feminindigenous

[feminindigenous]

CH. 1 - The Challenge of Talking to White People About Racism

As my blog description says, I am multi-racial. My father is Chicano and Akimel O’odham and mother is Norwegian, Swedish, and German or in the context of this discussion, white. The point of this post is to examine the racial biases and prejudices I hold within myself as a result of being mixed while being raised by white family in northern New Mexico. 

I am currently reading White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, a white author and sociologist (a highly recommended read). I had originally chose this book because I had wanted to learn why discussions surrounding race and privilege are so hard to have with certain family members of mine. Family members I love but who I struggle to feel connected to because our views in today’s social/political/racial climate don’t always coincide. I was searching for ways to reach and teach those I love before I was faced with having to cut ties for moral reasons. And perhaps I am still searching, but for right now I’ve realized that I cannot ask of my family that which I am not willing to do myself. So here I am intentionally examining the social conditions I have internalized my whole life.

I want to reflect on two common western ideologies: individualism and objectivity. Individualism is the concept that we are each unique and stand apart from those even within our own social groups, while objectivity suggests that it is possible to be free of all bias (which is humanly impossible). Its this idea of individualism that harms the overall conversation because it suggests that group memberships such as race, class, or gender are irrelevant to the opportunities we receive. It contributes to the problematic “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” stance that a lot of white people hold onto. 

Now, I bring these up because I am guilty of participating in both individualism and objectivity. As a multi-racial woman of color, I often think that my experiences and background make me unique and that I am more deserving of certain things than others, especially when I work hard for it. I was also raised to brag that “I don’t see color or orientation” because I was raised around queer/people of color. My objectivity came from a place of good intentions, a place that ruled out hate for things such as race, gender, or class. A place that while problematic, made it easier to grasp why my objectivity was harmful. I don’t claim objectivity anymore because not only does it harm my other identities, it harms people I love and the people around me. My individualism also makes it possible for me to accept that while I have marginalized identities, I was raised in a white family and although I have lived in poverty, dealt with racism, sexism, and prejudice, I do benefit in part from my upbringing and the color of my skin.

Racism and white fragility are hard topics to talk about, especially to white people. But in having these uncomfortable conversations, we are able to challenge the racial status quo and therefor move in the direction of change. And change starts on an individual level. 

[feminindigenous]

[feminindigenous]

9. Letting Go

[feminindigenous]

8. Cervicide

Dear Gloria,

This poem made me really sad. It was like watching my childhood pass before my eyes, just like Prieta watched Venadita. Cervicide is a sad story and metaphor about the loss of innocence and the murdering of one’s self which is a common theme throughout your book. Prieta found Venadita after her mother was shot and began raising her. But having wild game is against the law and so to keep her family safe, she killed Venadita, never taking her eyes from the poor creature whose life she took in desperation. It’s like speaking Spanish in America. It used to be against the rules and is still seen as unacceptable in our divided country. Many people killed that part of themselves, the Spanish speaking part, to assimilate into society to support their families. Additionally, women are also used to that self cervicide, of turning off the parts of themselves not seen as good enough. Women have to be soft and obedient and careful and pure but when you live a hard life and witness intense things, those soft and pure parts start to disappear. This poem speaks volumes and to different levels of oppression within our society.

[feminindigenous]

7. Towards a New Consciousness

Dear Gloria,

The more I read your words, the more validated I feel and that is something I’ve missed for a long time. You speak of intersectionality at least in a sense. Where cultures collide and one who is multiracial may feel out of place. But you also speak of male and female dynamics and hierarchical male dominance, especially related to race. All of these worlds are at the center of who I am and how I view myself. I am Native American, Chicana, and Norwegian. And I am a woman with disabilities. I am too white to be Native, too Native to be Chicana, and too Chicana to be white. I’m too emotional, too weak, too heavy to carry. I live in my own world, drifting from one to another. Yet I can’t help but to think myself unique. I have a million different experiences, seen through multiple lenses. I am a feminist and a rebel and yet I hold onto y culture, my heritage so tightly. I love the metaphor of being Indigenous like corn, bred for resilience, growing thick stalks and strong roots for survival. I have never identified with words more poetic...

I also want to reflect on the concept of Machismo being an Anglo invention. I have had other classes that have helped to explain the race/gender/class/sexuality hierarchical dominance that benefits white males in society who are basically bullies insecure with themselves that then leads to the shaming of other races/cultures/genders, etc. They also explained the Anglo invention of reverse racism to then give a name to the reciprocation of treatment and discrimination they had served beforehand. I guess it’s not surprise that Machismo is also an Anglo coined term. The term has come to mean so much more now. It’s now a categorization for someone who abuses women and substances, who is suppressed and angry and tough.

And now we fight for equality on all fronts.

[feminindigenous]

6. The Path of the Black and Red Ink

Dear Gloria,

I have to agree with your take on Western culture as copying or “borrowing” tribal art and culture. Not only is cultural appropriation a big deal, but since colonization, Western societies just take and take and take. They cherry-pick the cultures they fought so hard to eradicate and they’ve taken our clothing, our practices, and our artwork for themselves. “They want our culture but they don’t want us” is not only true for Indigenous people’s but also those of our siblings fleeing from South America and Mexico for a better chance at life. America is so quick to put up a wall between us and them even though they wouldn’t have Dia de Los Muertos, Cinco de Mayo, or tortillas, tamales, and posole without a culture that is not their own. Every Halloween I’m bombarded with images of people in Native American “costumes”, sporting headbands and headdresses we either never wore or earned by honor and bravery. In these times and also when I am blocked, I light some sacred white sage and sweet grass and smudge myself, maybe sprinkle tobacco as an offering to the Spirits and offer fresh food to the Kachina pictured above. It centers me as well as opens my mind and my heart, especially when I am scattered and anxious about things I cannot change. She is my most cherished artwork, a piece of my ancestral home and my family and never to be exploited at the hands of a white person who thinks my cultural practices are “just so cool.”

[feminindigenous]

5. How To Tame A Wild Tongue

Dearest Gloria,

“Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.” Another way to stomp out that which ties us to our culture, that which makes us unique. Another form of silence. My wild tongue is a product of my female-dominant upbringing. Being raised to form strong opinions and question authority, I always seemed to get into trouble. I’ve been viewed as disrespectful, disobedient, too curious, often by male figures. However, my anger towards language discourse comes from a different side of me. Not one that seeks to challenge the male narrative but one that questions the predominantly white narrative. The lost part of me, the indigenous part of me. I’m angry because while English is a colonizer language, so is Spanish. And both languages have taken over our indigenous heritage, our Native ancestry. While I identify as Raza and understand a dialect of Chicano Spanish regional to Northern New Mexico, Spanglish, and Pachuco, I’ve lost my ties to my ancestral language. I’ve been raised in a white-washed (Spaniards = European) society, driven to extinguish that in all of us which is Indigenous. I cannot take pride in my language because it has been stolen from me. However, although my language is gone, my voice is still strong: Native, Chicana, white. I will no longer be silenced.

[feminindigenous]

4. The Coatlicue State

I awoke to a sharp pain in my back. Piercing. Painful. I could feel it’s cold, scaly body pressed against mine. I was paralyzed, voice but a whisper. I could barely call out for help. I tried pulling its tail, pinching it’s belly, anything for it to let me go. I could feel it’s fangs buried in my back, jaw locked, filling me with venom. Weak. I’m growing weaker. As the venom takes over my body, I can no longer feel it’s excruciating bite, but a paralyzed calm takes over. Everything gets warm and I wonder how amazing it would feel to give up. Give into the venom. Let the serpent win. “Let the wound caused by the serpent be cured by the serpent.” I remember that the serpent is me. All my fears, all my doubts, all my judgments, bound into one writhing, hungry beast. I find my will. My strength returns and I sit up. Reaching behind me, I shove a finger down it’s throat and it releases me. We stare at each other. My light brown eyes looking into it’s vibrant green ones. Acknowledgement gleams in both our eyes. And it slithers into the night, as silent as it came.

In a way, I believe this was a vision of my own Coatlicue state. My fears and mental illness transformed into one poisonous serpent, coming back to devour me. The paralysis, a metaphor to my own internal suffering. My inability to look within, to let myself crumble to pieces, to allow myself to drop the mask I wear in defense every day. In truth, I am scared. I am worrisome. I am caged and closed off in an attempt to protect my fragile inner self. This dream, my own travesía.

[feminindigenous]

3. Entering Into The Serpent

Dear Gloria,

Coatlalopeuh is the creator goddess I wish I’d learned about growing up. I knew her as La Virgin de Guadalupe, and later as Tonantzín. I loved learning of Coatlalopeuh’s origin and how male society cherry picked aspects about her to create the modern Roman Catholic culture that still enforces the puta/virgin dichotomy today. Male-dominated culture literally split her in two. They separated the light and the dark that inhabits us all to make extremely oppressive and, in my opinion, unrealistic standards for women to live up to. For me, Coatlalopeuh split into Tonantzín and Coatlicue, and Coatlicue became the feathered serpent, the shadow-beast inside. The inner rebel that refuses authority and male domination. The separation of Coatlalopueh pits women against one other, creating the divide of us vs. them, putas vs. virgins, good vs. evil/sexual, when it takes both sides to be a complete woman. Furthermore, I disagree with the claim that Guadalupe symbolizes ethnic identity, because I personally feel like Guadalupe was created by a male-dominant society to further disregard Indigenous religions and egalitarian ideals and in-turn create a class of women who harshly judge one another... I also found it interesting, the interpretation of the fall of the Aztecs, not because of Malinche’s affair with Cortés, but because the ruling elite imposing class and gender roles on the common people.

[feminindigenous]

2. Movimiento de Rebeldia y Las Culturas que Traicionan

Dear Gloria,

“Not me who sold out my people, but they me.” These words keep replaying in my mind. I’d forgotten the events that played a hand in how women, especially, indigenous women, have become so oppressed and shunned. The internalized racism, especially from Chicanx communities towards people of Native descent, stemmed from a brown skinned woman. La Malinche is a name I’ve heard many times to describe women who are comfortable in their bodies and sexuality, women who are promiscuous, women who are honest without fear of prosecution, women who rebel against cultural norms. It’s meant to be offensive, a woman who doesn’t respect her people or culture or traditions. It’s rooted in our Chicana culture that Indigenous women can’t be trusted, that we’re good for little more than sex and violence. It fuels the cultural tyranny and homophobia that plague our society, that work to keep women subservient and controlled. Looking back now, I can identify the patterns, the way my stepfather and cousins were raised, the way my great grandmother was treated and the life she lived underneath my great grandfather, the freedom she never had, the strict and defined roles she lived out until her last days. It makes me wonder how many of our grandparents wouldn’t be together if our grandmothers were raised knowing they deserved better, knowing they could rely on and find strength in one another, the support I see amongst women today. Even today, women aren’t protected. We have to stand together and advocate for one another and pick each other up. We have to raise children with the lenses we fought so hard to acquire. We’ve been colonized, sterilized, silenced, and invisible for far too long. Coatlalopeuh’s light burns in us now, making its way into the world we inhabit today. And it’s changing everything.

[feminindigenous]

1. The Homeland, Atzlan

Dear Gloria,

I really resonated with the concept of a border culture. In the book, you’re talking specifically of where two worlds meet and the imaginary borders that divide people but simultaneously create this world in-between. Being Native American, Chicana, and white, this speaks to me on many levels because, I too, live in the world in-between. I’ve never fully fit into any of the three boxes I check off. I’m too white to be Native, too Native to be Chicana, and too Chicana to be white and this has forced me to create my own space on the edge of all three where I take pieces from each to make something new, different, unknown. As an individual encompassing three different races, the tensions I feel and the internalized racism I experience on all fronts is astounding. The idea of “us vs. them” is confusing and disheartening because where would I fit? Regardless of which I choose, I’m still denying more than half of who I am. And because of white superiority, the Gringo has succeeded in allowing me to be raised separate from my cultures and identities, to the point where trying to claim them now brings extreme bouts of imposter syndrome. But this is my home.