As usual, I may well make a complete fool of myself in this post. I may make opinionated statements that serve only to demonstrate my ignorance. I may be offensive, though I certainly do not intend any offense. If what I say is offensive and ignorant I would gladly accept comments about that.
I’m an American-born, suburban-raised, middle-class, caucasian of European descent, and I will gladly fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. By indigenous inhabitants I’m referring to the indigenous humans as well as the elk, caribou, woodchucks, elm trees, cedars, mycelia, bacteria, and every other living being indigenous to this region.
What does it mean to be indigenous? Some would argue that indigenous is a meaningless term since it every form of life moves from place to place, however quickly or slowly. According to those who would argue such things there are no indigenous humans in North America, for example, since they say that humans are native to the Middle East. However, I have a definition of indigenous that means something or someone who belongs to the place where they live (instead of seeing the place where they live as belonging to them,) someone who knows every detail of the place where they live and where the place that they live knows every detail about them, someone who is literally composed of the place where they live because every breath is of the place where they live, because they walk on the ground every day, and because their parents ate of the place and died in that place. Most importantly, though, to be indigenous, as far as I’m concerned, one must leave the place where one lives better when one dies. I’ll also add that as far as I’m concerned, indigenous beings also live extremely locally and their lives promote diversity (i.e. indigenous is the opposite of globalization.)
That’s just my opinion. That’s just my definition. You don’t have to agree with it. It’s just the basis of what I have to say in the blog post.
Because of the situation into which I was born, because I am of European descent in the Americas, because I was born into a middle-class suburban family, I will never be indigenous. It’s impossible. I can try as much as I want. It just wasn’t in the cards. I am not and cannot be indigenous. It’s a sad fact of modern life that most of us will never be indigenous. We can steal the names of the indigenous. We can go to sweat lodges. We can hang dream catchers in our cars. We can walk barefoot. We can live in yurts. We can do whatever we want. We’ll never be indigenous. We ought to stop trying. Instead, we ought to work to return North America (and everywhere else too, I’m just talking about North America since it’s where I live) to the indigenous inhabitants.
I have worked to try to get rid of the romantic and idealistic notions I have had about the indigenous inhabitants of North America, human or not. I understand that no one and especially no group will fit my idealized notions of how we should live. The point, though, is that my idealized notions of how we should live are of no value. What is of value is the actual living in such a way that leaves the world better for having lived. I understand that the indigenous human inhabitants of North America are a diverse group, and that some have histories of war, oppression, domestic violence, and other things which may not fit into my idealized notion of how we should live. Or maybe they don’t have such histories. I don’t know. It depends who you listen to and which way the trends in history happen to be moving when you’re listening. I don’t know, and I cannot know what the Lakota people did or did not do a thousand years ago.
What I can know, and what actually matters to those of us living today, is that the indigenous inhabitants of North America lived for tens of thousands of years (in case of human inhabitants) or much longer in this place, and their lives left the place in a condition such that more inhabitants could live here in the future. Their lives promoted diversity and health. Their lives gave life to the soil and to the waters.
When the Europeans invaded North America the continent was covered with a diversity of life. Only a few hundred years later North America has been pillaged, and the diversity has been reduced to uniformity across an entire continent. Today you can go to nearly any town or city or suburb or anywhere else in North America and find similar houses, apartment buildings, office parks, retailers, and schools. Monocrops replaced functioning eco-systems. Hundreds or thousands of human languages and cultures have been effectively replaced by just a few languages and one culture. Animals (other than humans) are allowable only if they are considered of value as a commodity or for production (or for entertainment or companionship.) Buffalo are replaced by cows. Waterways are put into “production” and sometimes rerouted entirely when deemed more suitable. The entire way of living of the culture into which I was born requires the killing of the place where we live. We, the non-indigenous, have no right to the place where we live. We kill with our every breath.
That is the reason I say that I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. I will gladly dedicate myself to that which will leave me without a home, without a place to live. I will do that because it is right. I will do that because I am not indigenous, and the non-indigenous cannot stake a rightful claim to anything. The best the non-indigenous can do is fight on the side of the indigenous. We, the non-indigenous, are an invasive. It doesn’t matter how many generations have gone by. The reason it doesn’t matter is that even if hundreds of generations had gone by the actual result that we see today is that those of us who are non-indigenous are killing the place where we live. If hundreds of generations had gone by and we were no killing the place where we live then it might be different.
Some might argue that I’m not to blame for my parents’ and their parents’ and their parents’ crimes. In fact, as far as I can tell, my family didn’t directly invade North America. My mother’s family arrived from Germany just a few generations ago. My father’s family, as best anyone can tell, were poor rural people for many generations back. Before that, it would seem, my father’s family lived among the Cherokee, as Cherokee, for many generations. They were sent west on the Trail of Tears. Make no mistake, though, that does not make me indigenous. My father’s family is of European descent. Even had they not been of European descent, they renounced their Cherokee identities when the persecution was too great.
My family may not have directly invaded North America and stolen it from the indigenous inhabitants (killing many of the indigenous inhabitants.) However, I have indirectly gained much through the invasion. Everything that I have ever gotten in this modern world has been because of the invasion. I owe my life to those who have been oppressed and killed. That is reason enough for me to fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.
Regardless, though, the point remains that when I walk, breath, or even when I merely sit in a house, my life is killing the place where I live. In tens of thousands of years or even hundreds of thousands of years the indigenous inhabitants of North America didn’t pave over an entire continent. They didn’t reroute waterways. They didn’t kill off nearly every other living being on the continent. They didn’t turn everything into a commodity. They didn’t build nuclear weapons.
Their lives made North America better. Their lives made the place in which they lived healthier.
I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.