Consuming Identities

So a few weeks ago we got some bell hooks on consuming/eating the other  and we have Judith Butler who gives us the ideas of performative gender, you have your sex (body/mind) and then gender (how you present yourself) both of which are not binary.  You do not have to be male or female or perform as man or woman but can exist in the in between spaces (if you are not harassed and  killed for doing that).  As RuPaul says "you are born naked and the rest is drag."

So identity is a construction, from the basis of how we adorn/feel/imagine ourselves and can be a consumed as bell hooks showed us, we can purchase some safe blackness to spice up our lives, try on the ideas of another culture, and eat their food.  The other night Joel raised the question about wether I am consuming indianess and how does consumption of the "other" balance with genuine attempts to claim an identity, especially when we are in an emerging contruction of pan-indianess?

Even writing those paragraphs took a while and there is a lot I want to weave into this post.  Let's start with the assuption that we are talking about a genuine claim to identity.  We are metis, we are aboriginals out of "that world" trying to understand how we can get back in and is it worth bothering with this questions at all?

A common theme that emerges in this process ofr claiming is that the claimee doesn't "look indian".  That you could pass.  You have blue eyes.  That you have not had "some kind of quintessential "Native Experience"".  Kim Anderson speaks about this as "part of a (concious or unconcious) continuum of assilationsist practice aimed at making Natives dissapear... once we are "only half", on once we become urbanized or non-language speakers, many non-Native people feel inclined to tell us that we no longer exist.  We are not longer Natives."  This was deliberate.  See the poster to the right which is a quote by the head of indian affairs in the early 1900s.  The poster is by Sonny Assu and comes in a variety of fun colours just like us.

So is it worth bothering?  I think it is or ultimately the policy of all those earlier governments was successfull and the government's responsibilty to aboriginal people gets lost because their voice is small.  Together we are stronger.  I think it is worth reclaiming because if we don't claim it in these generations then it is lost forever.  And so eloquently, again from Anderson "What is my native experiences?  My first, more basic realization was that all people of Native ancestry have "native experiences", because unfortunately, part of our experiences as native peoples includes being relocated, dispossesed of our ways of life, adopted into white faimilies, and so on.  All Native peoples have experiences loss to one degree or another because of these policies and as a result we hae to work at making sense of our identity.  For many of us, part of being Native is feeling like we aren't!"

But how do you get back in?  There is a temptation to make this a consumer exercise.  This is the default for our society at the moment.  I will buy the right indian things, the right books, the right everything and I will show these to other people.  Then I will be indian/metis.  That was where I started.  It is hard as an introvert to get out and talk to people and have experiences and ask the hard questionsr required to move beyond that stage.  It comes with returning to the languages, returning to ceremony (however you do that), it comes with recasting all the circles in your life with a new lens.  That takes time and negotiation.

Negotiation in that we are not rejoining cultures that were stagnant.  Cultures that were never stagnant and cultures that are in the proccess of growth.  Where do I fit myself in?  As a Metis, Lakota, Cree, Ojibway?  All of them?  I choose to learn Cree because the resources exist and it is linked to Mischeif.  For each circle of life do I make that valuation?  In this context is pan-indianess a cop out, a smart solution or a quick path to a consumable indian culture?

I found this drum last night and the artist's description is far cleverer that I could ever be "Drum - "Pan-Indianism, Cultural Distinction" lessLIE (Coast Salish), 2010. Artist statement: "This circular Coast Salish drum is simultaneously a reflection of the cultural phenomenon of pan-Indianism and a visual deconstruction of it, acknowledging the political importance of such indigenous unity. With utmost respect for First Nations culture, which believe in medicine wheels, this design utilizes the Coast Salish iconography of salmon in the design to make it distinctly Coast Salish."  Maybe there is hope to a pan-indianess that is not just a consumer short hand.

Last night I was looking for a Kent Monkman picture and came across this piece he did as " Miss Cheif" (best drag name ever).  It stuck me that maybe drag has all the answers.  We put on indianess/metisness/otherness and we consume it conciously, putting on a show - if we want too, but we never forget that it is a show and that the real stuff is deeper.  I am going to try to not feel guilty about the show and enjoy it when that is the space I am in, but to also carefully gaurd those other spaces we are carving out in our family.  Those are the things that really matter in this journey of reclaiming.  The rest is just drag.  What matter is that we are still here.  We were not absorbed.  We are changed and we are changing.  We are and can be fabulous.