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Happy Day After Tear Down All the Statues Day
I was going to try and write something yesterday about Indigenous Peoples Day, Columbus Day, whatever you want to call it. But … I had the day off and my wife had the day off, which means my wife bossed me around all day. She didn’t really, but that’s what we say, isn’t it?
I have a lot to say. But I also have a bit of a lazy bone, so I haven’t coalesced what I have to say in a thoughtful, erudite post. Instead, I’ll provide you with a few things my card-carrying Native American wife said to me. Now, it should be noted: One of the things she said to me this morning is “I hate it when you call me a card-carrying Native American. It irritates me.” I responded that I had literally spent a fair bit of time thinking about why I say that. It started out sort of as a joke, but I realize why I really say it. See, my wife doesn’t look Native American. She looks more like her dad’s family, it being from Ireland. Sometimes I’ll see her mom in a look, but not often. If I said to someone, “My wife is Native American,” some folks would say she’s not Native American enough because of how she looks. And this gets at the heart of why identity politics are so divisive and destructive. Identity politics seek to ascribe to certain people an identity that should not only inform their political worldview but also give credence to or take credence from that worldview. If you are a man, your opinion on abortion is suspect. If you are a woman, then your opinion is beyond question. Unless it’s the wrong opinion. But I digress. The point is that my wife is an enrolled tribal member, she grew up on the rez, she owns property on the rez, she works now for tribal government, she has a degree in tribal government from the tribal college on the rez. She’s Native American. So, in the world of identity politics, her opinion on these sorts of things should be beyond question. Except in her case, she hasn’t the right opinions.
So, what did my wife say to me? Here are a few tidbits:
“The problem is that Native Americans have been so brainwashed by progressives that they literally oppress themselves.”
“There is no organization more oppressive to Native Americans than tribal governments.”
“If people want to process their white guilt, they should stop doing it on the backs of my people.”
“The real problem is that the work ethic of the previous generations hasn’t been passed on to the current generations. They all want a handout.”
“All of the progressive ideas out there are implemented on the rez. There’s your real oppression.”
Anyway …
Published in General
A pretty good impression of Trump talking about Elizabeth Warren’s Indian heritage!
https://rumble.com/vnmfl7-must-see-trump-impersonator-celebrates-pocahontas-warren-on-indigenous-peop.html
My wife heard that and she says “There’s the Trump we all know and love!” ha ha!
You came to the right place! I’m right there with you!
I love Ricochet!
I don’t see how you can properly celebrate indigenous people’s day without at least 20,000 human sacrifices.
So, just like everywhere else?
That’s what I was gonna say. Sounds like everywhere else (that’s not deep red).
They do – it is called “abortion”.
They would like to make it mandatory.
Yep…
Conservatives should pass an international holiday thanking Charles Martel for saving the West from Islamic conquest. A celebration of Western victory over oppression. Then they should start renaming all kinds of leftist landmarks in blue cities in their states after heroes from the past. Put a statue of Robert E. Lee in your front yard while you are at it. One goes down and hundreds of thousands should go up. And this will all end.
You and Percival should pursue this interest. Happy Hammer Day- Oct. 10th next year!
I think it’s likely a bigger problem on the rez, let’s say that the influence of progressive policies isn’t as diluted as it is elsewhere.
My most relevant experience about the mindset of those who card carry for the “Tear Down all The Statues Day:”
About two months before my “ignorant, racially motivated” remark that forever banned me from my women’s group, I had mentioned my mom was part Native American. This happened during a discussion of how many in the group had ties to Native Americans.
My comment immediately brought forth the ire of several of the group’s older members.
Remarks were made to the effect that given my obvious, looks-based ethnicity, I could not possibly be part Native American. Secondly, I was harangued for lying, for my apparently desperate un-truth that would allow me into the now-desirable ranks of “Native American.”
After the hubbub subsided, I reminded everyone at the gathering that I was adopted. How I looked was irrelevant to my mother’s ethnicity. But people still were upset. Because I might have been inappropriately cleaving to joining an ethnicity which I must respect but could not belong to. (Never mind that for a while I was acquainted with Russel Means and Dennis Banks, people who the women in this group might never have even heard of. Dennis once wrote me: “We really don’t mind being called Indians. What’s important to us is how we are treated.)
But Lefties have their rules. It is an exclusive club, this “We love all the many various people’s of the world” club.
Unless you wept copiously when Hillary lost to Donald, unless you proudly wore your vagina hat to rallies that expressed contempt for a patriarchial society that did not respect women, unless you kept up with each and every meme and were willing to abandon the philosophy behind the “meme of all memes” that had feasted on your grey matter just ten days earlier, you were suspect.
Whether you knew it or not, your days among liberal friends were numbered.
Because they were keeping score.
To be on the good side of the score keepers was difficult. If you professed allegiance to some bit of thinking, with its specialized language, and that bit of thinking and its language had been revised two days earlier, but you spoke the old phrases, you got a demerit.
If you joined in enthusiastically with some association of a down trodden group of society, you had to tread carefully. If you were inappropriately enthused about the activity, you were seen as appropriating that culture, which was a no-no as seriously contemptible as actual hatred and violence toward that group.
It ends up being like this:
“Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles′′ -Dostoievski
And also this:
As @CarolJoy mentioned, many Native Americans no longer have obvious facial traits that distinctly reflect their heritage. In the early ’80’s I worked my way through college as a firefighter during the summers for the Bureau of Land Management on the Blackfoot and Shoshone Indian reservation in Blackfoot, Idaho. It was a depressing res town with some great people and many alcoholics (with nice pickups). My counterpart on the Indian firefighting team was a crew boss with a real authentic Indian name of….Red Miller. Great guy that looked like his Irish father and not a lick like a Native American. The difference between then and now is that we all (especially Red) had a respect for the others ability and could laugh at the white boys confusion about the Indian name of Red Miller.
My Native American renters, one Kiowa and one Comanche, had a whole routine of jokes and stereotypes about people from other tribes.
Buddy, a Comanche, said he knew white people weren’t bad because they made electricity and Chevys.
I once attended a “Rolling Thunder” celebration of life, nature and more life.
A man in the parking lot asked me to carry some items from his car trunk to the back stage. I mentioned how excited I was to be at the gathering and how I hoped I would meet Rolling Thunder. (There were around 2500 people expected to be in the auditorium.)
The guy grinned at me, but as I walked away he stopped to talk with someone he knew.
Other of RT’s friends and entourage took the stage before he did. When Rolling Thunder finally went on stage, there stood the man from the parking lot, who I had judged to be of Eastern European descent.
Silly you – no one knows more about native beliefs and preferences than a mostly white women’s group.
Yesterday I was being tailgated by a white woman in a Prius with a Biden-Harris bumper sticker. I said to my wife “I am everything that woman hates: I’m white, I have a gun, I’m driving a big truck, I vote Republican….” My wife said “Isn’t she white, too?” I said “There’s nothing a white progressive hates more than other white people…”