Mood: Meditative / Reflective .: Power Inside :.
Listening to: .: Nas – If I Ruled the World :.
Reading: .: Everything but the Burden :.
Watching: .: History of WWII Ships :.
Aloha!
Pagoda had a show at a Coffeehouse tonight, and it rocked. It really helped us a WHOLE lot to play quieter. Lox said it right in practice: if we can’t hear each other talk while we play; we’re too loud. It really keeps us together. I feel like if we practice like that; we can rock out on stage and be together.
I’ve been asked to speak at the Baccalaureate, here are my rough thoughts I sent them tonight.
It’s VERY rough.
I grew up on a Native American reservation, and though I had said the prayer of repentance when I was 4, I hadn’t really known what it meant. I was involved in all kinds of spiritual darkness; being plagued by drink and smoking and sex. Although I wasn’t accepted by the Native American children I grew up with; I wanted to be. I wanted to fit in, to belong; just to have a friend who liked me. It was not like growing up in the States; I couldn’t just find a new group of friends who I clicked better with; there was only one group. And because of the colour of my skin; I didn’t fit.
I learned to be just like them. I fit in perfectly, in the way I acted, talked, dressed and even thought. And I was close to taking on the rest of the negative aspects.
It wasn’t until my confirmation class at the age of 13 that I realized that what I was living and what I said my faith was were two different things. At that same time; I had also been coming more in touch with God. He began speaking to me through dreams; and while I was out alone in the Forest. He began showing me he had larger plans for me, that might not end with me living at home. That there were more things that he wanted me to learn.
And slowly, I began to realize that the colour of my skin was not a mistake. On one hand; it had kept me from being accepted too much. On the other hand, I had also proved that I could fit in. The elders of the community had welcomed me and treated me as their own. In once sense, I did belong. And they, with my parents, made me realize God wanted to talk with me and for me to love him. It led me to be baptized and led me to begin encouraging those around me to see what I saw.
It took me until my senior year to be confident about my Naskapi heritage. I held it back, sitting through classes where I heard racial slurs; some unintentional some intentional; towards minority students.
I used to get me angry; hearing my culture walked all over… treated like a savage beast conquered by the European Americans while they “Tamed the West”. I cringed when they named their things Native American names; using the names of chiefs and of tribes for their automobiles, lakes, rivers, towns, and sports teams; and yet treated anyone who looked like a Native like dirt. They were classified as drunk weed growers who only wanted money from casinos.
Slowly, I realized I wasn’t the only one who was being marginalized and hurt. I sat in the back, and saw African Americans, Asian Americans and Latin Americans hurt by comments they had received. I saw subcultures of the white American society get bashed for they way the looked, dressed, and what music they listened to. And I looked at my own race; and realized I was the only one. I didn’t see any other single person who understood how I grew up; on a reservation, speaking Naskapi, hunting, trapping, fishing, living in the bush.
Then I looked at myself. I was white.
I could not relate to the white person; I did not grow up speaking my main language as English. I didn’t grow up with their TV shows, their music, their way of life.
But they trusted me. When I spoke in the classroom, I discovered people listened to me. For the first time, rather than being a handicap, my colour was suddenly a privilege. I discovered that I was able to argue for the same things my minority friends argued for; but when I spoke, the white people listened.
I began studying the history of the United States. I studied how the slave trade had started with Native Americans who had been taken prisoner and forced to run their own plantations. And when they refused and died out; the Europeans began bringing in new forms of savage labour. I read about the civil rights movement. I read about the history of the Latin American; the Mexican and Cuban immigrants. I read about the Civil War, the 2 world wars, the Vietnam war, the first Iraqi war. I read about the Chinese railroad labour in the west.
And I discovered I was able to speak about it and people listened. I discovered that though it took a while for the minorities to get used to me fighting on their side; once they realized who I was, I was welcomed. I also saw that each minority group was fighting against marginalization, but they each were fighting on their own. There was no unity, and sometimes the groups ended up disagreeing with themselves; halting their progress.
I was the middle ground. I was Native American. I had no representatives but myself. I was part of a race of ghosts, and their specters cried out that I had to do something to prevent what happened to them from happening again. I appeared white. I had a voice, and it had the power to talk to people who related to my colour without scaring them, and without having them feel like they were being attacked.
And that is where I find myself today. I not only fought for injustice and promotion of equality and understanding on campus, but I also began designing half the stuff you see around campus, and worked for the Student computer services.
These three things combined landed me a job in Harrisburg; teaching Art and Computers to young minority kids at a inner city Christian middle school that runs on all on donations.
Aight. I have to sleep, I’m going to help out with the International Banquet tomorrow.