"Nish Chad asked me why I thought non-Natives liked to be all up in Native Americans’ affairs.

He conceded, “ok, yeah, there are some non-Natives who involved themselves in Native affairs because they simply wanted to help.” Those rare benevolent non-Natives don’t want special attention—they just want to be a part of improving Indian Country’s infrastructure through small incremental steps.

Cool.

But, according to Chad, there are also seems to be SO MANY non-Natives who want to do all the work for Native Americans. These are the non-Natives who do not believe that Natives can improve our lives internally. Instead these non-Natives want to be comic book Superheroes to us poor Native Americans. They see themselves as Spirit and want to come rescue us, GI Joe-style, from the evils of Cobra Commander, fires, our alcoholism and woes of the reservation life. They want us to reply to their heroic deed with “Now we know,” so that they can say “And knowing is half the battle.”

They want to save us because, apparently we cannot save ourselves."

Get the Story:
My Friend Chad: Victims and Victory Part 2 (The Thing About Skins 2/10)

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