help the women to have a better understanding, gain knowledge, feel confident within themselves to have a voice. Each week we would have different topics and women would share their stories and this is when I would share one of the poems that would help the women. Each time I did this, it helped them to be a bit stronger within themselves.

So, yes I do share my poems with the women that I work with. When I work with women, I need to keep reminding myself to be compassionate, to be understanding, to be respectful and listen to the women when they share their stories of abuse. I work with them at their level, I don’t talk to them, I don’t feel superior or have that authoritarian way of speaking to them. I bring myself to where they are because I have been in their shoes before. Working with the women in the past 10 years has been challenging. I learn from my co-workers and the women that come through the doors.

I would like to share this poem which came to me as I was sitting in a workshop:

All I Ask

My fellow woman

My sister’s

I am weak

I am hurt

All I ask of you is

Please

Hear what I have to say

Hear what I have to share

I am not here

To be looked down

I am not here

To be judged

For what had happen to me

All I ask of you is

Please

Hear what I have to share

My fellow women

My sister’s

Listen to my words

See the pain in my eyes

All I ask of you is

Please

Hear what I have to say

Hear what I have to share

Help me

To get through my pain

Help me

To understand what is happening

Help me

To be a better person

So please

Hear what I have to say

Hear what I have to share

©Joanna Shawana 2005

BCP: A lot of your poems are personal. Was it a hard decision to have them published where everyone can read them?

JS: One never thinks of sharing their personal work with the world and that was on my mind when I started writing poems; I only shared with people who were close to me like my children and my family. And yes, it was a hard decision to get them published. Even at the end of it all, it was still hard receiving the book after it was published. All I thought to myself was, “Oh God, now everyone is going to find out what I have been through in life. They are going to judge me for the wrong doings, the struggles, the obstacles and the abuse I had encountered later in life.” But, through my own healing in ceremonies, counseling, the teachings from the Elders/Healers, I have learned that part of healing oneself is to be able to share stories (poems) through any form. As my father use to say “Don’t judge me for who I was, judge me for who I am today.” This saying will always stays with me. Now, I feel comfortable sharing this with people.

BCP: Many of the poems in your book are dedicated to family members. What did your family think of the book?

JS: My family is my children, my grandchildren, brothers and sisters most of all my parents and grandparents. Family is very important to me, they will always be. It does not matter what we go through in life, whether we have misunderstandings, disagreements, we will always be a family and learn to take things in value in what we share in each others life, and not to look things as a lecture.

Each poem is dedicated to my children, grandson’s, brothers, sisters and my parents. They were excited after all the encouragement they have given me to start sharing my poems. The only regret I have is that my father did not have a chance to see this happening, but I know deep within he is watching.

BCP: What are you working on now?

JS: Right now, I have “writers block” as they call it. All my writings, I have put aside waiting for the momentum to start writing again. I do have enough to put a second book together. One other wish I have is to be able to reprint Voice of an Eagle and this will eventually happen; maybe when I win a lotto.

I would like to share this for the ones that know me: my second book is based on a little girl growing up in her community living with her family. The little girl writes about what she had witnessed, what she had heard while growing up, and wonders what will the people think. So for now, my writing is on hold.

At the moment, I do have a project happening. For me another form of healing is to be creative, so I do a lot of custom jewelry, one of kind, unique work with porcupine quills. When I do this work, it helps me to release any stress that I have encountered, to let go of any negativity that I feel, and I put a lot of positive work into my jewelry and I’m proud what I have accomplished.

Right now, my daughter Joni is developing a website for my work, where people can view the work that I do and they can also place an order. Joni helps me a lot in the work that I do, there are many nights and days that she will sit by the computer make business cards, bookmarks, and many other things. And I am totally grateful for all her work.

BCP: When do you expect to have your second collection of poetry published?

JS: Second book? I am hoping in the next few years. In this book, I will be sharing poetry that my family members have written which they have already sent to me years ago.

Again, this is going to be another hard decision to make, to be able to share my stories through poetry.

BCP: What do you want the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities to get from reading your poems?

JS: Honestly, I have not really thought about that. I guess what I can say is, “To all the ones who are afraid to speak, who don’t have a voice, don’t be afraid to speak.  You are not only helping yourself, you are helping others to feel confident within themselves to speak. We have been silenced from people that we love, from the people in our society, people we have trusted in our lives, let us not hide anymore, let us speak up and say that is enough.”

BCP: It’s Aboriginal History Month now. What does that mean to you?

JS: What it means to me is to be proud of who we are as First Nations Peoples. It’s a time to celebrate and to honour our heritage. June 21 was declared National Aboriginal Day, but we as First Nations, I believe we celebrate our heritage every day.

BCP: What advice do you have for other Aboriginal writers out there who are having difficulties with their writing, or who have yet to see their work in print, or who are afraid to perform their poetry?

JS: The only thing that I can say is, don’t give up, even though we have come up with a “writer’s block” just keep on trying. When we try to make a mark in the world we live in, it’s the hardest thing to do, it takes patience and commitment. Writing is a voice, a voice that calls us from our dreams, telling us to open our eyes, to open our hearts and let our voice be heard.

Most of all, the gift that we were given by Creator is a beautiful gift, a gift of writing and through these writings, we encourage ourselves to continue to do the work that we need to do, and by doing this we are encourage others too.

The ones who afraid to speak, to voice themselves, or afraid to perform their poetry, we are afraid that our words will not be heard or accepted. So we feel its best that we live in silence rather than voicing out. We should never be afraid to sit and think and write our thoughts down, we should not be afraid to put our work out there for the people to read and see. The best solution or advice is, don’t be afraid of life, believe that life is worth living, and that we can share our own experiences in life so that others can gain the strength to let go of fear. So it is better to speak.

On this note, I will need to remind myself not to be afraid.

By Arturo R. García

Before it even took place, the irony of the Atlanta Braves hosting a civil rights celebration Sunday had been pointed out, not just because of the team’s name, but because of Georgia’s recent enactment of House Bill 87.

The bill, modeled after Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, targets undocumented immigrants and their employers, and had set off a controversy even before Carlos Santana, being honored by Major League Baseball at the game, took the opportunity to speak out against both laws. But as it turns out, the Mexican-born singer wasn’t the first pop-culture figure to do so.

Santana’s declaration that Arizona, Georgia and the people of Atlanta “should be ashamed of [themselves]” was met with boos, according to The Nation’s Dave Zirin, who also reported that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig left the game in the fifth inning without comment.

“If Selig really gave a damn about Civil Rights, he would heed the words of Carlos Santana,” Zirin wrote. “He would move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona. He would recognize that the sport of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Curt Flood has an obligation to stand for something more than just using their memory to cover up the injustices of the present.”

Santana didn’t back down from his commentary after the ceremony, either, as he was quoted by various outlets as saying:

“This law is not correct. It’s a cruel law, actually. This is about fear. Stop shucking and jiving. People are afraid we’re going to steal your job. No, we aren’t. You’re not going to change sheets and clean toilets. …This is the United States. This is the land of the free. If people want the immigration laws to keep passing, then everybody should get out and leave the American Indians here. This is about civil rights.”

Like SB 1070 – currently being examined in the courts – Georgia’s new law empowers law-enforcement officials to arrest anyone if they fail to produce proof of citizenship upon request. But days before Santana embarrassed MLB by living up to his award, someone a bit closer to the action spoke up against the new law: Atlanta Hawks forward Etan Thomas, who told Zirin:

I can’t believe that anyone would be in favor of racial profiling. This bill is very similar to the Arizona bill and authorizes law enforcement officers to verify the immigration status of “certain criminal suspects.” So this means they can pull anyone over at anytime and their only crime could be minding their business. That goes against everything this country should stand for.

Thomas is no stranger to public discourse: he’s written columns for The Huffington Post and CNN, and released a poetry collection six years ago. He’s also, as of Wednesday morning, the only pro basketball player to speak up against the new law.

The league has courted the Spanish-speaking market – and make no mistake, Spanish-speakers are always in the crosshairs of laws like HB 87 – in recent years, most visibly by its’ “Noches Latinas” games, where selected teams wear special jerseys. One longshot possibility, if HB 87 ends up staying on the books, is that Thomas’ Hawks would get the opportunity to protest the law much like the Phoenix Suns did after Arizona’s law was signed. It’s a longshot, though, because the team’s owners are reportedly trying to sell the team.

Carlos Santana photo courtesy of The Associated Press
Etan Thomas photo courtesy of Getty Images

By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet

Being mixed race always has its challenges: isolation, language barriers, not fitting in, not being ‘enough’, and the many forms of racism that come with all that.

Every time I tell people that my mom is Peruvian and my dad is Lebanese I get:

1. Exotic!
2. Interesting.
3. How did that happen?
4. You look more…

One time a famous playwright of colour stroked my cheek and whispered “exotic” in my ear after I identified myself to him.

When I break it down even more (Mom: Indigenous/Spanish/Chinese + dad: Arab, moved to South America in his teens) I get the insult that people think is funny and acceptable: “you’re a mutt.”  It gets worse when I say my dad isn’t in my life, but I really don’t want to go there right now.

Reading Fireweed #75: “The Mixed Race Issue” was not only fun it was refreshing.  Its contributors wrote about a lot of what I have experienced over the years; and they wrote from the heart, holding nothing back, and well.

Published in 2002 and guest edited by Lisa Amin, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and May Lui, all mixed race women, Fireweed # 75 was a follow up to a similar anthology, Miscegenation Blues, published in 1994.  Amin writes in the intro, “This one is for the beige babies.”  It’s that and more.

“Heinz 57,” by Anne-Marie Estrada, is my life story.  Except, I’m not Anne-Marie and she isn’t writing about me, she’s writing about herself.  A very short piece, “Heinz 57″ speaks to many of us mixies. Broken down into two sections, “HERE.” and “THERE.”, twelve questions Anne-Marie constantly gets are displayed throughout, many of which a lot of mixed race people get:

1. Where’s your accent from?
2. Are you…?
3. Did you go to school in…?
4. What do you speak at home?
5. What do you eat at home?
6. What do you know about your family?
7. How did she come to marry a man from…?

Marie writes:

When someone sees my name they think one thing.

When they hear my voice they think another.

Then they see my face and are mildly confused.

Marie ends her short, fast paced, punchy piece with: “Because you just can’t tell by looking.”  True!

Jesse Heart has two pieces in Fireweed #75: “Pinky Rant” and “Really/Not Really.”  “Pinky Rant,” a non-fiction piece – short essay really, possibly an Op-Ed, goes deep in a small space.  Heart explores race and gender and colonialism better than most academics in a concise, cutting manner.  Heart starts off with a solid slap to the ear:

I think I am reaching a point of exhaustion.  I am tired of explaining…explaining my orientation…my identity as trans, as butch, as boi, as dyke.  Explaining my “origin”…?

The explaining is tiring but not as bad as what Heart so beautifully calls “Colour f-cking adjectives.”  Heart is referring to comments like “drunken native” when people find out about their Indigenous ancestry.  And then there’s the ogling on public transit:

And if it’s not my “origin”, it’s the public debate I must witness, like on a fucking subway, “is that a man/dude/guy…or woman?…**giggle, giggle**.

Heart shines again in their simple yet poignant statements in “Really/not really:”

In her untitled essay, Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz (a half Arab and half Jewish woman) explores hypogamy, racism, the intersection of Zionism and racism, and the ever present racism in feminist/activist circles.  It’s deep, hard, honest, and sad.

As a half Arab who doesn’t fit in with the Arab community I love Weiner-Mahfuz’s essay.  And I can see why it’s untitled; some things can’t be named or labeled such as many experiences in mixed race life.

Being a different shade of brown, speaking Castellano (the Spanish dialect) and not Arabic, raised by a single mom, eating South American food my entire life, and using my mothers Spanish-colonial surname has left me outside of the Arab box.  Trying to explore my Arabness in university I joined the Arab Student Club (really a Palestinian solidarity movement that has gone through many names and is now Toronto’s biggest Palestinian activist group).  Although I met some good people, every problem written in Fireweed #75 surfaced: questions and explanations, lateral racism, misogyny toward female members, colour f-cking adjectives, tokenism etc.  Weiner-Mahfouz had similar experiences in feminist activism and at a race conference.

While recently talking with another mixed race friend (Native American and Black) about not fitting in with the Toronto Arab activist scene she said, “You’re too Indian for them.”  I prefer the word Indigenous, and I identify my indigeneity as Mestizo (Indigenous and Spanish; read Gloria Anzaldua for a much more detailed explanation).  But I got what she meant.  How can I relate to middle to upper class Arabs, who speak francais and Arabic, and hang mainly with other academics involved in activism, many of whom are white skinned and pass in the white world?  I grew up with Blacks and Latinos and Persians, all of colour, who’s parents, like my mom, worked in factories, restaurants, hotels, and as delivery people and taxi drivers and janitors.  I’m one of two in my crew who have gone to university; more of us have been incarcerated!  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.  And most of the friends I have, old and new, mainly of colour, have never heard of Edward Said, Ward Churchill, bell hooks etc.  And they don’t care too.

Weiner-Mahfouz writes of the exclusion she experienced in family circles for being both Arab and Jewish.  And she painfully writes of literally having a door slammed in her face at a race conference in Boston titled “Race and Racism in the 90s:”

I raised my hand and asked where mixed race people were to go…The white women in the room, including the white facilitator, said they felt I should caucus with them because  I could pass for white.  Most of the women of colour concurred with this…

The discussion proceeded with the facilitators spending ten minutes talking to the group about the privileges of being able to choose—as if I were not in the room…Finally, the group resolved that I could choose where to go…

It was not resolved for me.  I felt alone.  I felt that regardless of where I chose to go it would be the wrong choice.  I felt like the illegitimate bastard child that no one wanted and/or knew what to do with.  Many of the women of colour were angry with me.  Many of the white women felt as if they had made an anit-racist intervention by challenging me on my racism.  Still as the group broke up, I made a choice and walked towards the room that the women of colour were to meet in.  As I approached the door it quickly slammed in my face.

Not only do I believe that most of the contributors to Fireweed #75, and most mixed race people, have felt like Weiner-Mahfouz, but they’ve probably had real doors slammed in their faces like her.  I understand where the women of colour were coming from but that was cold.  Weiner-Mahfouz’s experience at the conference was horrible and one that continues today.  And so do all the problems laid out in the journal.  How far have we come along?

Weiner-Mahfouz poetically states that as mixed race peoples we are feared:

“We are feared because interracial relationships are still taboo in our culture.  We are feared because our mere existence often calls into question the status quo and the way that race is constructed in our society.  We are feared even by people on the Left who propose to be working to challenge these deeply rooted beliefs and constructs…We are not considered whole just as we are.”

The Mixed Race Issue has many brave, honest, entertaining and emotional pieces.  Karleen Pendleton Jimenez writes an erotic piece exploring her life as a white skinned Chicana and the complexities of skin politics in her dating life; Billie Rain’s essay title explains her piece: “The Myth of the White Jewish Race;” Lisa Amin writes about passing and failing as a mixed race person; Kim Trusty writes about her white mom; and there is so much more in this extraordinary and important collection.

Although we mixed race people are not considered whole, we are.  And this issue of Firewood shows that.