Racism Against Language

I came across something today that upset me a bit, ok it really upset me since I'm blogging about it. However before I get into that let me give you a bit of background here...

DH is an enrolled member, and my sons are direct decedents of the Stockbridge Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indian Tribe. Yes that is a mouth full to say, and I never get the name right and yes there still are Mohicans despite the book, Last of the Mohicans.  

We lived on his Reservation for a couple of years when we owned the restaurant, and it was an interesting time of my life. It was the first time in my life, despite growing up in a very culturally diversified area that I witnessed racism for the first time. What made it even more mind blowing for me was that it was aimed at me, or rather it was aimed at the White man, and since I'm about as White as a ghost it was aimed at me too. Don't get me wrong here, about 98% of the people don't have this attitude, and are the most caring individuals you could ever come across. I guess it was the fact that as a people who had experienced racism since the White man set foot on this land, it never occurred to me that they could give it in return. Lesson learned.

So anyhow that brings me up to the present time. I have no problem sticking up for Indians, and no I will not call them Native Americans, I refuse to cater into the bullshit that is political correctness. Just because I call them Indians doesn't mean I think anything different about them as people. They are just that...people. Back to the subject here.

DH shared a link on his FB page and when I read it I was flabbergasted. It was an article about a Menominee (for those of you who don't know, Menominee is a Tribe) 7th grader who was suspended from her basketball game over the fact that she was teaching a classmate how to say "posoh" (hello) and "ketapanen" (I love you). in Menominee which is her cultural language. It was a privet conversation, and apparently two of her teachers were so insecure with themselves that they told her coach to bench her for the game that night. They said they did this because she had a bad attitude. 

Now I don't know the exact details because I only could read what was written in the news article, maybe she was doing this while she was supposed to be doing school work, I don't know, I wasn't there. What I do know is that racism is very rampant in this area. You see DH's Reservation and the Menominee Reservation are right next door, and due to a whole lot of political crap that I wont get into, the surrounding towns and people don't like them. 

However it is never right to deny a person of their freedom of speech no matter what language it is in. The school agreed to making a public apology to the student along to the Menominee Nation. However the letter that was sent was a generic letter which didn't go into why an apology was being made. 

I find this deplorable on the schools part. By making the agreement to give a public apology they are saying they were wrong. A generic letter that doesn't state the "why" is not good enough. 

It is amazing that some Tribes are still able to carry on their traditions and languages considering that the governments plan in 1879 was to remove all traces of Indigenous traditions and languages of the Indian people with cultural genocide by making them conform to the "English" way. This effectively caused many Tribes to become non-existent, and many to lose the essence of who they are. (see #4)

DH's Tribe would be one that fell into losing who they were. The language has pretty much been lost, traditions that were particular to their Tribe are also lost. They are rising above it all today with adopting a language that is similar and from the same region as well as their traditions.

To sit there and punish a child for not only embracing her culture, but then going on to teach it to someone else is disgusting and wrong. She should instead be recognized for her efforts. After all, if we stop sharing, teaching, and learning aren't we basically killing ourselves and becoming robots who are told what to do? 


Hey you learned something new today now didn't you? You can now speak two words of Menominee.


I send you off with some words (Lunaape language) adopted by the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribe...Patamawaus K'wetchawun (God is with you).