you’ve become so
damaged, that when
someone wants to
give you, what you
deserve
you have no idea,
how to respond.
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Gays and Lesbians Respected in Traditional Indian Societies
Tim Giago: Gays and lesbians respected in traditional society
Monday, December 10, 2012
Filed Under: Opinion
More on: marriage, supreme court, tim giagoNotes from Indian Country
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)
© Unity South DakotaCan the government refuse marriage and federal benefits to gays and lesbians? Those are the questions before SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). They should make a ruling in June, 2013.
In the New York case the survivor of a same-sex marriage is challenging the justices to decide whether the federal government can deny legally married same-sex couples the benefits that go with marriage. For most married couples the benefits of filing joint tax returns and receiving survivors benefits from Social Security are a given; but for same-sex couples they are prohibited under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
There are currently 41 states where same-sex marriage is against the law. In California the voters placed Proposition 8 on the ballot and brought a halt to same-sex marriage. Attorneys Ted Olson and David Bois are challenging this law. They argue that marriage is a fundamental right and that by excluding gay couples from marriage the law denies them the equal protection of the law.
Human nature does not curse of favor any one race of people. There have been homosexuals in every nation that has ever existed on this earth, that is with the possible exception of Iran where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood at a podium not so very long ago and proclaimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran. He was greeted with raucous laughter for this understatement.
Among the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota tribes, homosexuals were called winkte (wink-tay). If you look the word up in the Lakota Dictionary, even in the “New Comprehensive Edition” the one compiled and edited by Eugene Buechel and Paul Manhart, both Catholic priests serving on the Indian boarding school missions in South Dakota, you will see that they were not able to separate their Catholic religion from the reality of the word.
Their dictionary translates winkte to mean; a hermaphrodite, a plant or animal having both male and female reproductive organs. These Jesuit priests and many who followed them to the Indian missions were too detached from the real world to face the facts about homosexuals and it maybe it’s because there were so many among their own ranks. If the subject was ever broached with their Indian students I’m sure it was beaten to death as a mortal sin of the first order.
To speak of winkte’s today in Indian country draws mixed emotions. There are those who accept it as a genuine occurrence among the Indian people and those who deny it. When I wrote about it several years ago the reactions were mixed. One very old friend of mine, now deceased, named Dr. Beatrice Medicine, a Standing Rock Hunkpapa, fiercely challenged my interpretation of the word. Medicine was one of those rare birds; an Indian anthropologist. She knew her history and she knew her facts.
That’s what happens when a culture has been all but destroyed by religion and modernity. All of the religious orders that came west to convert the Indians, religions from Catholics to Mormons, all had a variation of beliefs that saw nothing good about homosexuality. I have only the words of modern medicine or holy men and women to describe to me how gay and lesbians played a role in the ancient cultures of Native Americans. Even using the words Native American in this context is exasperating because there was no “America” in the early cultures and traditions of the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere, hence no Native American.
To attempt to define gay and lesbian in today’s Indian country is like trying to describe the colors in a shirt that has been left hanging on the clothes line in the hot sun for too many days. The color is all but gone and every effort to bring back that color creates a false image.
And so I will take the word of the modern medicine men and women who claim that homosexuality was a known and respected segment of the traditional Indian culture.
And like everything else in this society, the laws about to be enacted by SCOTUS will also have an impact upon the people of Indian country. I know many gays and lesbians that are Lakota, Navajo, Hopi, Choctaw, Ojibwe, or of many other tribes in America, Canada and Alaska. They also have fought fiercely for the right to be accepted and for the right of equal protection under the law.
The winkte, according to those medicine men and women who purport to know, were a respected segment of the Lakota culture and in fact were highly revered. They base their opinions upon the oral traditions of a people without a written language, but with an oral history proven to be factual time and again by modern historians.
It would be highly improbable for the SCOTUS to accommodate the oral history of Native Americans in their arguments, but then again, why not? After all, our culture is much older than that of all the newcomers to our shores and one to be respected and not feared.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991. He was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at Unitysodak1@knology.net
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» Louis Riel - Far From Being a Madman - By Tony Belcourt
Shame on the Globe and Mail for its low and disrespectful jab at Louis Riel in its November 16th column A MOMENT IN TIME-NOV. 16, 1885, LOUIS RIEL HANGED While acknowledging Riel as a “founding father of Manitoba”, the writer (Michael Posner) goes on to say “mercurial political firebrand, messianic apostle of native and Métis interests, and arguably half-mad… (emphasis added)”.
Half mad? Consider this – Louis Riel led a Provisional Government that negotiated the terms of entry of all of Rupert’s Land and the North-west into Confederation in 1870 – a land mass that includes all of the waters in Canada that flow into the Hudson’s Bay… all of northern Quebec, northern Ontario and present day Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and BC up to the Great Divide and into the Northwest Territories.
Riel’s actions not only forced the government of Sir John A. Macdonald to the table, they resulted in amending Canada’s Constitution so that the newly minted Province of Manitoba would join the other provinces on an equal footing within the federation. Riel was not only a founding father of Manitoba. He was a founding father of Confederation!
This all started because the Hudson’s Bay Company sold Rupert’s Land to the Dominion of Canada in 1869 for $1 million and in the summer of 1870, months before the official transfer was to take place, sent out survey crews to the Red River area to prepare the territory for settlement of people from Ontario.
Called by the Métis to intervene, Riel stepped on the survey’s chain and said, “You go no further”. A Métis National Committee was established and forces led by Riel blocked the entry of Macdonald’s lieutenant-governor-designate from entering the territory. John Weinstein, in his book Quiet Revolution West – The Rebirth of the Métis Nationalism wrote this account:
“On 7 December, a group from Red River’s Pro-Canadian minority responding to MacDougall’s call to arms were forced to surrender to Riel’s forces. The next day, in the absence of a clear authority, the Métis National Committee declared itself a provisional government…”
A committee was formed to draft a List of Rights. Quoting from Weinstein’s book:
“Reflecting the three primary concerns of the Métis – political status, language, and land – the List of Rights called for the admission of their territory as a province into Confederation; for its representation in the Senate and the House of Commons; for the recognition of both English and French as the official languages of the new province; and for provincial control for public lands.”
To understand the brilliance of the negotiating positions of Riel, one must consider the demographic and political reality at the time. What was to become the province of Manitoba in 1870 was a postage-sized area of present day Manitoba extending only from the Canada-US border to Lake Winnipeg and from Ontario to Brandon.
The Métis dominated the territory along the Red River at the time; about 10,000 French-speaking Métis and 500 or so English speaking half-breeds and a smattering of English speaking settlers from Ontario.
Riel was well schooled; he was smart, but also wise. The provision that official languages of the province be both English and French was to ensure that the language rights of the English-speaking minority would be protected. He knew that the lands occupied by Métis families needed constitutional protection, which resulted in Sections 31 & 32 of the Manitoba Act, 1970. He knew that the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick were guaranteed a minimum of two seats in the Senate and four in the House of Commons. He wanted no less for Manitoba. The Métis also saw this agreement as their “treaty” and included a provision that “treaties shall be concluded between Canada and the different Indian tribes of the province of Assiniboia…”. This resulted in all the numbered treaties in western Canada – Treaties 1 to 11.
We now know that Sir John A. had absolutely no intention of fulfilling the obligations of Sections 31 and 32, resulting in a huge swindle of Métis lands. That Canada failed to fulfill its constitutional obligations to the Métis is subject of a case before the Supreme Court of Canada that will be decided very soon.
If anything, far from being “half-mad”, Riel could be faulted for being naïve. He was elected three times to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Provencher. But, because of Ontario’s $5000 bounty on his head at the time, he was never able to take his seat. For his safety, he fled to the United States where later he would be come a US citizen.
The fate of the Métis at Red River was similar:
“Confronted by a mass influx of hostile Anglo-Ontarians frequently squatting on and gaining title to their traditional lands caught up in the red tape of Ottawa’s chaotic land grant scheme, the Métis moved on; their proportion of Manitoba’s population dropped from 83 percent in 1870 to 7 percent in 1886. Two-thirds of the Métis people moved out of the province of Manitoba, most between 1876 and 1884. This period of exodus coincided with the enactment of a serious of statutes by the Manitoba provincial legislature (where the loss of population had eliminated the Métis majority position) facilitating the sale of the interests of Métis children in the 1.4 million-acre land grant and imposing provincial taxes on lands prior to the grant.” (Quiet Revolution West – John Weinstein)
In 1885, the Métis, having settled along the Saskatchewan River, were soon facing a similar influx of Anglo-Ontarians. While the Métis faced growing encroachment on their communities, they and their neighboring First Nations’ people were becoming increasingly destitute because of a mass slaughter of the buffalo – a measure designed to force “Indians” to reservations, under the control and dependent on the government.
Believing that their success in 1870 could be repeated in their new territory, the Métis sought out Riel at his home in Montana and convinced him to return to lead them again.
Sadly for the Métis, the circumstances were much different. The Métis again formed a Provisional Government and sought negotiations with Canada. Macdonald scoffed at the notion and sent in the troops. The Battle of Batoche ensued with Canada’s forces led by General Frederick Middleton who had the resources of his army – and the Gatling Gun. Out of ammunition, down to using rusty nails, the Métis fled and Riel surrendered.
The trial of Louis Riel was a farce. Although the jury recommended clemency he was nevertheless sentenced to hang for high treason, the only Canadian citizen ever hanged for this charge.
Riel’s speech at his trial was eloquent, once again dispelling any notion of a man who was half-mad. In future, on November 16th as we continue to celebrate and commemorate his life, rather than finding ways to belittle him, those in the media will find a way to recognize his legacy in an honorable way, in the way he wished and deserves:
“I am glad that the Crown have proved that I am the leader of the half-breeds in the North-West. I will perhaps be one day acknowledged as more than a leader of the half-breeds, and if I am I will have an opportunity of being acknowledged as a leader of good in this great country.”
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» On Anti-Bullying Campaigns, LGBT Youth of Color Suicide, and Why I Never Supported Spirit Day - By Spectra
I didn’t sign into Facebook that morning. I knew what I’d see; a timeline of status updates and cropped purple photos for Spirit Day; a timely performance of empathy. I knew, too, that my Facebook feed, practically segmented into Lists, including one for “Nigerian”, “College” and “Queer” would vary in hue, with barely any purple love coming from the Nigerian feed, and my white, queer, progressive community in Boston leading the way. I wanted to have nothing to do with it. And I needed to clear my head. So, I got dressed, grabbed my gym bag and headed out.
The train ride on the way to the gym was the worst. I remember being sandwiched between two white women, both wearing varying shades of purple; one, a neck scarf, the other a hat. As I sat squished between them, one fiddled away with her smartphone while the other scanned the Metro paper, her nose slightly tilted upwards as she peered at the headlines through her glasses. I wondered how I could sit so uncomfortably between symbols of awareness and still feel so invisible. I wondered if they could tell from my baggy jeans, hoodie, and messy frohawk that I used to be one of the kids they were supposed to be supporting that day; that I still remembered the night I tried to take my own life like it was yesterday; that, even as an adult, it was still hard to talk about bullying, both aggressive and the silent kind from my family, without crying.
My eyes glided along the line of people sitting in front of me: purple, no purple, no purple, purple, purple. Which of the purples would look up and notice me? I lowered my head, and turned up the volume of my ipod. I remember the song: “Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan. “When I get older, I will be stronger, they’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag.” I shut my eyes and counted the number of times the train doors opened as I anticipated my stop.
When I stepped in the gym, I sighed a breath of relief. No signs of purple. Just the same older white lady walking steeply up a treadmill, swinging ponytails on the elliptical machines, and a muscular black guy getting in his warm-up run before hitting the weights. I headed downstairs to the basement–the unspoken “men’s area” of the gym– where grunting and clanking bar weights replaced the soundtrack of the morning TV upstairs. I preferred this part of the gym; the men didn’t stare at me for quite as long as the white women did upstairs; muscular black girl, or something. Maybe she’s an athlete. Why aren’t her legs shaved?
During my workout, I’d tried to drown out thoughts about my time at school with angst-filled music (Linkin Park, Eminem, Kelis), but my mind had kept going back to the sensationalism of Spirit Day, how futile it was that everyone would be wearing purple. How would any of this support young people? What would any of this have meant for me when I felt judged and ostracized in school.
I’d been the only girl in my computer science class; no one had reached out to me when they picked group members to tackle problem sets with; the black women’s student group hosted more discussions about “Black Men Dating White Women” and “How to Date Like a Good Christian” than they did anything else; and when I sought support, my racist academic adviser told me she felt I was using my “status as a minority student” and “gay issues” to avoid admitting that I wasn’t smart enough to be at MIT; meanwhile the GSA was filled with queer white students from the theater department, who didn’t understand I had to work on weekends. What good would a campus of purple outfits have done for me then? It was I who had felt invisible, then, and today.
I felt the strain of the weights and my memories weighing me down as I finished my last set, and decided to call it quits for the morning. I grabbed a towel and headed for the locker room, not the men’s one this time. I could never get away with that, not yet. By the lockers, I braced myself for the eyes that would question my presence until they noticed my breasts. Then decided to change in the furthest corner of the room, away from the possibility of interacting with anyone.
As I untied my shoelaces, two white women chatted about an upcoming second date after work. “We probably won’t spend too long at dinner, I told him we had to meet up with the party at 9 for the surprise.” Life for others always seemed so easy, so straight-forward. Even though I’d been living with my girlfriend of two years, she still hadn’t met all of my friends, especially the black girls who claimed to be “cool with it” but never asked about our relationship, or pried too deeply into any part of my personal life for fear of having to feign acceptance via nodding vigorously to everything I said, never uttering a word until I changed the subject. My parents were really good at this. I dreaded pleasant phone calls, intimate conversations filled with sharp silences that pierced my resolve.
The locker room had gone quiet, save for another black girl with shoulder-length pressed hair getting dressed across the room. As I jammed sweaty clothes into my gym bag, my chest tightened with anxiety at heading back out into the world, purple reminders of the silences that had left me feeling ashamed, invisible, and one night, without any hope that I thought it would be easier if I swallowed some pills and left my journals behind for solace, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but mine; that it had become too hard to persist through the world surrounded by so much silence.
I’d been drowning in my thoughts, fighting with the tension I felt between wanting to have a normal day and not focusing so much on the emotions triggered by what the day meant. But then, something special happened. As I began to make my way towards the entrance, I noticed the black girl was now fully dressed, in black pants, a gray jacket, and underneath, a bright purple sweater. She’d caught my gaze, but before I could awkwardly take my eyes away – an instinctive reaction I’d developed after hearing one too many black women profess being uncomfortable around “women like me” (especially in locker rooms), she did something completely unexpected, she smiled at me.
She smiled at me. Me with my awkward, scruffy masculinity in the locker room. Me who’d never imagined that the weight I carried in silences from the diaspora communities I’d once called “home” could be lifted in a simple gesture; a smile that meant I’d been seen.
I smiled back, shyly. Perhaps a tad too widely, as her warmth had caught me off guard, before leaving the locker room. When I stepped outside, I saw purple everywhere, and realized that I was still smiling. All of a sudden, it made sense. What I’d needed during all those times I’d felt bullied and ostracized, wasn’t just a campaign against bullying, but a group of people saying out loud that it was okay to be me; what I needed to believe the night I tried to take my own life, was that it was possible for the communities I loved to see me, and still extend love.
Now, standing under the sun, searching for purple in strangers, the tension I’d been carrying all day melted away. And, in its place, came hope. I thought about the thousands of young people walking through hallways, their heads down out of habit, only to look up and see someone smiling at them. I thought about the assumptions I’d made about the men at the gym, grunting and puffing as they curled 50 pound dumbbells; perhaps they felt invisible as well. I hoped they’d be comforted by the smiles around them. I thought about how much just one smile had meant to me that morning, and how much more it would mean to youth of color all across the country, if they saw so many other older people of color proudly wearing purple as a stand against anti-LGBT bullying, as a stand for Love. I thought of myself, as a masculine of center woman of color, and what my wearing purple could mean to the younger, awkward, lonely version of me.
When GLAAD announced their campaign for Spirit Day that first year, I admit it; I was a cynic. I was part of the group of people that dismissed it as a bandwagon campaign run by white people that didn’t get the complexities faced by LGBT people of color shouldering multiple burdens—as a person of color facing racism from the gay community, and homophobia from our own families and communities. But after my experience at the gym that day; I see both the importance of being seen and being visible.
If you’re anything like me, a campaign to stand against anti-LGBT bullying may not resonate as deeply with you, but I’m hoping that a day dedicated to making sure LGBT youth from all cultural backgrounds know that they have allies in their own community will.
As an attempted suicide survivor, I don’t need a campaign to remind me to fight every day for queer youth. LGBTI Africa, Queer Diaspora, I shine so that you can. Even when you are most doubtful, when you cannot see the light ahead, remember this: You are never alone. Never. I made it. You will too. Stay believing. I love you. Happy Spirit Day. ~Spectra -
» How To: Live With A Crazy Person, By A Crazy Person - By Marianne
1. Believe us when we talk about our craziness.
We know we’re crazy. It isn’t news to us. We know a thing or two about our own issues, and if you’re willing to live with us, it’d be great if you were also willing to talk to us about it and take us seriously. Not every bad mood is because we’re crazy. (Just like not every bad mood is because of PMS.)
There will be times we don’t see our own patterns –- but if you cannot believe us when we talk about our issues, then you make us doubt ourselves. You create an environment where we cannot trust ourselves, and we certainly cannot trust you.
We have to be able to trust you, because we won’t always see our own patterns, won’t always recognize that we’re slipping into mania or depression or paranoia or whatever our thing is. If we trust you, we can believe you if and when you point these moments out.
2. Give us some space.
Yes, we’re being irrational and freaking out –- but since we might not be able to control that reaction, let us have some time to just BE irrational. This might mean giving us literal alone time. Yes, it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for us, too!
Basically, the whole point is that we aren’t in a rational frame of mind. While logic is my jam, I recognize that when I’m super emotional, logic doesn’t really stand a chance. That’s why Spock was so scared of emotion, y’all -– it’s powerful and it makes you do things that don’t make sense.
In the Rock, Paper, Scissors game of our responses, Emotion trumps Logic.
3. Don’t try to fix us.
We aren’t a weekend DIY project. Yeah, we’ve got our problems, but you aren’t going to solve them by telling us to just cheer up or to just stop worrying about it or *fill in the blank with useless advice here*.
This is especially true if we’re in the middle of an episode. I have a hard and fast policy against making major life decisions when I’m in the middle of a depressive phase because I make really bad choices when I’m depressed. If we’re freaking out and you’re pressing us to make decisions that are supposed to “fix” us… It’s not going to go well. And, yeah, I know it makes you feel helpless but it makes a lot of us feel helpless, too.
4. Understand that it isn’t about you.
You aren’t making us depressed or manic or paranoid. We probably like you very much if you are living with us. This just happens sometimes. It’s not going to end well for any of us, no matter how natural the urge to ask, if there’s a constant, “What did I DOOOOOOOOO?” interrogation going on.
Giving us some space is probably going to be good for you, too. Because it sucks to hang out with someone who is in an unbeatable funk. Take the time you need for yourself, too.
5. Understand that it REALLY isn’t about you (at least not in the moment).
Yes, it sounds selfish, but we’re kind of busy being depressed or manic or paranoid. Or whatever. And we’re probably not enjoying it. So while it’s totally and completely understandable that we’re being hard to live with, please understand if we don’t have a lot of sympathy to spare in the middle of a bad day.
That isn’t to say you should completely ignore it if we are jerks. Mentally ill people can DEFINITELY be jerks. But dealing with us is often a matter of timing — if we’re completely irrational, we aren’t going to have the mental resources to deal with how our behavior is making you feel. Give us that space — and then let’s talk it out later. Your feelings are valid and important.
6. Don’t guilt trip us.
The caveat to number 5 there is that when we’re talking about your feelings and what positive steps we can take to not be jerks, you can’t turn that into a post-mania (or whatever) punishment. A lot of mentally ill people feel some pretty overwhelming guilt, just for being the way we are. No one is saying you can’t be angry — but it’s all too easy to get caught in a vicious cycle in this situation.
Communication is the drum I constantly beat with Ed — even when we’re both angry, focusing on communicating instead of just venting (that’s what we have therapists for) helps us keep things productive. I tell him if he pisses me off and he does the same in return — and then we figure out how to fix it.
7. Please offer some reassurance.
A lot of crazy people have gone through life being rejected, at least in part, because of their craziness. A little reminder that you don’t think we’re awful people goes a long way. And if you DO think we’re awful people, well, it might be time to move out.
That’s not the end of the world. I think some folks, no matter how loving and amazing, aren’t good when they live together. You both need to be really honest about whether this is something you can handle.
8. Listen to us without judging us.
Obviously it’s going to be different for everyone, but externalizing thoughts can often serve as a very effective coping mechanism (hence, therapy for half my life). You don’t have to make anything better. You just need to hear us. This goes back to not trying to fix things for us.
I have a terrible habit: I turn every hypothetical into an absolute worst-case scenario. The number of times I have envisioned coming home and finding Ed dead, you don’t even know. It’s morbid and it’s awful, but it’s a coping mechanism, because I feel like I have some kind of plan in place to handle emotional devastation. I do it with other things, too, and sometimes Ed will try to talk me into more reasonable scenarios. That never actually works.
9. Understand that we are probably not going to get “better.”
At least not in any way that means we won’t be crazy anymore. We might learn better coping mechanisms, we might find a more stable routine. But we’re probably never, even with medication, going to be “normal.”
This is a big deal. I’m not trying to scare you or say that crazy people aren’t good long-term partners. But this is definitely not something that is going to ease with age. In fact, a lot of mental illness intensifies with age. If one of our crazy habits is a dealbreaker for you, understand that it is probably never going to go away.
10. Don’t go on about how awful crazy people are.
This should be pretty self-explanatory but just in case it isn’t: don’t tell us we aren’t crazy or try to draw lines between “good” crazy and “bad” crazy. Just don’t.
I know this gets touchy for some people. We’re inundated with talk about “the crazies” and gun control right now. While you and I know that “the mentally ill” are not a monolithic group, that kind of differentiation never gets showcased in the media. And, yeah, every time there’s talk about another “crazy” gunman, I feel unsafe. Because I’m crazy.
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Gap Pulls ‘Manifest Destiny’ Shirts After Outrage
Days later on Monday afternoon McNairy tweeted an apology for his response to the criticism.
The American Indian Movement Southern California say they’re not interested in his apology. Their statement is below:
“The want to be designer for the GAP “Manifest Destiny” T-Shirt has APOLOGIZED AFTER HE responded to criticisms of his Genocide Fashion statement. From his Twitter page: MANIFEST DESTINY. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!” (that is a pretty sick statement people- lets him put through some of the HISTORICAL TRAUMA we have been through as NATIVE PEOPLE- teach the little insensitive freak a lesson)—- NO! YOU NEED A NEED DAY JOB…..YOUR APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED- What you did, and HOW GAP endorsed it is not ACCEPTABLE….MAKE A SHIRT THAT says: FREE LEONARD PELTIER and all Indigenous Political PRISONERS!- PROCEEDS of Merchandise to go to LEGAL DEFENSE and the FAMILIES of OUR HEROS YOUR ENEMIES!
The blog “The Belle Jar” helped the petition go viral. The post deconstructs how Manifest Destiny can still be “felt” today.
Manifest Destiny and the philosophy behind it are responsible for a whole bunch of really terrible things. It was used to justify the Mexican-American War, the War of 1812, and, most appallingly, the Indian Removal Act. Manifest Destiny was used to vindicate the myriad abuses suffered by people of colour at the hands of white North Americans. It’s the philosophy that lead to our continent-wide reservation system , not to mention the residential schools created for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.
The effects of Manifest Destiny can still be felt, in the poverty and degradation suffered by American and Canadian people of colour, and in the deplorable conditions found on many reserves, both here and south of the border. The ideas behind manifest destiny still exist in our white western consciousness, as much as we might be loathe to admit it; they come up every time our (largely white) government asserts that it knows best when it comes to First Nations issues, or every time someone complains about how much freaking money has already been spent on Attawapiskat only to have their community still be in a state of crisis. Manifest Destiny is apparent every time someone chooses to be bigoted and wilfully ignorant about non-white immigrants, or tries to deny the far-reaching effects of racism; it’s apparent in the mindset of all the people who never take a moment to wonder why or how so many white people ended up owning so much fucking land.
Gap Pulls ‘Manifest Destiny’ Shirts After Outrage, Twitter Response - By Jorge Rivas
Nice apology, racist asshole.
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I’m always afraid to write long text posts…
I don’t want to be judged or have someone make fun of me, so I just don’t and I end up feeling guilty about it because I think my blog is shitty and without original content that contains substance.
I don’t know if I’m over thinking or not…
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» An Open Letter To The Fat Girl - By Winona Dimeo-Ediger
Dear Fat Girl,
Last week, I saw an overweight news anchor respond to a bully with such power and confidence that it made me cry. It also made me want to write about my own experience of being a fat girl. I almost wrote this letter to my younger self: a deeply sad, chubby fourth grader who endured horrific taunts from classmates at recess, and even worse abuse in her own head when she’d go home and look in the mirror. But then I realized that there is something about these two little words, “fat” and “girl,” that denotes a shared life experience. If you’ve ever been a fat girl, you know what it’s like to have a body that feels like an enemy, to suppress your own voice because you think it doesn’t count, to be informed with a sigh that you have “such a pretty face,” as if it’s a bit of a tragedy. Here are some things I wish someone would have told me, back when I felt so hopeless.
You don’t have to be funny. You can be funny, and you might find that cracking jokes helps ease and express the pain you keep inside, but don’t feel that your role in the world is limited to the goofy sidekick. The media will show you that this is the only way a fat girl is allowed to be, but trust me: your personality and your relationships are much deeper and more complex than that.
You don’t have to cover up your body. No clothing should be off limits to you simply because your body is a different shape than the women who wear them in the magazines. Fashion can be a fun and powerful way to express yourself, so experiment with colors and fabrics and styles and find out what makes you feel beautiful. Wear whatever you want. Don’t apologize.
On the other side of the equation, you don’t have to strip down to make a statement. I felt guilty for years because I was too shy to wear a bikini.Showing off my round belly at the beach would be so brave, I thought. I could really start a body revolution if I did that! Then one day I realized that I’m naturally a pretty modest person. Forget the stretch marks on my stomach — I’m not sure I would ever feel comfortable in a bikini. And you know what? That’s OK. Fat or thin, your body is yours, and you get to do exactly what you want with it.
Remember that the word “fat” is not, by definition, synonymous with worthlessness, laziness, weakness or lack of intelligence. As an adjective it simply means “having excess flesh.” If you can get to a place where the word doesn’t feel so loaded, that’s good. It will make you less afraid of it, and help you realize that you can simultaneously be fat and smart, driven, beautiful, energetic, confident and unique.
If you can’t unload the word “fat,” that’s OK too. I’m 27, and if someone called me fat today, I would probably cry. But then I’d think about the kind of small-minded person who is threatened by a woman taking up a few extra inches of space in the world, and another one-syllable adjective would come to mind: sad.
Resist the temptation to separate your head from your body. Not literally, but in the way you conceptualize the two. It’s surprisingly easy to start viewing your body as a separate entity from yourself, a distant enemy you are always scheming to diminish or destroy. People will help you by saying things like “You have such a pretty face.” Celebrities will help you by losing weight and telling magazines “I got my body back!” as if their slightly larger body was actually possessed by an alien they valiantly defeated. The reality is your body and your mind and your spirit are so interconnected that you can’t really ever separate them, and in the process of trying, you risk losing yourself.
Don’t demonize or idolize the skinny girls. For years I literally thought my life would be completely perfect if I could take a pair of scissors and trim 20 pounds off my midsection, like a butcher cuts the fat off a roast. Then one night at a party in high school I found a skinny friend of mine crying because a boy had called her a cinnamon stick. My heart broke for her, and I realized that our society’s toxic relationship with weight hurts all women. The only way we can deal with it — and ultimately change it — is by sticking together.
Don’t think that being fat means you deserve less of anything. For years, I believed that carrying around a few extra pounds meant I wasn’t entitled to fulfilling friendships, romantic love, emotional complexities, or even my own opinion. As a fat girl, I thought I had to settle. I kept my cruelest tormentor as one of my closest friends. I didn’t speak up when I knew the answer in class. I didn’t ask for what I wanted in any area of my life. What a waste.
Don’t wait to start your life until you get skinny. Someday you’ll look back on those excuses, whether you’re skinny or not, and realize it wasn’t your weight that held you back, it was cowardice. It makes just as much sense to say, “I’ll apply for my dream job when I lose 10 pounds” as it does to say, “I’ll apply for my dream job when I grow three inches taller.” Stop hiding behind your body. Figure out what you want, and go get it.
Think about the fact that one of the worst things you can be in our society is a fat girl. Think about why people are so insistent that women only take up a very small amount of space. Think about who is making these rules. Think about why we try so hard to follow them. Think about how different the world would be if we took all the energy we expend hating our bodies and trying to shrink ourselves down to an arbitrary size, and just lived the life we wanted to live. Just think about it.
Love,
Winona
