Hey, I have a question. I recently took a 23 and me genealogy test and found out I’m 24% Native American. My whole family is telling me to use it to get things from the government or free education, or land. But since I’ve never known a tribe, never been exposed to any Native American influence in my life I feel that is incredibly disrespectful. Also the 24% comes from my father that I never knew, which also gave me the 26% from Spain. Do you have any advice on how to explain this to my family?
Whooo-boy, you’re a good bean, youre good. I like you.
Its such a white person thing to go straight to “you can get FREE SHIT” when they find out you have native in you. Drives me nuts cause its not like that at all, I mean, obviously. In order to receive any government benefits (Im choking by writing that like lol but ok) you gotta have band numbers, associations with your nation, etc etc etc. Like, my family isn’t part of a nation, we have connections to mutiple nations by blood and marriage and our family is culturally native but we dont have the government documents to back it up. The most I can get with that is maybe getting to talk to an ingenious counselor at my college for help with issues at school. Yanno.
So you could explain that to them, that its much more complicated than they think it is. And also explain that first nations people arent getting free shit anyways. The perception that the government is just handing stuff out is super false, ignorant people think they get handed plots of land and cheques to make casinos and get drunk but like. Reservations aren’t “free land” and the infrastructure/housing on reservations can be anything from “barely adequate” to fucking non-existent. Not to mention all the shit going on in the states now where sacred land is just being handed over to drilling companies likeee.....
Most people don’t get this, but any sort of government assistance given to first nations people is woefully too little too late. This land was taken by colonialism with war, genocide, poisonings and shooting children with rifles after they were coaxed out of their hiding places. Children were taken from their families and raped and beaten and tortured in ‘schools’ for speaking their language, for having dark skin, for not being white enough. Native women keep going missing and the government here straight up does not care.
Rant aside though, the misconception that native people “get free stuff” is super gross, incorrect, and overlooks all the injustice and violence first nations people are still experiencing today.
But yanno probably just saying “its super complicated to do and I dont have the credentials to do it” might be the easiest bet to convince your family.