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Re: On the disappearance of the black community / "Still fracturing today" » The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Miz — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:05:44 -0000

Well, in Native communities, there is a growing recognition that the Post WWII period which saw federal Indian policy try and terminate reservation lands... that the rationale behind Termination was rooted in this idea that the United States was attempting to assimilate American Indians as apart of a kind of Cold War strategy which used American Indians as a symbol of American enlightenment with regards to race. The assimilation of Americans in that era was held up to improve the U.S. image with regards to race, violence, etc. And along with this growing recognition is the idea that sometime around Reagan's election, American Indians, after a decade of protest and opposition to Termination, became "American others" whereas before Native people were thought of as vanishing. And so idea of maybe the strongest idea of "community" in the American sense comes into being after 1980... so, what I have been sort of interested in recently is the way the U.S. has defined itself in relation to War in the Middle East, and if there is another tactical sort of Cold War taking place... I don't think its a stretch to say the past decade has been one assimilation as the United States defines its "others" which is a category that seems only to get bigger. Just a thought.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:11:08 -0000

I still sorta get a kick out it all... mainly because a lot of white women... well, let me relate a story: About two months I am sitting in the dentist's chair, and my dentist, who is white, asks me, "Are you Mayan?" And me, I say, "No, I am Ojibwe." And then I smile, and laugh on the inside, and try and hold my breath bracing for whatever comes next. And she says to me, "Oh, I asked because one of the women who raised me, my nanny... well, you have the same skin color... and I was just wondering, because I like it, I think its beautiful... I wish I were your color." And for a moment, I don't know what the say, because I am never ready for this. There's a lot going on there. Obviously, my dentist was wealthy enough to have come from a family where they could hire a Nanny. That said, she was fair skinned in the kind of way that Irish women are fair skinned, that is to say, kinda, really white. She opted to describe herself as Irish, too, as I recall. And I just laughed gently, because there is always that awkward moment... when one has to say to oneself, "Did my dentist really just ask me that? Right here, while I am sitting in her chair?"And the answer comes to mind, 'Yes, she did.' And the fact that she did by itself is privilege. And I know again, the general category in which I fall... in her scheme of things. I remind her of her nanny, and all the associations that go along with that relationship for her. I had only seen this dentist once before, and we didn't have any kind of long term doctor-patient relationship, so I did what I do... I own who I am, and I own all of who I am... mixed and all. And I try and laugh. And I think later, I like to say it a loud, "I am Ojibwe," in that way, because it reminds me that being Ojibwe is to be part of the larger nations of Native people from across the Americas, even as I thinking about what it means to be working away from one's own family to raise the children of more privileged people, economically. And for a moment I imagine this Mayan woman... I can see her or think I can. I can see myself not in her face, but I see me in my mother's face... my mom, an Ojibwe woman who is really beautiful. And because my mom and I look something alike, I like to imagine that I am beautiful like her, whether or not that's true. LOL. Because that is my perception of her. Where does this come from? I don't think it came from seeing Native people on TV. I don't know where it came from... maybe it was because people said my mother was beautiful. (And in relation to this Liberator post, I understand Vilhelm's call to start "seeing" people as beautiful, and not just because they happen to look a certain way.) Whatever the reason, for a moment, I am totally immersed in reflection of who I am... even if in the next moment, when I am forced to look away. And then for a moment, I wonder why my dentist wants to be other than who she is... maybe she saw a Mayan face growing up, and her own mother wasn't there, and maybe she really did want to look like this. Maybe she thinks its exotic because it was different from the culture she was raised in. Whatever the case, I believe her when she says she thinks being "Mayan" is beautiful. And I know there is nothing that neither she or I can do about the way either us look. Not that I would change, and not that I believe she would either. And my anger and anxiety creeps in after a moment because of the way I have sometimes been treated for the way I look, the way I have seen my family treated, and so on. And this is only one instance... an instance in which one pereson commented on beauty. And then there are those moments when people choose to throw elbows around about privilege, and so I laugh some more... because I know its all about what there experience has been and what there expectations are etc. And I think I know, and I know my own experience, and that is all I know, in the sense that I work to develop a sense of reciprocity in my thinking because I want people to accept my feelings on these issues, as I know they would like people to accept theirs. Now, i know certain people will just "boo" what I have said... because... everybody knows Native American women are beautiful... just look at the images we see when we see native women. If someone didn't fall into that category of what we are taught to think of as beautiful... then they just wouldn't fit, would they?

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:20:22 -0000

@Vilhelm. I think of your post as All-or-Nothing thinking. Meaning that whatever the case may be... this case, "the post-racial project isn't a matter for white people until..." means that your conditions must be met in order for something to happen. And, I guess, I see that as kind of unrealistic... the all-or-nothing thing. Whatever the case may be. And to go along with my dislike of this particular post there is the idea that race in America ( fyi) includes more than just black and white people. But, if I assert that, I will almost certainly be uh-hum, forfeiting any response from readers, lol, so I will leave that part be. I have "mixed" feelings. Lol.

Re: Myles Horton / On the long haul [sayings] » The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Miz — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:01:33 -0000

While I sorta find it interesting that he wanted to redirect some of his anger, I have to disagree with the idea of capitalism as more viable than what he considered at first. In the 1950s, if a person follows Stephen Cornell's arguments as to why the U.S. government wanted to terminate reservation land bases as having to do with a larger resource grab... there is no room for Native people in the U.S. to discuss the long-term viability of capitalism... only long term strategies for opposing capitalist urges for resource "development".

Re: Myles Horton / On the long haul [sayings] » The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Miz — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:52:56 -0000

Nice post.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:39:05 -0000

The reason why I guess I get such a laugh out of this... Vilhelm's call was really made to other men who think like him. Lol.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:21:51 -0000

LOL!

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:28:14 -0000

@lfpe Um, that is to say... I think the poster is engaging in some of that "othering". I am guessing a few "others" felt that same way. Lol.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:31:40 -0000

yeah, what she (rnfinn) said. Lol.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:58:28 -0000

lol.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:49:48 -0000

Right, I just don't think that the "shaman" and the "trickster" necessarily have to be one in the same. LOL. I don't see the post racial project being put on hold for this post, whether that project is false or not, any more than I see any other element of human behavior waiting on someone else for permission for it to move forward. ... Whether I agree with the rhetorical strategies of the poster or not. Taussig also said something about... "That is why my subject is not the truth of being but the social being of
truth, not whether facts are real but what the politics of their
interpretation and representation are".

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:08:43 -0000

Lol. I just seriously doubt the "whole post-racial project" will be put on hold for this post. Just a guess though, I mean seriously it could happen. Lots of luck.
... the whole post reminds me of Micheal Taussig's notion of ... (thanks Wikipedia for the blurb)... "how the shaman has been able to harness the “mystery” and “wildness”
projected onto him by Western “civilization” in his practice as a
shaman. He [Taussig] goes on to write that this, “folding of the underworld of the
conquering society into the culture of the conquered [is] not as an
organic synthesis or ‘syncretism’… but as a chamber of mirrors
reflecting each stream’s perception of the other”. In what does
the healing power of wildness lie? Taussig answers this question:
"Wildness challenges the unity of the symbol, the transcendent
totalization binding the image to that which it represents. Wildness
pries open this unity and in its place creates slippage. . . . Wildness
is the death space of signification” (219).
“So it has been through the sweep of colonial history where the
colonizers provided the colonized with the left-handed gift of the image
of the wild man--a gift whose powers the colonizers would be blind to,
were it not for the reciprocation of the colonized, bringing together in
the dialogical imagination of colonization an image that wrests from
civilization its demonic power”.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:29:03 -0000

Thanks for the whole post... lots of laughs.

Re: On the allure of the light-skinned woman » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine

Miz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:00:38 -0000

@achali. LOL! I'm sorry... last time I posted a comment on the Liberator having to do with being mixed... (I am mixed Native and white, fyi... for anyone who might wonder while reading this) and I believe someone tried to call me out on "privilege"... and so I read this... and I think... No mixed people are not always categorized as the exotic, we (yes, we) are categorized sometimes as just "other".

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:16:47 -0000

That is to say... 'Michigan' is a name given to the state upon statehood, but in Ojibwe, of course, in context, it means more than "large lake" because it is a part of the entire language. But, in terms of decolonization to give the Ojibwe word a greater context than its (mis)appropriation as the name of an American state, is to begin some process of decolonization, in some way.
How can decolonization of any kind, for anyone, occur otherwise? To leave it out, is to say the land was empty... of its original habitats. Decolonization cannot simply have a personal meaning... or if it does, it loses some political purchase. Statehood was contingent upon treaty making... only possibly through land cession.
The name Michigan... if it was a French edification also bears the trace of a Metis past... at some point when Ojibwe and Metis were the linqua franca of the Great Lakes, when language was a precious middle ground. I am saying this not because I think that it bars decolonization for the woman who made this post, but because surely decolonization doesn't take place as a "liberation scheme"...
Of course, the soil itself is very rich...

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:03:49 -0000

In English... I should say, "Michigan"... refers the lake or lakes... and its meaning in English is rendered as 'large lake' or 'great lake'. I suppose when a person considers that the lake is connected to the entire chain of lakes it might take on a different or greater meaning.

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:59:27 -0000

The point of making the post regarding the meaning of the word... is to draw attention to the fact that people don't even know that it is an Ojibwe word. The word itself means something like "large lake". So, one can be in Michigan... use the name, and be thinking about decolonization in an American context, and never think... wow, here I am speaking a remnant of language... and I have no idea what it means, or whose language I am speaking... or what the name itself references. The same could be said for "Chicago", "Mississippi", "Wisconsin"...

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:29:57 -0000

But, you also are insisting in a way... that the personal is political.

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:41:38 -0000

"During my moment of frustration, I reminisced on the land being seized by corporations & governments from small farmers in many countries in Africa
(New York Times: "African Farmers Displaced as Investors Move In")
namely Mali, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia,
Mozambique, etc. I thought of the land that so many Black people live
on, develop, and make profitable for the insatiable capitalist system
that rules the global economic order but do not own and are therefore
contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for the proverbial
landlords."
So, I just have to know: How is it that you don't see the relationship between the indigenous people of the this continent and the farm where you are? I can't help but see it... the work Michigan in Ojibwe means something. Just like all the other names for places that come from our languages because they are our homes.

Re: Agriculture's necessity in liberation / "I thought of land people live on, develop and make profitable but do not own ... contemporary serfs, forced off when beneficial for proverbial landlords" » ...

Miz — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:52:03 -0000

I like to think of how ironic this is. Michigan is the word for __________ in our language.

Re: http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2008/02/obama-making-my-case-in-indian-country.html

Miz — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:07:49 -0000

Hm. I believe I owe Sherman Alexie an apology. But, not for misquoting him originally. And if I did, I apologized for that. No this apology will be offered for what I took him for his literary work. Sherman Alexie, if you are out there, if you give a damn, I apologize. Let me explain: I dug into you on this little post for using the "lost bird" as a literary device. I had two objections, each of them characters of yours from your work. John Smith and the pasty dude from a short story you wrote titled "The Search Engine." In both of these stories the adopted-out character functions as a literary device through which you interrogate issues of race (Indian Killer) and authenticity (The Search Engine). I shot from the hip and that was wrongheaded. Two years later, I would argue that representing adopted-out folks as "lost birds" is a misrepresentation. The "lost bird" thing started with a biography of a Lakota woman who was taken from the massacre at Wounded Knee by a U.S. General and raised by a white mother. As you may know, she was dubbed a Lost Bird after unsuccessfully finding her birth family, and remaining estranged from her adopted family. Those folks who are dubbed "lost birds" today are dubbed so because of small movement that formed around this book sometime ago. The name has been picked up and used, even by some adoptees. Another Navajo women picked it up and wrote a memoir. So, in the first instance, you hardly the first to develop work using the "lost bird" as literary material. Now, the reason why I object to the term Lost Bird is another thing. I think using a term that described this individual's life--Lost Bird--obscures the policies around adoption in the 50s. You may be aware, a decade later, that Indian Adoption Project was similar in some ways to Termination era policy. And since the late 70s, most adoptees are not as hard pressed to find parents or relatives as was Lost Bird in the first half of the 20th century. It is rare that people who are adopted out tell their own stories. My mother is one such person. So, I will admit to being sensitive on this subject. It appeared to me that you were using the John Smith and the others as literary devices to describe the state of men impacted by race, identity etc. And it seemed to me you were doing so carelessly, without taking the stories of those whose lives are actually impacted by transracial adoption... taking in a sense, without asking. I was okay with that, but disturbed by claiming someone else had unfairly used a story similar to your own for literary fodder. But, I think there is a better way...

Re: From "civil rights" to "sovereign rights" [books]

Miz — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:53:20 -0000

my last word on all of this is... i think that the U.S. is going to continue to have problems at home and around the world because as a nation the U.S. refused to acknowledge the violence at the root of conquest, and it's going to continue eating the country from the inside out. and that is not something i can help the nation out with, as I have been far too affected personally it all to want to help.

Re: From "civil rights" to "sovereign rights" [books]

Miz — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:32:43 -0000

please feel free to remove any and all of my comments from the Liberator.

Re: From "civil rights" to "sovereign rights" [books]

Miz — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:31:03 -0000

sure thing.

Re: From "civil rights" to "sovereign rights" [books]

Miz — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:53:36 -0000

because it appears true to me.