#mixed ndn

[toadsandbugs]

happy tdov!!!! they/them (she/her if ur trans)

[tate-iyohiwin]

My grandmother on my dads side was a full blooded native and my mom's grandma was full blooded native and we have a lot of native roots but my dad and my sister have the darker pretty skin and the dark thick hair and dark eyes and I'm a lot lighter than them in all aspects and I wish I was your typical native. It hurts when people call me white because I don't want to be labeled as such an awful name when I'm very proud of my roots 😞

Well you know there isn’t really a such thing as a typical native, no native looks the same. Anyone that says an indigenous person looks a certain way is going off of a Pocahontas stereotype. We can’t all look like Irene Bedard or Ashley Callingbull or Adam Beach. I sure don’t, and I probably only know one other native person that looks “classically native”. We come in all shapes and colors, whether mixed or full. There are mixed natives from all other backgrounds, ranging from black, brown, to even blonde and blue eyed and anything in between.

I myself am pretty light skinned, my sister is even lighter though with dark hazel eyes, my mom’s light and my dad (I’d say) completely passes as white though his mom is dark. I used to have issues with my coloring because when people assume race it is based almost solely on color. It’s been my experience that you can have features that easily aren’t typically Caucasian but if you’re light the world will perceive you as white. And you can’t do much to change that. But what I came to terms with is I should never feel like I should look a certain way.

If you’re native you’ll always be native. Your identity is up for you to decide. Genetics and coloring are weird and recessive genes allow for people to look a variety of ways. I have a white little cousin who is completely white (mostly Irish) but has very dark skin. It happens. Your complexion doesn’t determine your race.

Come to terms with being biracial and white passing. You can be much more connected to being native because of culture or other personal reasons and acknowledge European ancestry at the same time. I know I’m Irish and French and a couple other things on my white side, only I don’t connect to that part of me as much because I was raised largely without it and I experience some alienation and racism from my white family, especially from my own grandmother who is also very abusive. I practice my culture but I also fully acknowledge that I’m white passing. I’ll usually get treated like a white person does and I’ll get certain privileges that other natives that don’t pass as white won’t receive. People will listen to my voice before those of darker natives, which is wrong but I gotta use my privilege to give more voice to other natives without speaking over them.

Do I hate getting called white by strangers and people who don’t know me or know me and don’t care day in and day out? Of course, I correct people constantly, I really rep being Dakota, even though it gets emotionally exhausting. But I know where I come from, I know my tribes, and I have my family, my community online, a couple real life friends, and my late grandfathers community. Family, community, and history matter much more than what others call you. Also just remember that the invalidation that comes with passing pales in comparison to the much more overt and even violent racism experienced by darker skinned folks. While it does hurt and piss me off being told by Chad at work that I’m not a real native (“you look too white”) while he turns around and claims a Cherokee or Blackfoot princess as his great great grandma, I’ve grown a thicker skin, told people to eat shit, and reminded myself that I am who I am and there are bigger fish to fry in anti-native racism. I’m my ancestors wildest dream and they wouldn’t have cared what I look like.

I remember being there, around when I was in high school. Just keep going, reconnect if you aren’t already, and let what others call you roll off your back. You’re the one who knows who you are 😊

[interyuurei]

[interyuurei]

I’m getting really tired of being told I am overreacting and or called aggressive, all my life for trying to stand up for myself thats been the response, or just saying or doing anything the people around me didn't like. I could go more in depth on that but it would take too long and I’m tired anyhow from a flare. It all did tend to boil down to trying to make me the one in the wrong for being hurt, standing up for people being hurt “the wrong way,” or for talking at all.

And now tacked on, still aggressive or overreacting, called many other names or being accused of being a bigot in some way out of the blue just for trying to explain mundane things to more serious. Somehow even “this is why I like this pairing” or “this is why I have these headcanons but yours are also neat” or “I don’t really like {insert food or activity} too much” among other things get me that treatment quite often.

Then of course the more serious such as talking about, raising awareness of or calling out intersexism. Or transmisogyny, intermisogyny, ableism and saneism, landback and anti-native sentiments. Abuse, be it calling it out seeing it or venting about my own trauma, etcetera. It all comes back to insults and accusations. Of which many, though not all, appear very deliberate and targeted. They aren't comparable situations, one group is food and fandom while one group is actual bigotry and harm, but still I'm treated quite identically in all incidents.

Sure, sometimes I get a bit heated and passionate, I don’t always word things properly but I don’t see why that negates everything I say and do or gives people the okay to sling dogwhistles. Sometimes I do come on too strongly or misread, be it tone speaking face to face or tone which does not translate through text, or I completely misread words being typed all together. When it is genuinely my fault or tone misunderstanding I’m more than happy to apologize. To explain and rectify it as much as I can, if I can or if applicable, because I know myself how that is. And it was my fault then.

But then there’s times it’s not, but because I’m just not good at telling anymore when I’ve done wrong (of course sometimes it’s obvious) or someone is trying to make it so, or if I was but they’re still trying to pick at things I cannot help... I'm sort of lost? Or they use it to just have a go at me period. I never really know what to do then. Often still, I just say sorry and try to explain, I need to learn when and how not to explain especially since explanations often come off as excuses when they’re not meant to be. It’s hard to turn the switch off for that instinct to explain and overexplain.

“Maybe I do talk too much,” I come to the thought then and wonder which it is this time, the truth or just something to try and make me shut up because they don’t like what I’m saying? I’m not good at talking to begin with, so it’s again hard to tell. People seem to choose to take the worst interpretation on purpose very often. Another situation in which somehow still I have no idea what to do despite this all happening to me so often.

The transfem experience, the intersex transfem experience, eh? Mucked up a little more by the rest of my bullshit?

[sugarmoonaki]

Indigenous women share the pride and challenges of their mixed ancestry

3 women who have struggled with their Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds tell their stories 

When you're born with mixed Indigenous ancestry, sometimes being proud of who you are can get a little complicated.

That's been the reality for three women, with three different upbringings, who CBC recently talked to — each of whom shared a fierce pride in being Indigenous. Yet all of them said they shared something else — the experience of having to resort to telling people they were not Indigenous at some point in their lives. The reason, they said, boiled down to one thing: self-protection.

Jackie Hogue gets emotional when talking about her Indigenous identity.

Hogue's mom is Polish, and she describes her dad as "old-fashioned Métis."

Because of her skin and hair colour, she says she hasn't experienced discrimination like other Indigenous people. The same cannot be said for her brother.

"When my brother was young, he was darker than I am. He would be teased as being a 'stupid Indian,'" recalls Hogue.

"That really affected me."

Experiences like that prompted Hogue's family to tell people they were not Indigenous, and she remembers being told to tell people the family was French. Otherwise, she was told, "you would face a lot of hardship."

Hogue said one of the stories that sticks out in her memory is about her grandmother telling her aunties to pick the colours of their clothing carefully "so they wouldn't look dark."

Memories like that have troubled her. "It's been hard to be Indigenous in this land. In some ways, that has come out in terms of protection. That protection has looked like — not sharing who you are with other people," said Hogue.

These days, she feels like she no longer has to hide that she is of Métis ancestry. When she thinks about why she's proud to be Indigenous, she says it's "because my ancestors are part of this land, and are connected to this land."

Although other members of Hogue's family are all card-carrying members of the Manitoba Metis Federation, she hasn't applied for membership herself.

"I didn't want to have a political organization be the reason I held identity," she explained.

As she gets older, Hogue is determined to learn more and build a stronger connection to her culture.

"It's good to be clear about who we are, and be connected to who we are."

The struggle of being a black Indigenous woman is something that Adeline Bird has had to deal with her whole life.

A status Indian from Rolling River First Nation, Man., Bird identifies as both First Nations and African. Growing up, her father wasn't around much, which meant that she had a stronger connection to her mother's Anishinabe family.

With the exception of going back to her community to attend funerals, Bird spent the majority of her youth in Winnipeg's West End, growing up with a large family that included relatives who also have African ancestry.

"My world has always been both," she said.

Bird said she feels lucky, because she "was fortunate enough to be raised in a family where not only did I see my 'full-blooded' cousins, but I also got to see cousins who looked like me." Bird now has a strong sense of pride in both identities — but there were times in her life when the fear of racial discrimination meant she held back on telling people that she was Indigenous. "People would not even be friends with me if they found out I was half-Native," said Bird. "There were many situations where I've been lucky that I appeared as a black woman."

Those times didn't last, however, and Bird now revels in the uniqueness of her mixed family.

With a laugh, she remembers being at a family wedding and seeing "a bunch of black people jigging."

Bird is a new author, and talked about taking a friend to her book launch. She remembers giving a warning before the event.

"I told my friend, 'You're going to walk in and it's going to sound like there are Aboriginal women sitting in that room and you're going to walk closer in and you're going to see that it's black women,'" said Bird.

"You're going to see black women with the most 'rez' accents ever. That's my family."

Ashley McKay grew up in Winnipeg and spent part of her childhood on her grandma's northern Manitoba First Nation, Black River.

As a child, McKay — who is of mixed Chinese-Ojibway heritage — said, "There was racism in elementary and public schools in Winnipeg for being Aboriginal, and on the reserves for being Chinese."

​​​McKay said she hasn't had much of a relationship with her biological father, or that side of her family. He was born in Vietnam and moved to Canada when he was was 10 years old. More recently, though, she has started to connect with with her Chinese culture.

The young university student doesn't think she looks Indigenous and recalls having to fight in school.

"I got bullied really bad in the reserve sometimes," she said.

Her physical appearance aside, it was a deep connection to her grandma from Black River that strengthened her ties to the Indigenous community.

"I was proud of being  Aboriginal because I loved my grandma and she was Ojibway," said McKay.

Although she grew up with the identity of an Indigenous person, the topic of "Indian status" is something that has angered her in the past.

A "status Indian" is a person who is under federal jurisdiction and eligible for certain rights and services.

McKay is a "non-status Indian" and has been denied status by the Canadian government — even though her brother, who has the same parents as McKay, does have status. She doesn't know why her brother's status was accepted and hers was denied.

"Because I'm Aboriginal, I should have the same rights as everybody else that's Aboriginal who has treaty [status]," said McKay.

She also says that the benefits of being a status Indian are "pretty minimal anyway, but it's better than nothing."

Source

[thisisnotanimageofloss]

I made a sarcastic post to Facebook today listing prices for emotional and intellectual labor. I said I would be charging friends and family in cookies and jerky. (Preferably homemade) Random strangers with obnoxious questions start at 15/ hour Prices for institutions that want my advice on how to fix their fuck ups after I tell them they fucked up, start at $40 an hour. (This was kinda venting in reference to an ongoing issue with Autism Ontario around an instance of racial and religious discrimination. They keep asking me for suggestions and saying this is a good learning experience for them, despite the fact that I already handed in a list of steps that I felt would address the issue, and despite the fact that they have not offered an apology and have not directly acknowledged the discrimination as discrimination) Anyway, my adoptive dad was really sweet, and brought me two packages of beef jerky this evening. I think my adoptive parents are finally getting things. They've gone out of their way recently to let me know that they see the toll always being an outsider, and often being used as a "learning experience" has taken on me. They've been really supportive lately, and it is really nice.

[thisisnotanimageofloss]

I'm still upset about racist religious discriminatory 'jokes' made by one of the other artists last night. I wish I could just brush this bullshit off, but I went all non-verbal and now my brain won't stop obsessing about what I should have said. What kind of person makes light of genocide anyway??? Like I think the thing that gets me the most is that the level of callousness needed to do that is just unfathomable to me. Not even just callousness, that is more than not caring that's actively wishing people harm!?? Why are settler Canadians like this?? What the hell.