Beating on Tom Toms

We own another people's identity

Native Americans have been defined by others since their conquest, since their world was invaded and they were removed to a safe distance, since their agreements with the government were ignored or torn up.    Noble, savage, natural, uncivilized.  Does it matter how one is defined, if the definer is not oneself? 

Native Americans have been the essential other, the aspiration (remember merit badges) and the replaceable.   Always, to be defined…by others.  As I reflected on this, so many personal memories came to mind.  I’ve lived through many years of varying definitions.  They scalped, they danced, they had visions, they hunted, they were the object, even perhaps the purpose, of anthropology.  They are museum pieces and casino owners, drunken derelicts and noble survivors.  They are always what we want them to be, choose them to be, define them as. 

Is it therefore so hard to understand, when many, being human like the rest of us, object to our camp fire “namings.”  They have served their purpose in our adolescent fantasies.  We must let go. 

And thus it comes down to sport’s teams and their names.  Of course, as intelligent citizens of a shared country, we have given serious thought and sober debate to the issue.  We have not jumped on the nearest bandwagon and waved our opinions, sent up our smoke symbols.  Of course not, we are Americans.

Why or why are we still so likely to make the original American a pawn in our games?  We might have treated this issue with thoughtful respect.  We might have been able to learn more about our history and the nature of “identity.”  We didn’t and we haven’t.

Here’s the hard truth. The closest we will ever get to self-understanding is when we “double-down” on self-identity, call it introspection if you wish. 

And when that identity is a freedom of discovery, a process of experience and part of a changing awareness of the world, it is owned, and can be inspiring and nourishing.  It is then not fixed, part of a time and place and another’s destiny. 

When it is imposed, we take away, at least in part, one’s essential “being.”