Dude you are hands down probably the most interesting person I’d know if I knew you, those hunting skills and all that are just awesome yet at the same time you’re also just like a city everyman. If you ask me I’d say fuck them if they can’t accommodate you, you’re a star shining way too bright and too hard and too big for them anyway. I’m sorry about the racism and shit you’ve experienced, I can’t understand or help but at least know that this queer white woman half across the world would say you’re a bigger person than all those racists with nothing to do with their time combined.
Comment on Anon doesn't fit in
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
Try being an actual full blooded native person.
I’m 100% Ojibway, my parents on both sides were born raised and lived in the wilderness. I’m the first generation born in a modern hospital. My first language is ojibway, I spoke it exclusively for the first 15 years of my life. We learned English in school but we all spoke ojibway at home. I learned to hunt, trap, fish and live on the land from my parents and I love spending time outdoors. It’s all natural to me.
Now I live close to the city in a non native world. My wife is white and we spend most of our time to ourselves.
My family doesn’t think I’m native enough. White people don’t believe I’m native because I live like a city person. Most people don’t believe I’m native because I don’t have red weathered skin, a crooked nose and long braided hair. Many people have confused me as Chinese, Korean, or an overweight Thai, Cambodian or Lao. Or even Peruvian, Ecuador or Mexican.
I meet city Indians who have ancestry but have never lived on the land or know their communities or even speak the language yet they wear native stuff, necklaces and everything and get more recognition than me for being native.
I intimidate other natives when I speak my language because it reminds them that they can’t speak other than to know a few words or phrases. So now I seldom speak and as I grow older, the people I could speak to are now either dead, dying or too old.
I get funding as a native person but I get very little. I don’t live in reserve so I’m the last to get funding. I don’t get off reserve funding because I have full status with my community where I could live if I chose to. I get tax off on some things but not everything because I don’t live on reserve and doing my taxes every year is a nightmare, so in the end, I pay just about the same amount of taxes as everyone else and save just a little.
I’ve watched dozens of half breed, quarter breed, 1/8 breed, 1/16 breed natives with scholarships and paid education while I tried to fight for mine and never got it. I got high school but never got more than that.
I even know a couple of blue eyed, blonde Indians who got adopted into a native family and have full status and more help than I ever did.
People keep telling me I’m lucky to be native but I’ve experienced far too much racism and stupidity to be happy about who I am.
I’m neither treated as full native and I’m also not treated as non native either. It’s like I exist in some kind of native twilight zone.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 13 hours ago
I would love to learn even half of those things. No one really taught me, I remember going camping with scouts before and another guy was catching shellfish with his bare hands and I was so jealous that he could do it. But in the UK half of its illegal and the other half requires land owner permission which pretty much makes it for the rich only as they own the land. I like the outdoors, but it feels difficult to see and even harder to do so legally. Plus no one I know now has any interest in it so its always a solo activity when I do go out.
And yeah that guy catching shellfish was breaking the law by doing it, its illegal to use anything other than a fishing rod in freshwater and that requires a license and land owner permission too.
southernbeaver@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I am also the son of two worlds. From the age of 6, I was always treated differently with one group of people compared to the other.
I didn’t get better until I was older, I thought it would in my twenties but it’s actually in my thirties that I found people who accept both sides of me but I always feel like it’s one side more than the other. It has made me a very withdrawn person.
On top of being autistic, I just would rather not deal with people.
BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Huh. TIL all of this. Thanks for typing this out. I did a bit of a rabbit hole on your people over my morning coffee. Was more interesting than the usual crap I read before work 🤣👍🏻
DoGeeseSeeGod@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
Damn. Maybe it’s just me but your comment reads kinda disrespectful. OP shares their unique vulnerable experience, which relates to the original post. You don’t make the slightest effort to connect or respond to them as person or their story. Instead you google their ppl for a fun fact and pay their culture/story the compliment of “More interesting than the usual crap I read before work 🤣👍”.
Idk I can’t tell if I’m being overly sensitive, cuz no one part of your reply is really bad by itself. But all together, it’s hella trivializing imo.
Especially ending on the 🤣👍. Let’s say you post something heartfelt like, I’m depressed, I lost my job, I’m dealing with something right now, and someone replies and ends on 🤣👍. Unless there is a really funny joke before those emojis, pretty sure it would read bad.
OP thank you for sharing your story. I’m sorry you’re stuck between two worlds like this. Have you thought about if you and your wife have kids, would you teach them to speak ojibway or how to live off the land?
Nythos@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
It’s you.
The only person who gets to judge whether the comment is disrespectful is OP, not you.