lizthelazylizard:

Fact: The invasion of the Americas was histories largest genocide and demographic devastation to date, killing over 90% of the original population.

Native genocide continues in certain parts of the southern hemisphere, where mining companies and government personnel have been known to gun down communities. 

This is not something their decedents will just “get over”

Some things about “two-spirit”

hobbitdragon:

stuavg:

sofriel:

“Two-spirit” is a phrase that was coined about twenty years ago, by primarily cis gay and lesbian (note: I feel some discomfort describing them thus, but the fact is that it is largely how they identified and existed in society at the time) Native Americans who felt that the terms LGBT did not accurately describe their experiences, particularly the way their sexuality, gender, and race were connected. It was intended to emphasize their intertwined nature, including spirituality, as well as to connect with the traditions in many nations that once existed or still did, though in most cases if not all threatened by Christian/Western influence.

The thing that virtually all queer Natives know and seemingly few non-Natives know, is that two-spirit is and always has been a very vague term. Even when it was proposed, people acknowledged that a) the experience of gender/sexuality varied GREATLY between nations, b) two-spirit might not be an appropriate description for many people, c) Native people have to exist in Western society too, including its influences on Indian country, and d) individual queer Natives have wildly varying levels of connection to ancestral traditions.

Two-spirit does not mean “gay Indian” (except when it does). Two-spirit does not mean “trans Indian” (except when it does). Two-spirit does not mean “third gender” (except when it does). And so on. You get the drift. So as indigenous people across mostly the US and Canada began to consider this new word for themselves, there was also rising recognition of the ancestral traditions of accepting people considered “queer” or “trans” in the modern West. Anthropologists had been working on this for a while. Their theory was that there existed specific roles in Native societies for people who did not fit the role of cishetero male or female, and they termed these roles “berdache.” As two-spirit people began to reclaim these tradition, the term “two-spirit” began to replace “berdache” to refer to these historical roles.

You can (hopefully) see where this gets sticky. That’s applying a word coined for modern indigenous people, over a term made by Western anthropologists, for a wide variety of people who presumably had words in their own languages for people like them. Or maybe they didn’t—I increasingly believe that the idea that most Native societies had a three or four tiered gender system is totally false. Some seem to fit that description (the Navajo, for instance, and in a different way the L/Dakota), but others? I think that a lot of Native societies were just aware that such people existed, same as even Western society was before the Victorian age, they were just more inclined to accept them and view them as integral, unique parts of the community.

But saying their societies had a three-gender system? If you asked people in the present-day United States, “Are there people who don’t fit the role of a man or a woman?” I guarantee you’d get a response. Or “are there people born male or female who live in another gender?” Sure, there are some people who are very conservative or unaware, but I’d bet a good number of people would say there are transsexuals, or gay people, or dykes or whatever. It might be negative, but they know they exist. But if you ask, “how many genders are there in the US?” they’d say two. That’s how I think a lot of societies in North America were, except that they saw the ones who weren’t entirely male or female as GOOD and different and part of society. Most nations’ worlds still revolved around male and female, but they also recognized when someone wasn’t in that normal mold. BUT again, I cannot stress enough that there are so many different traditions, and all of the nations with a history of people outside the cishet “standard” are different and can’t be corralled into one general theory of two-spiritness. However, the idea of being two-spirit is one that was developed in a pan-Indian context, in a world where assimilation has eroded traditional knowledge.

Is your head spinning yet? Indigenous people know this is what they’re signing up for when they identify themselves as two-spirit. Seriously, if you ask a queer ndn if they’re two-spirit, almost all will reply that they have a complicated relationship with the term. And if we have such a complex relationship with the term, why on earth would we trust anyone else, particularly someone without firsthand understanding of colonialism, to say anything about it?

It’s like 2 am and I was tired when I wrote this and it’s probably not nearly as good as it could be, but I felt compelled, so if any other two-spirit people want to chime in (especially if you think I’ve screwed up majorly or anything) please do.

Thank you for writing this. <3 I appreciate it and agree! I have such a complicated relationship to two-spirit identity and this encapsulates a large part of it.

Also a reminder that anyone who is not Native American doesn’t get to use the term for themselves at all, for any reason.

Oregon Board of Education bans use of American Indian school mascots

crunkfeministcollective:

Eight Oregon high schools will have to retire their Native American mascots after the Board of Education voted Thursday to prohibit them, giving the state some of the nation’s toughest restrictions on Native American mascots, nicknames and logos.

Yes!

minniescarlet:

And if you don’t like it, unfollow me.

boyprincessdiaries:

Moniquilliloquies.: Do’s and Don’ts in Indian Teaching

countrygramma:

while tearing through the Humboldt State archives today, I found this guide that local Native students were asked to draft for the university’s education program on etiquette in the classroom (dated 1973)…thought I’d post it seeing as there’s more than a few people on tumblr that could use this as a basic starting point outlining how not to be a racist, sorry excuse for an x chromosome:

Do not use the following words to describe local Indian people, nor any other non* English word, unless that work is of the language of the people or tribe of Nation being discussed: buck, squaw, halfbreed, papoose, bull, primitive, brave, princess, prince, savage, wild.

Do not sing “Ten Little Indians,” in the classroom, (you wouldn’t sing, “Ten Little Caucasians,” would you?)

Do not refer to Indian money as “Wampum.”

Do not speak of Indian cultures (in generalizing) as being a thing of the past. Indians are existing now. Emphasize words such as do, are, is. Do not emphasize words such as did, were, or was, etc.

Do not refer to Indian religious leaders as shamans, witch doctors, or cultists.

Do not refer to medicine men at all in the classroom because of complexities of understanding.

Do not speak in broken English ie., “Heap big Injun gotum” A on Math paper.

Do not believe in or perpetuate the following fallacies:

1. Indians are lazy. They do not like to work, and they just can’t compete in a white man’s world.
2. Indians are not as intelligent as our white children.
3. Indian families do not care if their children go to school.
4. Recognition of Indian children is simple because they are fat. This is a mark of beauty among Indians and is very desirable.
5. The Indian has no sense of humor; his facial expression never changes.
6. Most Indians are vindictive and will “get even” with you if you displease them.
7. You have to be real stern and strict in your dealings with Indians, or they will try to “get away” with something.

Do whatever possible to utilize the color brown, rather than white, pink, etc. as figures on bulletin boards.

(Source: emeraldtriangleprincess)

wmkoot:

The American Indian Holocaust known as the “500 year war” and the Worlds Longest Holocaust in the history of mankind and loss of human lives.  North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a”vast genocide … , the most sustained on record.”