deluxvivens:

apihtawikosisan:

liquornspice:

If someone tells a white and Native person they “don’t look Indian,” you can be pretty certain a chorus of angry voices will come to their defense, OUTRAGED, writing about how stereotypical images of Indians negatively affect people’s lives and we don’t all look like…

I feel like I’ve missed something going on here…it’s hard to keep up with tumblr sometimes, even with as much time as I’ve been spending here lately.  So I’m scrolling back to see what happened but wanted to comment initially anyway.  Anti-Black attitudes are huuuuge in a lot of native communities.  Even in communities (like mine) where there has been next to no actual real-life interaction with Black people at all.  It has always confused the hell out of me, especially considering that where I grew up, a specific (and distorted) US Black influence on our style of dress, on our musical choices and non-traditional dance styles was massive.  How do you elevate and denigrate at the same time? Dunno, but it happens.  I guess it starts with stereotypes.

black ppl in the us have been wondering that pretty much forever, lol. I would have thought that people who think that Black folks are that inferior would therefore stop listening to and creating from Black music and dance, stop using Black slang and language patterns etc but for some reason they never actually want to.

I have absolutely no idea how this impacts Black natives.  I am wholly ignorant on what it means day to day.  I honestly wasn’t even aware that there were many Black natives until fairly recently. 

tbh i  dont get anywhere near the amount of ignorant hostility we’ve seen on tumblr in from people i engage with in RL who actually know the history of eastern woodlands and coastal tribes, the enslavement of natives from those lands,  and the areas where my family is from. 

I’m sorry that you are experiencing shit that is obviously not okay, and worse, having that obvious fact denied.  But the fact that people are contributing to the information out there on what it means to be a Black native is pretty seriously important.  Even if those of you doing this get tired and say, ‘fuck this shit’, I’m at least aware that there is something to learn, which is an improvement to being oblivious.  So thank you, even if you walk away from these discussions forever.

thank you for this.

(Source: blackraincloud)