Woke up
this morning, turned on the news and watched the story about the
Sterling guy (owner of the LA Clippers) who made racist comments that
were recorded and is now banned from anything to do with the NBA. In
the same moment I thought ‘good enough for him’ I wondered how is
that different from the Washington Red$kin$? Answer: we don’t have
that much money AKA power for one thing and our culture is still
actively degraded by the willingly ignorant. Grrrrr! I saw Native
News Today put the story out on Facebook; sure it will get the word
out but beyond that what can we do? It seems the only thing the
dominant culture takes notice of is what billionaires want and
violence. But … using other means to change the hateful team name
isn’t impossible either. Let me think about it some more.
Words have
such power that goes unnoticed because we are all institutionalized
to ignore the meanings. I used to hate ‘aboriginal’ and
‘indigenous’ because the former implied AB-normal to me and the
latter sounds like indigent. Progress will happen when we are spoken
to and written about by the Native nation we are born to. When I
lived in the Big City, Indians there would open with the classic,
“Where you from?” and one would answer what rez we come from and
then the questioner asks: “hey! Do you know Bright Sun-Robe? Lazy
Pony? How about Fred?” The conversation goes on like that until
they find a common acquaintance or relative which invariably happens.
Up here in Rezberry only enrollment matters; sad to say many blondes
are enrolled while others who have every right of blood and place are
not due to blood quantum on paper, another thing whitey created to de
facto erase ‘Indians’ as individuals in sovereign nations.
Ayeeeeee! Me big heap angry! LOL! Just kidding but you get what I
mean? Words!
On a good
note Minneapolis has changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples
Day!!! The bill was passed unanimously and my heart feels really
happy for the change that honors our collective indigenous history
and how written history got it so wrong. Chii Miigwech Minneapolis my
former beloved city. I miss stomping around there and the friends I
left very much but I have to believe that I am right where I’m
supposed to be. BTW-I ‘get’ how the word indigenous is cool, it
happened when the rock band Indigenous came on the scene. 😀
There only
a few topics that cross cultural lines up here and the main one is
weather. I live in a place of extremes: cold, really cold,
snot-freezing cold, Jack Nicholson frozen-in-the-snow bank-cold (“The
Shining”) and not-too-cold. Here it is May when spring arrives with
warm hugs and flowers to bless us with. But nooooo! It’s still
snowing and outside is wet, really cold and I along with others’
who suffer seasonal affective disorder are barely holding on to our
sanity. All I want to do is lie in bed and only wake up when I hear
birdsong and smell lilacs. Heh. Nope!
Words!
LOL! I taught my friend the word ‘zoogipoon’ it means ‘it’s
snowing’ in Ojibwe; she asked Siri what was the meaning and Siri
came back with “Let’s make love”!!! Oh did we laugh! Well
that’s better than it’s snowing I guess …
I love
that the Cowboy and Indian Alliance went to D.C. together to protest
the Keystone XL pipeline that would affect their homelands. I kinda
teared up even, that the squatter’s descendants have come to
understand just how the pipeline would poison the earth they call
theirs. I hope that someday they will come to cherish our Turtle
Island as being a part of her, not just ‘on’ her. I am a
satirical optimist I ‘spose. Rock on my anti-KXL warriors! I may
just go rustle me up a horse and come camp with ya’ll. Rustling is
in my genes yanno. Just kidding! I’m Ojibwe, I have canoe rustling
in my genes.
My beloved
Gramma Rose’s birthday is this month as is my friends and mine. I
will celebrate theirs and mine but now I’m kinda leery about going
out and about cuz I may have cursed my own self. I take transit to
work and one day I found out another rider has the same birthday!
(May 26). She asked what was I gonna do that day – I flippantly
answered that if I didn’t wake up the next day in county jail I did
it all wrong! IKR? Well, I may just stay home and see if the cats and
Mitzi the dog have a surprise party for me. You never know. ;D
It ain’t
easy being Indian but yanno what? I love and admire the ones who get
up in the morning and make it better. Yooz know who you are.
