"Not Like That"- A Compendium of Thoughts on That Thing That Happened

I'm going to keep updating this as new info comes out, so if you're someone that gives a damn, maybe check back in a couple days. But I'm going to just sort of spat thoughts on the thing with the Catholic kids and the Native American elder. So there's no thesis or main point, here, just venting. I've been festering over this, and reached the point where the zit needs to be popped.

This article by Indian Country Today is a good compilation of videos encompassing the whole thing. The super long one, the one by those guys who identify themselves as Hebrew Israelites, hasn't really been given enough attention, and I want to start there- makes sense, chronologically, but also because what these guys were doing was pretty awful, too, and the reason all this shit went down to begin with.

So these assholes showed up to the Indigenous People's March, to protest it, apparently. And they were shouting all sorts of racist, disparaging things at the people marching. If you listen to the beginning of their (again, long) video, you hear them yelling at the Native Americans about how they knew Native history better than the Native Americans do- there's some garbage about how "before Natives worshipped totem poles," they had worshipped "the true God," or something like that. And that because of this "idol worship," their "land was taken from them."

I have to say, it's pretty vile to protest against indigenous people marching peacefully. Like, what are you really protesting to begin with? I guess, based on the shit they were saying, it was to "save" them? But, as people try to talk to them, they're entirely uninterested in dialogue and just talk over them, being super rude every time. If they were there from a place of genuine love and compassion, they would want to talk. No, they were there to pontificate, not to really help anyone or save any souls.

Something that confuses me: at 38:18ish, the guy with the phone starts mocking one of the students for wearing a MAGA hat to a Native American protest- and like, what? You've been standing here, telling Native Americans it's their own fault they're the victims of genocide, and now you're going to "call out" a white kid for being disrespectful? I mean, the thing is, within the first two minutes minute, they completely dismiss/talk over one of the Native Americans that is... wait for it... trying to point out that they're being disrespectful. I mean, seriously, I don't think the dude is able to finish a full phrase because the guy in the Hebrew Israelite group wouldn't shut the fuck up. So like, who the actual fuck are you to care about respect for the Indigenous march? "I'm just here to tell you what you have to do," he says to the Indigenous man. I guess the boarding schools didn't try hard enough.

Point there is, these guys are hypocrites. And they incited the whole thing, and their part in it hasn't been explored enough, as far as I can se.

(At about five minutes, a Black woman who has been visible for pretty much the whole video starts trying to talk to them and they say shit like, "Where's your husband?" as if to say he shouldn't have to listen to her because she's a woman- so like, dude, obviously these guys prescribe to some pretty regressive shit.)

Because after they mock that first kid, they go all-in at mocking the whole crowd of teenage boys. Sure, it's true the Catholic church has done some deplorable shit, but they're fucking teenage boys for crying out loud- if these Hebrew Israelites are half as smart as they think they are, they should have known that asking if they have "one nigga" in the group and calling them stuff like "dusty crackers" was going to create a huge kerfuffle- honestly, if Phillips hadn't stepped in, there would have probably been a riot (and I strongly suspect they were hoping the rich white kids would get physical with them, based on how they kept going). 

Which is exactly why he did what he did. He says he saw something about to happen and wanted to pray, to calm things down. No, he didn't realize how bad it was until he was in the thick of it, but dude, that's the point. It was that bad.

So then you have those shorter videos in the ICT article, and you see the progression of the behavior of the boys. For starters, it's clear there's space between Phillips and the boys, a space that gradually gets tighter and tighter, with fewer and fewer of the boys on the stairs- indicating the whole crowd was swarming Phillips and his fellow indigenous singers. Some of the boys do mock-Indigenous dances (apparently, some were attempts at the haka, according to Al Jazeera), the whole crowd engages in a mock-chant (more on that later), and there's this Nick Sandmann asswipe.

I first found out his name reading this NYT article, and it led me to his statement. And that. Oh, that. This kid is full of shit. In the first of the shorter videos from ICT, he isn't even visible- which means he deliberately positioned himself in front of Philips. In other words, in order to appear so close, had to push past his classmates. So duh, he was the one "invading personal space." And there's no reason to get that close to someone except in an attempt at intimidation.  As for that ridiculous smirk he had pretty much the whole time, it was obviously one of mockery, the same smirk guys in fake warpaint and war bonnets wear when confronted by indigenous people outside the stadiums where the Braves and Redsk*ns play. His statement is nothing but lies, passive-aggression, narcissism, and backpedaling. I suppose Trump would be proud.

I don't believe the diocese when they say they'll do anything. I just don't. The Catholic church was an active participant in the cultural genocide practiced against indigenous people on this continent up until the 1980s. I've mentioned before that my great uncle was beaten so badly by a priest for speaking Lakota at boarding school that he went to the hospital- what I didn't mention then, was it was a Catholic priest. Stewart Indian School, the last boarding school in the U.S. to stop operating as such (in 1980), was a Catholic school. If they continually sweep molestation under the rug, why would they care if some rowdy teenagers were rude to a Native American elder? I'll believe it when I see it, but for now, I don't.

Also, about that mock-chant in the videos ICT included in that article. It's the same one you hear at, like, Braves and Redsk*n games, or in the scene where they do "the chop" in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Some even do the hand motion. (I feel like it's in Major League or one of the sequels, too, but this was easier to find, so here's the one from Men in Tights.)

So I don't see how anybody can still get away with saying they weren't mocking- then again, look at what our president gets away with every gorram day?

(As an aside, I'm pretty disappointed with that NYT piece- it's basically pulling an "on all sides" in its reporting, and it's pretty offensive they'd give credence to the claims that the indigenous people were somehow the aggressors, here.)

And yeah, the guy that calls Phillips "Grandpa" shouldn't have engaged with that teenager, but I get why he did it- he was angry, and hurting, and the kid was obviously painfully ignorant (or one of "those" debators, the kind that studies Schopenhauer's ways to win an argument)- whether or not indigenous people crossed a land bridge from Asia is entirely irrelevant to the fact that our lands were stolen from us and his ancestors committed genocide to do it. Aside from that, though, it's pretty clear that, despite the picture Sandmann and supporters are trying to paint, the indigenous people were the only ones that weren't being assholes. 

It's just heartbreaking to watch Phillips at the end, shouting, "RELATIVES! RELATIVES!" and watch as nobody gives a shit. It reminds me of another great uncle, one that taught me about humility and forgiveness. He was a lobbyist for Indian Country, and I remember a conversation we had when I was around thirteen. It went something like this:

"Uncle Gerald, how can you be so kind to these guys that are making laws that hurt our people?"

"Because without grace, we're no better than them."

"But why forgive them? It's not like they've really done anything to make things right."

"Forgiveness isn't for them, it's for us. If we don't forgive, we carry hate in our hearts, and again, that would make us no better than them. We have to forgive and move on, and hope that eventually they'll listen and help us. With, of course, some forceful convincing on our part." [wink]

[He then taught me the Serenity Prayer.]

After all the mockery and meanness, Phillips says, "Yeah, let's make America great! Let's do that!" In earnest. Not sarcastically, not to be funny. In earnest.

One of the kids shouts, "How?"

And the guy that had called Phillips "Grandpa" says, "Not like that!"

And that's kind of perfect.

Nothing is going to get better if all this hate continues. And the kind of bullshit these kids (and those assholes that antagonized them to begin with) were acting out is just making it worse. And I wish I could talk to my Uncle Gerald about how to deal with these zealots- these MAGA-wearing, Trump-loving bigots. Because I strain and twist myself, trying to be compassionate and open like he taught me. But it gets harder all the time. And in the face of stuff like this? I just can't. And I wish I could ask him what to do.  He's gone, so I can't, and that hurts about as much as everything else right now.

And another thing that makes this so painful is the shit Phillips and his companions were dealing with? It's more like an everyday occurrence. I'm glad this one is getting attention, but what I need you to understand, reader, is that this kind of shit happens every day to indigenous people. And to people of color now that Trump is in office. And it's not just elders. It happens to kids at school. Trump gets quoted by fucking teachers being racist to their students. 

And yet, snotty little brats like Sandmann go unchecked when they play the victim. Major news outlets like the New York Times don't call him and his ilk on their bullshit.

And what that does, is it silences us. Those of us whose identities are being attacked. Whose very personhood is being called into question. How can we stand up for ourselves if lies about us, about what these people are doing to us, go unquestioned? If when we call for peace, we're depicted as the villain? If when we try to reach out, we're mocked and ridiculed, then turned into the scapegoat and have angry fingers pointed in our direction? So we remain silent. Because you can't reason with irrationality and delusion.

It reminds me of a quote from retired Senator Barney Frank: "On what planet do you spend most of your time? Having a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table."

It's impossible. So I don't have any answers. I don't know what to do. 

I guess I'll just pray to my totem poles that things will get better somehow. 

'Batman v. Superman' Review, Part Two: What I Liked

Okay, so as I said yesterday, I'm now going to go through the things about this movie that I enjoyed. I want to reiterate, this movie wasn't entirely terrible, and the following is in now particular order. I should start with the obligatory movie poster, though right?

Once again,

SPOILERS, DUH

I do think this is more easily made into a coherent piece, rather than a bunch of numbers, so I'm just gonna go for it. And I'm going to start by addressing the positive perspective on the last point I made in my post about the negative things in Dawn of Justice. I added that after the original posting, though, so I'll include it here, in case you read the first part but didn't see that bit:

So if Batman is driven SO BLOODY OVER THE EDGE by Superman's fight with Zod and the presence of this alien, and he is so Hellbent on killing him for 90% of the movie, how come all it takes is Lois saying their moms share names for him to turn around and be on his side? It was cool, and there's an argument for why it works,  but also for why it doesn't. See, we spent a whole movie watching Batman hate Superman. Superman is the cause for him being willing to kill now, and to brand the thugs he catches with a Bat Symbol, and his main goal since Superman showed up, over a year-and-a-half earlier, has been to end the Man of Steel. But in thirty seconds, that all turns around? That's not enough. If you're going to build up that much backstory, it can't be reversed with a few lines of dialogue. I would have rather seen  them decide it was in their mutual interest to fight together against Doomsday, then, once the Big Bad was gone, have a neural conversation where Superman plead his case convincingly enough- which I think he could do, if Goyer wasn't being suck a fucking moron. There's a legitimate argument for why Superman did what he did, and it's not unlike how Batman destroys SO MUCH PROPERTY during every chase he's ever in; he could say how he tried to get Zod out of the city, and when it didn't work, he eliminated the threat to save the lives left, etc. I think Batman would listen to that and be persuaded to at least not kill Supes. And then, maybe have Lex kidnap Mama Kent (or have her put in danger in  the next movie... which I kind of hate saying... because ALL SHE'S GOOD FOR IS BEING IN DANGER JUST LIKE LOIS IN THIS MOVIE) and Bruce finds out she shares a name with his deceased mother, and that makes him more eager to work with Superman because of stuff  I'll talk about in the positive post. 

So okay, the reason I think this had the potential to at least be cool is because a lot of Bruce's hatred of Superman was rooted in bigotry. Call it speceism, if you will, but all of the times Bruce/Batman calls Superman "alien," and the amount of venom and disdain in his voice, it may as well be replaced with the n-word.  And I think this draws a very interesting parallel with racism and movements for equality, because one of the most sensical arguments against discrimination is that we all have way more in common than we think. So Bruce realizing that Superman's mom is in danger, and that his mom's name is the same as his own deceased mom's, makes Bruce realize that he and Superman have more in common than he was willing to realize. This is a fascinating revelation, and it should have been expanded on more- and again, if they had done that after the fight instead of before, it could have been. Because Bruce was afraid of Superman because he had the power to kill the whole human race, yeah? Well, what happened throughout the movie? Oh yeah, BATMAN WAS KILLING THE SHIT OUT OF ERRBODY. So by being so desperate to get rid of Superman, he, by degrees, became the thing he was trying to destroy. And him realizing this, coming to terms with it, and thus joining Superman's side with sincerity and earnestness, it could have been great. And it was there... kind of... it was just very, very poorly done. But I had to point it out positively, too, because Batman realizing Superman is more human than he thought is a big deal. Because I don't think there's ever been a version of Batman that didn't portray him as stubborn as fuck. So him changing his mind  is a B.F.D.

Along those lines, then, I liked the premise behind Lex, even if he was terribly cast and written. Because his whole goal wasn't to hurt Batman, really; he wanted to end Superman. That's why he's so bent on getting the kryptonite; that's why he's so adamant to Senator Finch that Superman is dangerous. He, too, saw the destruction in Metropolis, and he became terrified of what Superman could do to the people of Earth, on a whim, if he had a bad day, whatever. But in his madness, his drive to Stop Superman, he kills tons of people, too. To quote another DC character from a different movie, 

Luthor got so caught up that he started destroying lives and ending them without any thought to it. The pain he put Keefe through, the way he orchestrated the whole shin-dig in the desert, the people he held hostage, how he blew up the Capital Building, you would think that's the kind of stuff he would want to accuse the target of his anger of doing. I think part of why he wanted to have Superman kill Batman was because for however "criminal" Batman is, if he's been at it for 20+ years, he must have a loyal following, and if he died at the hands of Superman, that would probably remove any credibility Superman had left. 

I also don't think Lex Luthor necessarily had it out for Batman directly because, as I said before, he had to have known Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person before the fight in Metropolis happened, well before Keefe was injured, in order to help drive Batman over the edge like that. 

And that's a fantastic parallel: Weirdly, Batman and Luthor had the same response to Superman, and had the same goal with regards to him. They both want to end him during the course of this movie. They both go down a dark path because of the violence they see during the fight between Zod and Superman.

And so here's one of my favorite things about this movie: I loved that it opens (mostly) with the Metropolis fight shown from Bruce Wayne's perspective. That scene was a huge part of what people (myself included) thought was wrong with Man of Steel, and it was visually stunning in this use, as well as moving. The look on Bruce's face at the end of the sequence, this shot right here, explains so much, even without the hints at backstory we get later:

Much hate. Such the anger.

I would have loved it more if there had been some followup closer to the time of the incident, like maybe a montage over opening credits of people protesting against Superman, if they had mentioned during the coverage of Keefe's incident at the statue of Supes that this is the umpteenth time the thing had been defaced because there's a lot of anti-Superman sentiment. Showing us this scene reminds us why everyone shown as afraid of Superman is, in fact, afraid of him. They also could have bolstered it a bit with maybe someone at the Daily Planet being anti-Superman, or at least before the incident in the desert. But regardless, starting it with that was a great choice, and while I imagine it was also Zack Snyder saying, "FUCK YOU!" to his critics from the first one, it still was a great storytelling move, one of the few good ones in the whole Goddamned movie. 

So then, back to Bruce's face. I LOVE that the incident in Metropolis is what puts Bruce over the edge. Because when you think about it, and especially given the context we get later- a dead Robin, he's been at it for over twenty years, something terrible seems to have happened to Wayne Manor- it's fucking brilliant to turn Superman into the scapegoat for all of Bruce Wayne's anger and pain from his life. From his parents' deaths in front of him as a kid, to whatever happened the day before shit got real in Metropolis and stuff. That's a lot of rage. What it comes down to, is he's projecting all of his anger and misery onto Superman. And realizing that is what really should have been the catalyst for him changing his tune, even though yes, realizing Superman has some humanity to him, too, was good. THAT would have been far more moving and would have resonated more loudly in the psyches of the audience. That being said, I like to think that it was still in there for Ben Affleck as he was acting the scene where he vows to Supes that he'll save Ma Kent- he's too smart of a man and too good of an actor to miss that psychological twist to the Batman/Bruce Wayne he's portraying, here. 

And with that, I have to say, I was waaaaay into how off the deep end Batman/Bruce Wayne goes in this movie. I mean, it's not like Batman doesn't lose his shit in the comics. Here's a pretty famous panel I'm sure you've seen (and yes, I kind of detest the use of the "r" word, here, but it kind of proves the point that Batman has historically been batshit at times in the comics):

Another example, I'm of the belief that he actually kills the Joker in The Killing Joke, even though some cling to the idea that the Joker snaps his own neck simply to spite Batman. As much as I love Batman for choosing not to kill, it's very believable that he would, if the right buttons got pushed. So it was totally believable for me. I haven't read any reviews of Dawn of Justice yet, but I watched the one from How it Should Have Ended, and I was entirely unsurprised when he said that he didn't like that Batman was killing people. As stubborn as I am about "versions" of characters being "wrong" (i.e. my thoughts on Lex Luthor in this same movie), I also think it's reasonable to be open to Batman being that off his rocker and a little too stubborn for people to automatically discredit that development in his character, however much of a moral/ethical regression it may be for him.

So I wasn't weirded out by the fact that he has a shit-ton of GUNS and ROCKETS on the Batmobile, at least not from a "that's now what Batman does" point of view. And I fucking loved  this:

I don't know why that wasn't done sooner. It seems like the kind of thing Frank Miller or Alan Moore would come up with themselves- it's dark, creepy, and, let's face it, fucked up. And that's what makes it juicy and delicious! And whether or not it actually leads to the guys in prison getting killed is debatable- I like to think it's more correlation, rather than causation. After all, the news report about the dude put in the hospital (NOT killed, I should reiterate, but in the hospital in critical condition, which, come on, usually when he doesn't kill someone, Bats is probably leaving them paralyzed or something) was a child molester or something. And it's common knowledge that wife-beaters and child molesters have it the worst in prison. Did the brand make  his beating more severe? Maybe. I don't know. I don't really care. I like the idea that Batman has been driven so far over the edge that he's branding the baddies he catches, knowing full-well it at least gets them beat up in prison. It's a far more twisted version of leaving Carmine Falcone on a headlight so that he makes a Bat Signal in the sky with his body.

Now, did all the blatant killing on Batman's part make me uncomfortable? Yes. But  that was good. Because that's the whole fucking point. And I'd argue that the people whining about him killing and branding are missing it. The idea is that Superman freaked him out so Goddamned much that he lost perspective and that core aspect of his own Identity. I reiterate, there's quite a bit of backstory alluded to here- the Joker killed Robin in the past, Wayne Manor was destroyed, and I don't recall any positive references to Gordon (although there is a BatSignal, so I'm going to assume he at least at some point was on not-bad terms with the GCPD). He says something like, "We've always been criminals," to Alfred and while I know I haven't read or seen every version  of Bruce Wayne/Batman  out there, I think that's a substantial bit of personal development for him to admit that, and it, too, speaks to some of that backstory. 

So, yes, I would watch the shit out of a Batman movie starring Ben Afleck. And especially with Jeremy Irons as his Alfred. The scenes between them were all fantastic, and their rapport was perfect and exactly what I want out of a dynamic between Alfred and Master Bruce; like I said in the other post, I was sad I missed the beginning of one of their scenes together because I had to pee (and didn't want to endure any more of Kevin Costner's Pa Kent, to wit). Irons was a spectacular Alfred, and I was sad that he didn't get more screentime. The bit where he takes over the Batplane is fucking glorious, and that's another thing I'm surprised we'd never seen before in the Bat-verse (at least, as far as I'm aware). So both of them were GREAT casting decisions.

Another one, and one that I will 100% admit surprised me, is Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman/ Diana Prince. She stole every scene she was in, and not because anybody around her was really bad, but because she was just that fucking cool. So yes, I am going to do my damndest to see her movie at a midnight premiere next summer. I totally believed that she's an Amazon. I loved her little sneer when Lex is dissing Zeus- that was flawless and seamless and delightful and I squeed, because I know they made her his daughter in this version (insert feminist critique of that here...*), which is at least better than one of the theories floating around a while ago. So last time I griped about the fight choreography for Batman being mostly bad. What I meant by that was, it didn't get good until Wonder Woman joined the crew. The way she, Batman, and Superman all tag-teamed Doomsday, it was great- as if they'd fought together before, almost. And OHMYGOD I loved her "aw HELL no" looks she'd make each time she gets knocked down, like this one:

I fist-pumped every time, and so did the person I saw the movie with, and she knew nothing about Wonder Woman. She is that fucking cool in this movie. 

Truthfully, and this is kinda sad, but the scenes between her and Bruce were so good, their dynamic so yummy, that I think this movie would have been way better without Superman. Like if they had made it just a Batman+Wonder Woman flick. That is a movie I would happily go see, too.

But seriously, Gal Gadot vastly exceeded my expectations, and I'm so glad that we're past this feeling:

And I'm not too nervous about it anymore. If how well she did here is any indication, the Wonder Woman solo movie is going to be great. And as an aside, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor is a great choice, and I suspect they'll have some great chemistry. I also like that it appears as though they're going back to her WWII roots.

But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself in anticipation.

I also really enjoyed Lawrence Fishburn's character, Perry White. He speaks a lot of truth, and while I don't have much else to say about him, I wanted to be sure to highlight that, too. Fishburn is always a solid actor, and I'm glad his lines were good enough for the calibur he brings to the cast.

And yes. This movie was very visually stunning. Mostly. It got kind of hokey during the fight with Doomsday, but Doomsday himself wasn't problematic.

In fact, I kind of dug that Doomsday was a creation of Lex Luthor. That is the kind of shit I expect from him, is the exact kind of shit he does. He's a mad scientist at heart, albeit one with a fuckton of money to back it up/make it easier. And while I did immediately think they kind of pulled an Ultron by changing him into a lab experiment instead of being (yet another) alien that lands on Earth (i.e. Marvel made Ultron a creation of Tony Stark in Age of Ultron, rather than being... an alien that lands on Earth), I still thought that was the truest thing to Lex Luthor's character in the whole movie. Even going back to how he sliced off Zod's fingertips to gain access to the crashed ship- that's a Lexish thing, too. "Blood of my blood." Granted, Jessie Eisenberg's delivery was more... creepy... than maniacal.

And there's precedent for it, too. Since the early 90s, the character Superboy has been a hybrid clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. The human portion of his DNA is why Superboy can't fly and do a few other things in Young Justice, and there, and in other versions, Luthor uses that tie to manipulate Superboy and use him as a sleeper agent/tool to hurt the Justice League. So it's totally believable that Lex would create some weird hybrid of his and Zod's DNA in order to kill Superman. Since Goyer is at least consulting on these damn movies as "the comic guy" for the story, I have suspicions that maybe he suggested this little tweak to Doomsday's origins as a nod to that part of Lex Luthor's "recent" (as in "in the past twenty years of") history. I'll admit, though, that if I didn't know this about him, I would have found it just plain creepy, not gonna lie.

And  while I'm on Lex again, let me say that while I didn't actively dislike the music, I was slightly disappointed in how it mostly sounded like a bunch of rehashed stuff from previous movies for which Hans Zimmer had been the composer... save for the creepy violin music that would play when Lex was being particularly weird/creepy/eccentric. Like the scene where he's talking to Senator Fisher in his house- the music basically made that scene.

And speaking of that scene... I loved that there is a jar of piss on her desk right before she blows up, too. That... well, I don't know if that's quite a Lex Luthor thing to do, oer se, but regardless, it was glorious to see. Because it was down-right fucked up. And, just in case you forgot, things are totally fucked up in Zack Snyder's universe, here. 

And so now it comes time for my rating. If it weren't for how great Batman and Wonder Woman are, I would say D-, or 5/10. But I honestly enjoyed those two (and Alfred) enough that I would say C+, or 7/10. They saved the movie for me, truly. I won't see it again in theaters, but I will definitely buy it when it comes out on BluRay, and who knows, I may end up writing a follow-up based off the extra scenes (because apparently the original cut is nearly FOUR FUCKING HOURS LONG...).




*The short version is that, by making her the product of a romantic tryst between Hippolyta and Zues, rather than being a blessing to the Amazons from female gods and formed out of clay, they're removing some of her independence. Part of her "feminist iconic" strength came from her total of zero ties to the male gender until meeting Steve Trevor; making her yet another one of Zeus's bastards diminishes that, as well as removes some of the strength and independence of her mother, Hippolyta- a badass in her own right, too. This piece from TheMarySue beautifully captures everything wrong with this telling of her history, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in her character, how she's evolved over the years, and/or is tired of my rants. 

Quantifying Identity- "It Only Takes One Generation"

Story Time:

At a gathering for graduate students in a local bar, the inevitable, icky question of funding came up with people I was meeting for the first time from other departments. My roommie and I explained how ours worked, and part of this involved discussing the nature of graduate fellowships. I clarified that most  of our fellowship students are on one of two that last five years each, while I was a unique case with my two-year-master's-diversity one. Another guy said he was on a Ph.D. fellowship for diversity  because he's Hispanic. I said I'm Native American. He squinted his eyes and asked me, skeptically, "How Native American?"

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"How Native American are you?"

I stared, slack-jawed. Some other gals at the table started to say something like, "Now hang on, it's not like I get asked, 'How woman are you?' and I say, 'Uuuuuh, 98%!'"

"Well," he went on, entirely unphased, "I ask because there was this girl at my undergrad that's 1/32 Cherokee and had a full ride for it. I mean, the girl was as white as white can be, but she claimed this random, distant relative, and got free college, it seemed really unfair."

How cute.

I knew exactly what he was doing- implying that since I'm pale with dirty-blonde hair,  I must be a total poser, milking the system unfairly, etc.

So I puffed up and said, "You want to test how Native American I am? My grandpa was beaten by a priest for speaking Lakota at school, that's how Native American I am."

(Granted, it was actually my great uncle, but I was pissed- same generation, at least.)

"What?" he asked, confused. I repeated and he asked, "I'm sorry, speaking what?"

"Luh-coe-tuh, you know, my tribe's language?"

"Oooh, LAKOTA!" he said, as if he just now got it. 

"YES!" I said, "Lakota. Sioux, Oglala Lakota Sioux, like Crazy Horse?"

"Yeah..." he said, but his eyes squinted again. "So your grandpa?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Was beaten?"

"Uh-huh?"

"For speaking Lakota?"

"Yeah, exactly, so don't you dare go implying I have no connections to-"

"Well," he interrupted with, "so you got the diversity fellowship, that's great. Mine was a doctoral one, so it was for academic merit and diversity."

So we went from implying I'm "not Native enough" to having no actual academic credentials because I am "Native enough" in a few seconds. 

Now, this dude would prolly have gone off the rails if I asked "how Hispanic" he was. And would have thrown the table at me if I suggested he didn't deserve his fellowship because the only real reason he had one was because  he's a minority. But I'm not that kind of person. So I refrained.

I kind of wish I hadn't.

The above conversation is one indigenous persons in this country have over and over again, even if they have darker skin than I do. It comes in different forms and in different contexts- it could be from institutions testing their credentials; from non-indigenous persons they meet; or even from other indigenous persons themselves. This comes down to blood quantum.

Remember how that guy said, "...1/32 Cherokee..."? I'm sure you've heard people talk of their heritage that way before- "I'm 1/2 Irish." "I'm half Muggle." You know, as a way to highlight whatever portion of their heritage they wish to highlight.

With indigenous ancestry, there's an entirely different connotation.

Blood quantum is the shorthand way of saying "Amount of Native American blood in a person needed in order to 'count' as Native American." Blood quantum laws were set by the federal government and then adopted and modified by individual Nations as a means of controlling tribal membership and rosters. The federal government doesn't mind it, and there are always fights about it in Indian Country. Because yeah, resources are limited, so there needs to be a way of figuring out whose claims of ancestry are "legit" and whose aren't. But at the same time, there are so many problems with it, it's rather deplorable. But nobody can really come up with anything else. So it doesn't change.*

Why is it problematic? Well, remember how I said that guy would have flipped his shit if I had questioned his authenticity? Yeah, that doesn't really happen to any other ethnic/racial minority. It stemmed from cause to discriminate, oh sure, but the opposite happened with Blacks with the "one drop" rule, and now it stands as a means of affirmative action-esque policies. No other minority group has to provide government documentation in order to proclaim that as their identity. None. Period. Nor do they have to pass a gorram background/blood check. I think this is something  that gets taken for granted by other minorities. And I don't think anyone asking, "How Native are you?" (because again, we get asked this all. the. time.) intends to bring this  baggage up, but by invoking the question, they do. And coming from a white person, it feels like, "Fuck you, it's your ancestor's fault you'd even feel the need to ask that." When it comes from a minority, it feels like, "And I bet you've never had to answer the same question, have you? Must be  nice." Even if they  mean well, as if they  just genuinely are curious, blood quantum is an underlying, unspoken  presence in the conversation. And other people just do not understand this. The authenticity  of claims of indigenous heritage is brought into question daily by the government. And that leads to general questions from everyday people, like  that guy in the bar.

Another reason is you have to prove it through documentation of your lineage. So if there's a missing spot on the family tree, PRESTO! go home, you don't count. Have a nice day. It's really easy to get kicked off the roster because of some bureaucratic error, rather than because you actually are not qualified. 

Another reason it's problematic is the rules themselves keep changing. A few years ago, for example, the Cherokee Nation declared it would no longer allow people descended from slaves to count. A whole huge group of people were taken off of the Cherokee roster as a result. And yes, there are economic issues to consider, and they claimed they were doing so in order to keep resources in the hands of people whose blood ran Cherokee, but the Freedmen are descendants of people immersed and bred within the Cherokee Nation's culture. What the Cherokee did itself isn't my main concern, though, but rather why. The fact is, they were having trouble with their rosters and dealing with blood quantum, and kicking some people  off the dole made that easier to do. And other tribes change their rules all the time as their resources shrink and as their lands are encroached on more. Never mind whether those people getting kicked off identify in their heart of hearts as that tribe- it's the bottom line taking precedent over some people because others are suffering.

And that relates to the next reason it's problematic. Again, the rules began with the federal government. And it's entirely colonialist for a government to tell the people it has conquered the rules for identifying as part of that group. The tribes carried those rules over because they didn't have any other model to go off of- legal documentation to prove status? Entirely foreign to indigenous peoples in North America. I don't know how other tribes work, but I know back when this shit was made into law, my people, the Lakota, would accept you if you wanted and earned it. There was no document to sign, you just had to prove you lived Lakota, loved Lakota, breathed Lakota, and would die Lakota. The document thing may sound easier, but it's not- it's a lot more exclusionary to say a person's blood has to be pure enough than to say their heart does. And again, the government doesn't set these rules for any other group, so the only people whose cultures are being defined all have brown skin and have been sequestered onto Reservations.

The main reason this is problematic, though, is that it's an institutionalized, bureaucratized form of modern genocide. 

Think about it.

If a person has to pass a threshold of "Indianness" in their blood before being allowed to claim it as their identity, it's only a matter of time before Native Americans will die off. Even if we keep "breeding" with each other, the way the blood quantum laws are so finnicky with some tribes, if you're a mix of enough stuff, even if it's more Native stuff than white, if you can't claim enough of one tribe's blood, you're out. I'm not into inbreeding, and we shouldn't have to resort to that sort of thing in order to retain the "purity" of our blood just so that the government will be happy. I see no reason why mixed bloods shouldn't count, so long as they believe it in their hearts.

My mom has a saying, "It only takes one generation." Hers was the first generation to grow up off-res on her dad's side. And she is 100% city girl as a result. In one generation, the language, the skills, the culture- pretty much gone in her family.  I have more "Native heritage" than her because I learned how to do things like start a fire and grow vegetables from my friends and "family" out in Washington- and they're white. Her sister and one of my cousins are sort of going back to their roots, so to speak (I think my cousin is trying to learn Lakota, and she works on the res now), but the only way for my cousin's kids to officially count would be for her to marry someone with HELLA more Native blood than she has- and her fiance isn't at all Native American, so that's not happening. So she can immerse herself and her family on the res all she wants, the government isn't going to give two shits unless she bangs a Real Live Indian.

"Why should you let the government decide? If you want to be Indian, be Indian!" you say. Again, I point you to the uniqueness of blood quantum laws. They do not exist for anyone else. So the government has already said our identities need to be codified and quantified, ours and ours alone. There's no blood test to be American- but there's a test to be Native American. Which is pretty fucking ironic, given all of the ridiculously hypocritical nativism arguments being spouted by white people afraid the Mexicans are going to ruin the country. You want  Homeland  Security to secure your borders, do you?

I think that image is pretty telling- notice how those Apache warriors have guns? That's escalation. It shows how we aren't dying off, we're adapting. 

And I say all this as someone that doesn't "count." I'm 1/16 Lakota; that's not enough. My mom's generation is the first to be raised off-res, but the last to make blood quantum.

"It only takes one generation." 

With the birth of me and my siblings and cousins came pretty much the death of the Lakota line  in my family. Unless by some miracle  I meet a nice guy that happens to be Lakota- because call me selfish, but I'm   having enough trouble with men as it is, so I'm not about to limit my search to Lakota men.

But  as resources shrink, as demands increase, blood quantum laws are going to get stricter and stricter. And there may be some ridiculous reversal where they all of a sudden get really loosey-goosey, but in all honesty, I don't think  a swing like that would work. I think there are too few of us left for it to make a lasting difference. And anyway, individual tribes would  have to disappear. Hell, they kind of already  are.

But.

We are not dead yet.  And  yeah, Indian Schools stopped running  a while back, the last being Stewart Indian School, closed in 1986. So our culture isn't technically illegal  any more.  But legacies  of direct violence such as war, rape, and forced removal, as well as indirect violence, such as discrimination and  blood quantum, are doing their job, and I worry that within a few more generations, there won't be enough of us left to hold onto our lands, to keep our cultures alive. 

I wonder what I'm going to tell my children. And it frightens me, and it saddens me, and I mourn for the identity they won't really be able to have. Because how can I tell them they're Native when they're two generations away  from "counting" and every signal they get from the entire United States culture is telling them that? How can I tell them they're Lakota when I already have asshats like the one in the bar going after me? When they're prolly going to look whiter than I do?

It's prolly a good thing I'm single and am nowhere near having my own kids  yet, otherwise I'd have to more seriously think of this shit, and I'd prolly have a huge meltdown.

I get angry when people ask "how" Native American I am.  And I get hurt. And  I'm not really sure how to end this, except to ask anyone reading to think next time they start to ask somebody claiming Native ancestry "how much" that ancestry is. Because it's bad enough we live with the knowledge we're being measured by the government  every day. It's bad enough we know there are government-sanctioned practices acting as the norm today that are gradually killing us off. 

We don't need you reminding  us. 


*I realized after writing this I was almost uncannily channeling this gentleman here, so I figured I should give credit where subliminal credit is due.