Trans Racialism

To the privileged little white girl outside my Doctor’s office who made the mistake of letting me overhear her describe “finding herself” as a “Native American spirit trapped by a white body” – and who *really* identified with “that trans-race NAACP girl”.

You are not “trans-racial”.   You are not “a Native American” trapped in a “white” body. 

You are a racist fuck.   

(…who had a so-so rack, and an admittedly nice ass.)  

(Neither of which excuse you using the phrase “my spirit ancestors’re crying that I was trapped like this”, by the way.)

And for the record - I don’t care about the NAACP trans-racial former-blonde chapter-leader whatever.   This isn’t about that.  Black people, that one’s all you – I sincerely wish you a happy ending, whatever you feel that ending should be.  I stopped paying attention to it, because I’ve got no dog in that race.  Not my right to speak in your place, so on that topic, peace and I’m out.   I respect that you can speak for yourselves. 

But.

On Trans-racialism as a whole.  

You cannot change your race just because you “identify” with another.    Race, in America, is as much identity as genetics and culture.   A race is set experiences and specific shared history, cultural memory, and current experiences.     There’s a world of difference between “identifying” with being a different race, and actually having lived it and earned the right to claim it and own it.  

But that’s not the hottest part of today’s fire.  Trans-racial “but I should have been born a native American, mommy!” types.   (And Christ, there are so many of you walking around now…) 

Fuck.   You.

Take the feather out of your hair (you didn’t earn it – you don’t even know WHY you have to earn it) and stop telling people you’re “spiritually native American”.    You aren’t.   Stop it.  

The last time a white person of either gender saw us for who and what we truly are, they were looking down an iron barrel as they mowed down a field of women and children during King Phillip’s war. 

You barely saw us as human then.  You don’t see us at all now.   You don’t know us.   Your eyes are glazed over by your twilight tween fantasies and your sports symbol imagery and your “indian chief memes”.    

You look at other races and see “racist stereotypes” and get offended on their behalf - but then you look at us and see nothing.    You get offended when we don’t look like Fabio, or your Twilight team teen hero.  I’ve actually had to argue with people over whether I’m tribal, because I don’t wear feathers or “tribal markings”.   (My tribe considers marking the body sacred and meaningful – we don’t get cheap and gawdy “tribal” tattoos.  Mostly, your people do.)     

I can’t count the number of times one of you has called me “Chief” or “Redman” or made a “be brave” joke.   You’re so arrogant that you think it’s actually funny.   How about all the times someone says “How” when I walk in the room, to get a few cheap laughs?   One guy at my office actually asked if my (white) wife had made “reservations” for me when I was talking about our wedding anniversary.   He laughed himself breathless over it.   Me?  I stifled the urge to step on his throat on behalf of the millions of my ancestors who died of starvation and disease on reservations.

 If you used the N- word, you’d get punched in the mouth.   But with other cultures, you think it’s no big deal.   You don’t even have the decency to realize how offensive it is when you use our words and make your jokes.    You think being “indian” is “cool”, so it’s okay to make the jokes.   You’re so inured by your own devastatingly smug self-assurance as to who “we” really are, that you’ve never realized your image of “us” comes from books written by others like you who don’t really see us either.  

To be fair?    You probably don’t even know just how incredibly, blatantly offensive you’re being.    Because you have no idea what it’s like to be one of our people on a daily basis in this country.   And I’m not going to make this into “that” rant, because none of you will ever be able to.  

But now you think that you can be “trans racial”?    You’ve gone from the “New Age” bull shit to telling people that you really are Tribal now because you wished REAAAAALLLY hard and spend $$8.99 on some tanning oil?     Seriously?  

You want to be one of “us”?    You seize onto this idiotic media invention of being able to become a different race just by wishing hard enough – and you have the balls to choose a race that you’ve never even seen in real life?    And you think that’s okay?  

You want to become a race that you’ve made invisible by your own ignorance – and kept starving and destitute because you’re too proud of your “enlightenment” to open your eyes and actually see us for what this land has made us into.    You want to be the cool kid who can tell people that she’s “in touch with mother earth” because she’s trans-racial and actually has a “Native spirit”? 

…

Little white girl, my ancestors wouldn’t be ashamed to see you in that body.   They’d be ashamed to see you on our land.  

You can thank me for not punching you in the head later.   Maybe if you get the “trans racial” crap out of your brain, a trauma-based modality of treatment won’t be necessary to cure your stupidity.  

In the meantime, I hear stupidity is catching – and your great grandparents already gave us the small pox.   Please stand away from my children when you’re having your (apparently) contagious “trans-racial” moments.    

Thank you.