“I was a Cherokee woman in another life”
Said a white girl I met in Los Angeles
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I was shocked, I could not believe somebody would say that to me after I said I was Indigenous.
“I was a Cherokee woman in another life. I just know. I have worked with some people in pas lives and they also told me that. I have no doubt.”
Important things to remember:
- It does not matter how your grandma, father, or mother were. If you have white skin, you have racial privilege. This is an important topic in the Latin American community. Being “Latino” does not make you a person of color. It does not work like that.
- Having “Indigenous blood” does not make you a person of color. I might have “Spanish” blood, and that does not make me a European woman. It makes me a survivor of genocide. Blood does not define what race we are.
- I do not want to hear how badly you want to be indigenous or that you even hired people to tell you that you are so obsessed with being other than white.
- I am not some fantasy. Native Americas are not a goal. You are born Native or not.
White people’s desperation to be seen as something less than white is emotionally exhausting but also violent. The romanticization of Native Communities is dangerous and offensive, we are part of those communities that are invisible to the State, and to society, and then we get fetishized by the ones who are aware of our existence.
Let’s be mindful and aware of how wanting to be part of another racial community can impact and even traumatize people who are already part of those communities.
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Holi, Hola. If you liked my stories, thank you. If you don’t thank you too, I appreciate your presence and time spent here.
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Your Native friend is a writer and an artist. She likes to drink coffee with milk and a little brown sugar. Always brown, never white.
She has been traveling for the past 5 years, lived in 4 countries, and had art exhibitions in Indonesia, Mexico, Italy, Argentina, Spain, Chile, and Peru.