Just got home from this. It was both overwhelmingly beautiful and heartbreaking. I’ve been struggling a lot lately as to the acknowledgement of my indigenous roots. I realize that to claim my native ancestry from the position I occupy is both an act of combatting genocide, and also possibly problematic. If I have never been officially affiliated with the Mohawk tribe & Iroquois nation and benefit from their continuing destruction as an East Asian/white American today, to call myself one of them feels to me, well, oppressive. At the same time, some of my ancestors were Haudenosaunee-Mohawks who inhabited this land before Europeans arrived. To cast them from my memory/identity feels, well, oppressive. This is far from the first time I’ve come into conflict within my own identity, but I don’t want this post to be about my personal issues.
I want to give thanks and praises to all the indigenous people around the world (I was reminded this morning that we’re all indegenous to somewhere) for surviving despite the countless efforts to erradicate their existence. Our world has been headed in a frightening direction for so long, and I have found that those who remember the ancient traditions, customs, and cultures their ancestors come from, are able to recall community, love, justice, their relative insignificance and are better able to respect and humanize others. I tend to believe human beings who have not internalized the role of colonizer or are working to unlearn their own colonization, possess access to a peace of mind that most of the time seems so painfully ellusive. I’m still tryna get there myself.
Today I found out that the first “Thanksgiving” was put into order by the Governor of one of the first colonies of Massachusetts. The feast was put on to celebrate the massacre of 700 indigenous men, women and children. No “Indians” were present at the first “Thanksgiving.” After informing us of our USAmerican history, the speaker noted, “these lies hurt all children just as much as they hurt our babies.” I believe if white babies are told the unarmed truth from jump, they will not only be alarmed but will be f*cking angry. I believe this because children are not adjusted and adapted to the f*cked-upededness of the world in the same way that we adults are. In the same way I have developed an aquired taste for the literal poison that is whiskey, the same can be said of hegemony and oppression. Poison can taste/feel like freedom.
I came home with a heavy heart full of gratitude. This morning I was reminded that as Cornel West says (yes, Ima be quoting him for some time to come-so get used to it =P) “never allow your own suffering to blind you to the suffering of others.” Today was so beautiful because it was an act of revolution. It was a community that has for hundreds of years been targeted for destruction, coming together to remind the nation/world that they shall remain and endure. Today I am filled with gratitude for their loving themselves so openly despite the centuries of hatred, theft, rape and murder waged upon and against them.
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind… every person can have a good heart, a heart big enough to change the world! The Great Spirit wouldn’t give us something we couldn’t handle! Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World.
Did you think you were put here for something less?
-From White Buffalo Teachings
In search of paidea.
Masashi
p.s.
[sister wake showed me. =)]
