Some comments on
"Wanting to be NDN" pdf text (available for free, anti-copyright distrobution at that link). This article was originally written for a forum for anti-authoritarians called
anti-politics.net This is pretty long, and i think folks like walkxtall will fall asleep at their keyboard. So, be advised ahead of time! Don't put your food immediately in front of where your head may fall, or you'll drown yourself in your own food!
Anyway,
reading this article over closely, I have a few things to offer. They're not "perfect" (as in "well-articulated") but they're an attempt to promote dialogue. And critical thought. And a chance to unleash some meaningful challenge to me, if you think such has to be.
Firstly, I intuitively question the value of identifying people according to their race when we claim to want to escape racism (even tho i grew up with such norms myself, and thought nothing of it at the time, re: "black and white folks").
In my limited view, I can see value in talking about First Nations' folks as such, or in naming these fellow human beings according to their nation and/or clan. The author does this, to my recollection, only for one group of people. Albeit, she is working hard to empathize and hear. But i think she is making the same mistake that a lot of men made (and still make?) regarding their automated-like bowing in to various shades of ideologically-challenged feminism (i'm NOT saying that empathizing and hearing feminists is "bad"; i AM saying that the hierarchy thing and the tendency to subordinate in rigid ways to such is problematic, to say the least).
And while the author doesn't talk about "red" folks, curiously, she does call herself "white". And then goes on to categorize all European-centric (or euro-peonized) folks as "white" as tho that's somehow truly the bottom-line defining characteristic.
Yes, there is a pattern of euro-centric behavior; but rather than race, i'd rather delve to the heart more, and speak about *internalized values* and bring THAT out and demystify this much more tantalizing reality. Because, there is truth to the reality that euro-peon-centric folks *take-for-granted* how we've largely
internalized the values of the "chain-of-command" structure(s) in which we find ourselves. Before we even begin seeing the bigger picture to how deeply colonized WE are (no matter which race, i think; but especially we euro-peons).
So, what if "we" began promoting dialogue along the lines of those who
uncritically internalize the dominating values, and those who are
de-internalizing them?
Sure, this may be a mouthful to start off with; but i think that it's much more accurate! And until someone comes up with something better....
To regard ourselves in such a reductionist form (re: "white folks"), i think, we are setting ourselves up for more than one trap.
One easier-to-see one: allowing for racism to continue by buying into the idea that we can be reduced to being merely "white" and we can all be categorized into this...racial category!
Secondly, what if this form is another way for "progressive" neocolonials (of the Left or whatever)
trying to recuperate our subordination? That is, reign the independently intuitive "back in" to conforming to the absolutes of those who see themselves as having the "more realistic", or "more appropriate" approach!
Think about THAT one for awhile!
Sure, yes, the uncritically internalizing (phew!
How about UI's?) DO act in a very similar pattern. I used to buy into such myself so I feel like i can speak on this: UI's are basically on a
LEASH of values and beliefs and assumptions, which tho wanting to avoid being seen as racist, still do not really see at all that they're on a LEASH.
The author mentions the reality of middle-class values which dominate multi-cultural actions and thought (she says: "...multi-cultural white middle-class dominance in yet another form." page 7); i think that is part of the truth, that middle-class values ARE a dominating factor in euro-peonized society today, but i also think saying that it is only middle class, well, I have to wonder... More like,
these fellow human beings (who are only thinking superficially about racism, by the way) are colonized persons who think and act within the corral of their colonization. And until an anti-authoritarian-type of challenge comes their way --which can delve to the heart of racism-- they're going to continue to remain something like stupidized (aka extremely superficially-challenged) about racism.Hell, i've been decolonizing myself for about 10 years now and i STILL surprise myself when i see the MANY LEVELS of how deeply colonized my thinking is. Take the Toltec "Four Agreements", for example; tho intellectually i see the value of not making assumptions or taking anything personally, i still do this; out of habit or having practiced such a LIFETIME. (Here, i realize what decolonizing indigenous folks mean when they say it takes a lifetime to decolonize oneself!)
So, even tho i am living a quite decolonizing lifestyle, i STILL can't help but to have deep within me the colonial alienation that i've spent a lifetime practicing for (like it or not).
Am i making sense to any of you?
To uncritically join in on a categorical attack of "rainbow people" (whether they learned their insights from Sunbear or NOT), or any "white" folks, for intuitively seeking sanity in the models of humanity that we have stumbled across, or whatever, well,
that's just more ...., in my view. That's just playing into the hands of c.i.a.-type divide and conquer (or keep conquered) strategies.Indigenous people want and need allies. Those allies are going to have to be strong; not wimpy PC fools who cower/subordinate because whatever self-appointed authority says they must. In order to "be respectful"; excuse me, but respect is "a two-way path".
Yes, UI's and DI's need to listen and hear from our older sisters and brothers (whom, we note, have not lost ALL of their power yet). But we are people too. And if you want strong allies, ways of convincing, not brow-beating, will buttress such strength, i feel.
True, First Nations' folks are human beings, and their culture is far from these things that the author points out that many of we "white" folks project or assume, or want to believe. Yet, still, First Nations *do* act as a model for more sanity than "we" euro-peonized/UI folks often have known. The indigenous folks i've met over a lifetime have often spoken negatively of the reality of rez life and such, yet they don't see that the cultural (?) norms in which they are still a part of are often MUCH MORE sane than many of those we whom were brought up in Nuclear Families (for instance) experienced.
How about "the complete power to define what is and what isn't Indian" (page 8 )? That's another kernal of depth to think through. Indigenous folks may have a reason for firing that one off against seemingly all white folks who want to seek sanity via their models, i can imagine that. It certainly gets me near the heart. So i begin prioritizing the time to look and think through that statement.
And i come up with the reality that the UIs of the world are on that LEASH i mentioned before; and holding that leash? --Our owners and herders. Noam Chomsky sheds light by calling them "social and cultural managers." He uses other terminology for the owning class (maybe that's the phrase?), but he doesn't go into the formal structure that is Society As We [euro-peonized] Know It So Well. ..Not that i've read, anyway (and i admit to not keeping up with his latest stuff).
That formal structure is the structure which hooks our attentions (to borrow from a little Toltec) in the first place (i.e. via compulsory schooling; See
www.johntaylorgatto.com for starters), and then pulls us into (like a kind of tractor beam) its heightening traps, and ends up mining our spirits so that we "privileged" colonized (or house niggaz) are turned into its tools. Then, having internalized the propaganda of the formal, we do its bidding. And we become its uncomprehending missionaries (aka soldiers); where our intuitions seek sanity on the one hand, our internalized colonization "arts us" on the other.
Simply, we UI's and DI's are
being arted by structures
we don't even see! And First Nations' folks see this! And they want to curb us so that we don't run over them as we have run over ourselves. To give an example of us euro-peonized running over ourselves, I can think of every independent group which starts out quite free-thinking in its visions, only to be systematically reigned in, curtailed, and ultimately watered-down into yet another .... group. The wiccan movement is a case in point; or any "rights' seeking" group. They all are apparently fooled into accepting funding (shiney objects, anyone?) from The Formal (aka Statecraft, corporatecraft, etc.), only to have that funding made Conditional: You Will Assimilate Or You Will Lose Funding. Along those lines.
See?
And NONE of us euro-peonized seem to have figured out that little trap (or maybe the domination of the media system just keeps up such appearances?). Maybe the post-left anarchists have. Maybe some in the anti-politics network have. Or can at least allow themselves to see what i'm saying.
Next, on page 12. Speaking of "spiritual surrogates". That sounds awfully talking-down-at. Yes, we euro-peon-centrified (heh) need "surrogates"! Tho i'd rather use the terms
Older Brother and
Older Sister.
Older meaning people whom haven't yet been as deeply separated from their sanity as we euro-peonized have.On the same page, how about the idea of "the Native struggle against genocide"? A truth, a very important one. Yet, if we're not careful, this too becomes a hierarchy.
Why not phrase such in
informal human solidarity terms?
Why not frame this as *our mutual struggle against intuitive genocide*? That gets closer, i think, to the reality that, world-wide, "non-rational" peoples, are being targeted for attack and assimilation into neocolonialism. We DI's see this, if we look behind the hype, say, of psychiatric coercion and such manufacture of consensus. After all, what is a kid who rebels from authority but simply not fully articulate?
To the neocolonials they seem categorically "irrational". And terms like "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" or "Attention Deficit Disorder" are applied (don't take my word for it, read the psychiatrick bible, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" number 4 (DSM IV). (Soon, those terms will become more cammoflauged --as they always are--but for now, they're still used, and you can see this warfare for what it is, just as, if you look in the DSM III, you can find Draepetomania--the propensity of slaves to run away from their "masters".)
So every generation our kids are being inundated with these insane, severely alienated values. And parents, isolated everywhere, buy into them. How and why? That could be a discussion in another thread; up to you.. Where their (kids' and parents') intuitions, their "irrational behaviors" are being re-routed into the value system that has to dominate. No matter what, it has to dominate. (Why? Another thread?) This is true of First Nations' kids, and it's true of euro-peonized kids. And it's true of every nation's kids, especially in the context of neocolonialism aka this "one world government" thing that is being mumbled about here and there. Call it what you must, but there definitely is a pattern to a world-wide movement to block, kill and/or assimilate the world's people who aren't yet colonized.
The question is, shall we begin thinking things through and utilizing our intelligence in key ways, or shall we continue giving away our powers as those who believe they are "more capable" want us to do?
