Another way appropriation assumptions can (at times) go horribly wrong:
Let's say me (mixed indigenous) and boyfriend (100% indigenous) together purchase a dreamcatcher from an indigenous person to support indigenous business, which is an excellent thing for anyone to do. Later, someone who doesn't know better might see said dreamcatcher hanging on the wall and immediately go into "I saw a youtube once..." mode. It's a risk we take when we support indigenous businesses, that if we don't look like a racist indigenous stereotype we'll be attacked for giving other indigenous people our money, and that anti indigenous stance will be defended because "appropriation." Hold up. I'm not going to financially starve out sister tribes because someone who isn't indigenous thinks I don't look indigenous?
I crop my dreamcatcher out of pictures I share because now that I've supported a fellow indigenous woman's business it's like I have to hide the evidence to make sure no one non-indigenous sees anything indigenous which would result in bullying. Indigenous erasure accomplished. Go Team America? (...)
Okay so no one ever gave me shit about my dreamcatcher. But one dude DID remark about my Mexican woven blanket and teased (jokingly) that I was appropriating (my own culture, who are weavers) because, again, I don't look like a racist stereotype that all Mexicans supposedly look like. This person knew nothing about Mexican culture and didn't finish high school, but the internet taught him about appropriation. Many things on the internet are based on assumptions and stereotypes and not very accurate.
People really do reduce a culture to skin color, even though that's an invented concept, and insultingly reductive and racist. Ideally we aren't inbred, hence we come in a whole spectrum of shades. I don't believe in segregation or racial purity because I don't even have the privilege to do so -- I'd be living a lie and would have to cut my body into fractions or turn my back on my own culture. I'm not going to do that. I respect my family too much to abandon where I come from, despite what some strangers assume.
I feel forced to constantly explain my origins to people, as if I have to ask for permission to be my authentic self. But I owe no one an explanation for my existence. But not explaining myself guarantees I'll exist only as an assumption without actually being seen. Erasure.
The implication is that I have to choose sides -- based on skin color. I am proud of my European heritage too, I just don't know as much about it, not having been raised (or accepted) by that side of the family. I'm a product of my environment and upbringing, which skewed toward my indigenous/mexican side. And I'm proud of that, even if some people think I shouldn't be proud to be Mexican and think I should be all white pride or whatever and deny all else. (Do they even realize how racist that sounds?)
I wish I didn't always feel on trial for just trying to respect my ancestors. I'm sorry I don't look like how they think I'm supposed to, but I have a right to be true to myself and my heritage, and yet people who don't belong to my culture are the most loud about how I should look/be/act. It is absurd.
It's not unlike how men in Texas want to make decisions about women's bodies...
This world is backward. I'm glad I didn't bring a child into it, not that it seemed like I was going to physically survive pregnancy anyway. But I'm grateful I was able to discover that unwanted pregnancy before it was too late to legally abort. What a boatload of suffering it would have been for me, the potential fetus, and everyone in my life, if I'd been prevented from making the responsible choice, by a man who believes a virgin gave birth to his god...
I had two coffees today can you tell?
Please ignore this whole rant unless any of it is relateable or helpful. I'm just trying to be my authentic self in a world that often seems to want to force me to be someone else who isn't real, and it's exhausting and makes me want to hide in a cave forever.
I should just start a blog about the mixed experience so I can stop complaining in an endless loop in here. It could give me a sense of community with others who struggle with similar issues, and I might feel more empowered and less irritable.
1:11 p.m. - 2021-09-06