semi-daily journal of my thoughts and feelings(hopefully) On my life living in the Rocky Mountains...
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| rkymtnmusings semi-daily journal of my thoughts and feelings(hopefully) On my life living in the Rocky Mountains... .
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12/03/2009 I am reading a book, Indians in Unexpected Places, be Philip J. Deloria. As I read this book I am aware of the strangest feelings and thoughts percolating up into my consciousness, surprisingly, and apparently, not "long dormant" as I would like to think, attitudes-prejudices-that come from I do-not-know-where...words like "uppity"...thoughts in the back of my mind standing up like the hair on the back of my neck..."over-educated intellectuals strutting their stuff"..."that's what I get for pulling books off the shelf cold"...and the truth is that much of the book speaks to and about people just like me...I am tempted to use an exclamation point after that last "me" because there isn't a punctuation point that denotes "sinking sadness". I want to go into a bit of jag here and talk about my upbringing and positive interaction with-who? -minorities? but I will spare you-for now, and instead take Deloria's lead and examine this "involuntary prejudice" a little bit. Several years ago we went to South Dakota for a vacation, staying in Custer (home of Bedrock and the Flintstones!) While there we took a day trip to Deadwood (the famous) so Shirley could try the slots and we could try the go-cart track, and we happened upon the Bison Interpretive Center, a project that was primarily financed by Kevin Costner to the tune of 5 million dollars ( http://www.storyofthebison.com ). While there we heard a Native American gentleman in authentic 19th century Lakota garb speak on Tatanka and it's importance to the Native American Plains Indian, and afterward he singled out my family and spoke very frankly about his growing up in Hawaii and Southern California, and one of the things he said stuck with me...he talked about the fact that when he was watching T.V. or went to the movies, when he was watching a western, he wanted to be the (always winning) cowboy! That struck me as strange, simply because I remember as a kid that the Indian was, in my opinion, misrepresented as inordinately and impossibly mean. I thought all Native Americans were more like Tonto, The Lone Ranger's sidekick. I always thought Tonto knew more than he let on, purposely played it low key, flew under the radar so as to attract less attention to himself in the white man's world, and I thought that was, although unfair, resourceful and wise under the circumstances. How deep and subtle and pervasive and constant these prejudices must come to us if a "real live Indian" boy would rather be a cowboy than himself, and a young white boy, influenced as he was by Soldier Blue, Walking Tall, 60's peace marches in San Francisco, Woodstock, and all the other forms of media and other living experiences that were supposedly enlightening him in a positive way would look down his nose at anyone. I can only hope that, even if the changes for the better (i.e. being color/gender...label blind !) that I and others of my generation may have been minute and glacier-like, that we-I might affect my children in some good way, and they theirs that it will one day be bred out of all of us. But even at that level I see my children disappointingly showing prejudices of their own, (much of which I want to attribute to their mom's attitudes), and yet at least one of my daughters seems to have a heart like mine-seems to want to, more than the others, come from a place of Love-which is the same direction that lack of prejudice comes from. And I'm getting the feeling that these things all intersect at some point with knowledge...knowing replaces fearing-fear of the unknown causes prejudice...choosing to love one's self more than knowledge of another person leaves a fertile field for any hatred...stepping out of self enough to learn about and care for another person creates compassion...empathy... And so I finish this post, embarrassed in my lapses into racial profiling,a sort of, I think, cultural abuse,not knowing what sort of cultural legacy I will leave this world thus far... whether I have lessened ignorance and therefore bigotry, even in just myself... scratching my head in consternation, but still hoping there is hope... Labels: American Indian, bias, bigotry, Kevin Costner, Philip J. Deloria, prejudice, racial profiling posted by David | 12/03/2009 06:32:00 AM
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