Sherman Alexie dropped out of the sky and bitch-slapped me out of the "Myth of the Vanishing Race" with The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven sometime in 1995 or '96 while I was a student at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in Olympia, WA. While the book was an assigned reading, it was more like an exploding dose of cognitive dissonance followed by a paradigm shift, leading to questions, leading to more cognitive dissonance and so forth.
Instead of hearing/seeing/reading about Native Americans, Mr Alexie was himself speaking on the page, through the book in my hands, his words and ideas invading my mind. I'm trying to express why and it is all mixed up with what happened later and is happening now. I think I will skip ahead and talk about Mr Alexie being the keynote speaker at my graduation from TESC in 1996, a speech I still think about from time to time. He spoke about the importance of knowing about your ancestors and knowing where they came from before you try to understand others, especially if you were white, which my friend and I had stenciled in Celtic knotwork on our graduation hats as an expression of our fascination with our Irish/Scottish/Welsh ancestors and so we were happy with that idea. He also spoke of being at the Vatican in Rome and being in lines with all these white people snapping photos and otherwise acting like the church was Disneyland. He said it was at this moment that he realized why white people couldn't respect Native-American sacred spaces, because they couldn't even respect their own. It struck me as true at the time and something I still think about when I am in various spaces.
In the following years I was lucky enough to see him speak at a couple of other venues. Now I am thinking of the scenes from the movie The Business of Fancydancing where Seymour the author is dealing with white people at bookstores and laughing at myself. Alright, well it was probably much better for me than it was for him, yet I did appreciate his willingness to be frank and not let us off the hook as an audience or a nation.
Friends that have seen him speak in recent years have said he has gotten more intense and opinionated, yet perhaps he is just in a place where he can express these ideas more like he wants to- he doesn't need to be Seymour for us anymore.
I love the way you described your revelation....(bitch-slapped)This is much how I have felt reading Shermans work and other reading about civil rights. As a women of color who was raised "white" I am now only realizing how this (my parents) idea/plan for me and my sisters, to remove our mexican heritage from us as much as possible in order to blend better has had damaging affects on me/us. Who am I ?!?!!!!
ReplyDeleteI am realizing that this plan was part of validating any negative thoughts and feelings I had felt about having brown skin. I am now just realizing that having my parents give us the message that they wanted us to be "American" also said to us "Mexican is not as good" so all this time I didn't even realize until recently how that fed into my low self esteem. Somehow I started to believe I was not good enough or wouldnt' fit in or that I simply didn't deserve it. Microagressions within my own home, amazing huh? Sherman has inspired me to come out of the closet...Hello, I am Mexican, I am proud and I am here to stay!
Ouch, to put it mildly. Have you read about "Internalized oppression"? Once you take the negative crap from the dominant society and enforce/impose it on yourselves, your oppressors don't have to work as hard, you keep yourself down for them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, that crap can be undone once you realize it and work towards the opposite- loving yourself as you are, which it sounds like you are doing.
Welcome back you beautiful brown Mexican woman!!!
I don’t believe Caucasians don’t respect themselves just because they took pictures at Vatican or acting like the church was Disneyland. This is all based on an individual’s opinion. We know Vatican is a holy place, but is camera forbidden at Vatican? If I go to Vatican, I would also snap photos, but if I’m told not to then I would stop, but that doesn’t mean I’m been disrespectful.
ReplyDeleteIn America, people in general are more outgoing and free-spirited. There is nothing wrong with that if the majority shares the same characteristics. If we'd compare manners from different major countries around the world, I would say Japanese has the strictest manner. So what is the standard? Is there a standard? Americans may think that Japanese have too much manners and Japanese may think Americans have no manner. My point is we shouldn’t compare between cultures, but we must respect other cultures and follow their rules if we choose to be with or in that culture.
Jackson Hu
Hi Jackson,
ReplyDeleteYour points are fair, yet I think Mr Alexie meant caucasians not respecting Native American sacred spaces was the problem and he realized they didn't know how to respect their own sacred spaces, so they wouldn't know how to respect those of other people.
Can we notice/think/discuss cultural differences without judging? I mean how do we understand our own if we do not do some kind of comparison with others? I think we can respectfully look at cultures, yet we need to be careful too.
What about thinking about the specific culture in terms of social norms? In the western culture (whites) it s the norm to take pictures of the things/people/places we value and want to remember. When we show people the pictures or look at them and reflect, then in fact we are showing respect. A society or a culture that does not value pictures could view this as disrespectful as it is out of their social norm
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting that the discussion shifted towards "American's" when in actuality what was said was "white's." To me "White's" could mean Irish, Russian, Australian, etc. all of which are clearly not "American's" and all of whom have different norms and values with in their own cultures.
Is there any room for the idea that when you visit a sacred space, you focus on the Creator or whomever you pray to and not on photos? Sure a culture or group of people can say it is just fine to take pictures in a sacred space, it doesn't mean they aren't being disrespectful.
ReplyDeleteIt also doesn't mean they can go to non-Western people's spaces, act the same way and think it is acceptable.
Terminology does seem to be a personal thing. When I say "whites", I mean people who are considered white who live in the USA and "Americans" means everyone who lives here.
I consider people from Ireland, Russia and Australia to be Irish, Russian and Australian, not whites. Sure they have white skin and if they moved to the US they or their descendants could be white, yet to me white as a racial category was created in North America, so that is where I apply it in this context.
I think sacred sites are places of peace and power, which require us to slow down, respect our ancestors and deepnen our inside world. Sacred spaces are not places that we should make fun of, and proper manners are needed regardless of how- a person usually behaves.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mr. Alexie pointed out an issue that should be dealt with seriously because it was not a single white person but a group of people acting disrespectfully.
This just reminds me of a story that I learned in junior high. It was written by a famous Chinese writer Lu Xun in the early 20th century. When he was studying in Japan as an international student, he watched a clip on the Japan-Russia War: a group of Chinese circled around, watching a Chinese detective being hanged by the japanese imperial army but none of them were angry or sad, only amused. Lu Xun was shocked and then realized that a culture is dead unless its people are aware of their situation and react appropriately, and this incented him to change major to be a writer, and used his word to cure people's spirit.
That was a depressing time, and I think cultural awareness is important.
How I wish Mr. Alexie will give us a presentation at Cascadia!
ReplyDeleteYou captured what I was trying to say much better than I did, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the story of Lu Xun. Now I am curious to learn more about how he went about using words to cure people's spirits.
They are trying to get Mr Alexie to come to Tulalip to celebrate with us at the end of this community read in late March. Hopefully he will come and you can hear him in person!