Terese Marie Mailhot: Let Native people speak our own voices

There’s a long history of people who come into our communities to save us. Diane Sawyer came in on her white horse to showcase our plight on 20/20; the New York Times came in to pity us, and others have come in droves to protect us from our own destruction. The worst of these are the people who have so much difficulty navigating in our communities as outsiders that they claim Native heritage to ‘better help us.’ We don’t want any Kevin Costners or Rachel Dolezals or Mark Yanceys. The White supremacy of American culture has alienated Natives from our rights to justice and equality, and we need allies, so here’s a list of ways to help:

— You don’t need to tell us you know an Indian to fight for Native justice. We see this in the comments section of Indian Country Today Media Network’s articles all the time: the admission that you aren’t Native, but you’ve spent time with such-and-such Indian community and you’ve seen our hardship firsthand. I call this ‘the Kevin Costner.’ Spare us the admission that you’re white; there’s no cultural capital in knowing an Indian, and there’s definitely no cultural capital in being an Indian within activist communities. Let me generalize: we are collectivists, and our kind of activism is beyond ego, and about grit and hard work. It’s your capitalist, individualist culture that invites the idea that knowing an Indian gives you ethos in our meetings, so check that at the door.

— Don’t approach our groups like sociocultural anthropologists. You don’t need to know everything about our practices, people and rituals to help us gain autonomy within institutions and communities. When you come in asking if you need to bring tobacco to the elders, or if spirit animals exist, or if you can sit in on a ceremony, you’re showing your hand as a cultural enthusiast who will exploit us. You don’t need to ‘know our ways’ in order to help us gain equality or create avenues of assistance for people in need. Just know to let the elders be served first if there’s food, and don’t make any bad jokes, because Indians run the gamut on humor.

— We’re not caught between two worlds. We know how to use the Internet and relay the lineage of our origins and myths. I can use a tablet to Google beadwork patterns. Welcome to 2015. I’m often asked if I miss the old ways of my people. The question is absurd. Imagine if white people were asked if they feel caught between two worlds? Do you miss pilgrim outfits and outhouses? Colonization might have wiped away nations and languages but we are not a lost people, absent of culture. In the words of my brilliant aunt, Lee Maracle, “One does not lose culture. It is not an object. Culture changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but it is constantly changing and will do so …”