I WANNA DREAM BIG! WHO WANTS TO DO IT WITH ME?!
I’ve got a lot of organizing skills thanks to becoming radicalized over the past few years… and it seems that’s what I still continue to be good at.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking lately. I want to help serve my native community near and far. I’m also down for education… I’m a real fan of that; and I’m a real fan of accessible education (obviously). I’m also a real fan of revitalizing traditions, providing spaces digitally or in person for people to learn skills. I’m also a fan of creating spaces for people to talk about issues that need to be discussed more whether they’ve already been discussed a lot or very little.
No matter how far some of you are, spread out across the continent, I would still LOVE to organize with all you native tumblrs. I believe that no matter what controversial things we hit on here (which of coarse means really intense conversations) we can and do work through them. I’m proud of our community for being able to talk about issues within our community (which is often unfortunately put on blast for the world of non-natives to see while we figure out conclusions) that I haven’t really seen talked, discussed, worked out in many other place as on here.
I know that this is a bit of a stretch, but if others are serious about making it happen, I’m serious about making it happen. We all spend so much time here on tumblr, that it seems like it only makes sense to turn it into something more. I would be down for founding a new native organization. Somethings I’d like to do:
- host a convention of black natives to talk about issues and identity.
- publish a book featuring the stories of the black native experience
- create a social network website for natives where traditional skills can be shared (such as beading and creation of regalia, pow wow dancing, etc… or even stuff like how to make a decent fry bread), a legit education/information resource about specifics to tribes/nations & also the pan native community and also a range of different issued happening, native dating? (haha that dream catcher site is a fake and esnag is down!), and idk stuff like that… it could be so much more though (it’d be a HUGE endeavor but incredible when completed and folks on there)
- and idk making films…
i’m not really sure yet. But I would love to provide a resource for the native community and idk. I wanna do this. We can hash out our objectives and things that we want to do.
LET ME KNOW IF YOU’RE DOWN!
also: is anyone on here good at writing grants? Cuz we’d definitely need that.
To the NDN community here: I read and received feedback and I realized I spoke out of ignorance and out of context.
Little background to the Red Privilege thing: It’s a term that’s been thrown around in my local geographical community with a handful of people that have a lot of pull. It’s been used in a way that reads, “Hey! I’m doing this thing that’s super awesome and Native and I’ve been able to do it for a long time! Look at me! Look at how neat I am!” It’s particularly used by someone who straight-up told me that I’m “a bad Indian,” who will never be “good enough.”
And I have a lot of anger about that.
And I shouldn’t have reacted in such a knee-jerk way to a bigger conversation.
I must clarify that I wasn’t trying to say that it was a privilege in the greater scheme of things AT ALL. I see it as something really strange and poisonous that’s happening here with people like me, people that aren’t urban, aren’t rural, aren’t reservation NDNs. I’m just floating, trying to find my place and to listen and to learn.
I am sorry that I used it in a way that invalidated people. I really am. It’s been made evident to me that this is how it may have been taken, especially by others I look up to in regards to cultural issues.
In my own life, with my own experience with the term Red Privilege (and I shit you not, it’s been used a lot lately here), it’s by passing, non-passing, easily identifiable, and everyone in between who happen to be able to have a connection to their cultural past. That is what’s so painful to me. It’s people that are lighter than me, darker than me, anything else that is or isn’t like me. But they are still more than I will seeming be recognized as. They are enough and have fun with a term. Maybe they’re reclaiming something. Probably they are. And it hurts.
I got angry. And I am sorry. It’s a personal sting of mine, and I didn’t mean to wedge any sort of rift open.
Oh dear.
I just got an email from a very good friend, as she’s asked me to be in her wedding in September. I am really happy for her, and really excited to be in the wedding — I’ve known her since I was 2 years old, and she is a professional artist and a really wonderful person. I sent her an email asking about bridesmaids dresses, and in her response to me, unfortunately, she told me they are holding a little sweat lodge for the bridal party, on the beach, the night before the wedding.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I can’t in good conscience participate in that. Her heart is in the right place, and I’m travelling a long way to get to the wedding. What on earth do I say to her that doesn’t make me sound like a big old jerk?
android-pigstina replied to your post: What if I never hear from the tumblr NDNs again?!
TALIA ILY
ihavethisblog replied to your post: What if I never hear from the tumblr NDNs again?!
We’ll always have tinychat, bb!
I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCH. DON’T EVER LEAVE ME. NEVER LET GO.
We’re all seriously going to sit in tinychat waiting for each other. I can see it too, we’ll have a list of everyone to check off, so that we know everyone has survived acta.
