People swing wildly between seeing indigenous people as “evil savages” and “noble protectors of the forest” instead of just seeing us as people and it’s not only really goddamn dehumanizing, it also makes it harder to talk about our own community issues without supposedly progressive people thinking that that gives them permission to jump right into violent racism that they pulled directly from Manifest Destiny propaganda.
Like I see so many Native people who desperately wish they could talk more openly about enrollment issues and lack of marriage equality and other forms of bigotry that our tribes justify with blood quantum and claims of tradition but they can’t do that because it opens the door for people to just be obscenely, horrifically racist and think that they’re progressive for doing so.
“Oh, this Native person is talking about asshole Elders on their tribe’s council? Well obviously this means that all culture and religion are evil tools of oppression that are holding us back and people who still cling to cultural traditions are just dumb and ignorant bigots.
Except for my culture, obviously, since I see it as the default state of humanity.”
I am biting you. I am biting you and I am killing you.