>>> "alec ramsdell" <a_ramsdell at hotmail.com> 11/17 11:20 PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote in response to Frances Bolton:
.>Of course, you don't know how old
>I was when my grandfather told me or
>whether there was any raising of me
>as Indian. Racist America doesn't really
>allow such a thing as Indian and Black.
>Probably comes from the time when
>the whites feared our military union.
>But people like you can't steal
>my joint heritage thereby.
>You better be an Indian or your
>comment is kinda arrogant, racist
>even.
Charles, I understand your seriousness. I think I understand what's at stake here for you, though I haven't had your experiences, so I don't presume. But how is this rather reactionary response of yours justified? What is the specific content of Frances' post that leads you to say to her: "people like you can't steal my joint heritage thereby. . . . or your comment is kinda arrogant, racist even?" _________
Charles: Let me say first that my response is liberationist and progressive, the complete opposite of reactionary. I'll see as I get into your postion, but initially,my response is "what kind of mixed up thinking would call my response reactionary ?" Maybe I should ask you to explain how in the world you would conclude that my position in this debate is the reactionary one ?
On the specific content of Frances' post, she said that my saying that my grandfather told me I am at least 1/16 of Indian heritage (which, by the way, meant that he was 1/4 Indian) told her nothing about the intimacy of my knowledge of Indian struggles ( or some such phrase I had used; it's in the post). Her reasoning had something to do with that if my grandfather told me I was Indian, I couldn't have been raised Indian. Then she asked whether somehow I got my Indian knowledge genetically, as joke or something.
Actually there was so much politically incorrect in the post that I had to sort of limit myself and not go off on it. But in a nutshell a main problem was that it seemed that she, who I think is white, was setting herself up as a judge of whether or not I am or can claim that I am part Indian or have legitimate conncections to Indian liberation struggles or something like that. For her to do this is a theft of my Indian heritage in this discussion.
This had been on the heels of a discussion of someone seeming to think that a strong pro-Black position somehow slighted other Peoples of Color. I brought up my combination Blackness/Indianness in contradiction to this earlier part of the thread.
Get it ?
Charles Brown
Detroit
I found nothing arrogant or racist in Frances' post. I seriously doubt she is out to steal your heritage. And I read no unintended racism or arrogance in her words.
(Pardon me Frances, for butting in here, but some of these recent posts, which I'm just catching up on, make me, well, a little pissed.)
-Alec
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