Indigenous Endemic Myth-Conceptions & Other Random Thoughts

Hanh mitakuyapi / hello my relatives.

There are some almost built-in mythconceptions about us that need address, as we all know. Such as, we all get big government checks & we don't need money & we're all thieves.  (so who was it stole whole continents from the original inhabitants, hm??  Not us!  It was those pale-skinned ones with the black robes & black book & black designs on everybody-but-each-of-them, as I recall.  And it hasn't changed much even yet.

Then there are the myth-conceptions about those of us who live off the Reservations that our own People hold - my favorite is that if you live off the Rez, you're 'a millionaire' meaning that we're wealthy.  I know of a couple of The People who don't lack for  mazaska / PteDhoWakan/ the Holy Green Buffalo / money,  but it sure isn't most of us, we all agree.

And, I ask those washichu who claim we don't need money or jobs or all get big government checks - if those things were true, how come so many of us are on assistance? It isn't lack of knowledge or ability in the case of jobs & money.. And if we got big government checks, we wouldn't need assistance.

I often wonder how some of these myths get started.  The only reason I can come up with is, some kind of jealousy. Some version of "the grass is always greener in someone else's area".

Recently I began listing "job applicant" as my current occupation because I'm so tired of job-hunting. On the other hand, I need to eat, just like everyone else & I can't go out & shoot my own meat any old time, any more.  Instead of relying on need & our Tradtional teachings & taboos, we now have the washichu import "seasons" for these things. And because so many of us have been infected by the white man's disease "greed", we now also have possession limits to deal with, as if somehow we only need to keep certain kinds of food a certain length of time or eat a certain amount or that everyone eats the same foods. Nothing could be further from the truth. I, for example, have always hated asparagus. To me, it stinks like July  roadkill.  Yuck! But some people go crazy for this stinky stuff.

One interviewer recently asked me some of those myths I mentioned above. I was really stunned, because such questions are illegal.  But this is North Dakota, where employers get away with violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 & the  EEOA & the Constitution regularly; & even if you complain, the Dept of Labor & Human Rights does nothing. The Dept exists only for show, so it can be said there is one here.  I was once asked by an employer if I could tell her "why all Indns are so fat, lazy, & sloppy".  Which, of course, is ridiculous. That's like saying all Caucasians are liars & thieves.  Hardly.

 When I turned it in, the "investigator" at NDDOL told me, "I must side with the employer, because they are the employer! That's what they taught me when they trained me here!"  And then she said, "besides, I don't see what's so racist about this remark, anyway."  I asked her if she got her information about us from John Wayne movies & left. (And filed another complaint, against  the NDDOL & that "investigator" in particular, for those remarks.  It went nowhere either, of course. Although I was asked by the then-head of the NDDOL if I "could't drop the complaint, because it was embarrassing".  No, I could not.)

These kind of ridiculous remarks make me sigh, particularly when I think how humans claim to be the animals that think.  And they need more address than this blog post.  How about you,  pitching in?  We are all either part of  the problem or part of t he solution, after all..

Mitakuye oaisin - All, my  relatives.