July 18 2019

Dear White Woman who wants to be like me

I get it. You see the moccasins and the beaded earrings. The cheekbones and the drum. The smudge bowl and the feathers.

It all looks so exotic. Something that you want to be a part of. Something you want to consume.

And you think that maybe if you borrow a few of these things, you too can connect to the Earth more deeply, to the ancestral wisdom, to the spirit world.

I’ve heard it time and time again. “I wish I was you.” “I would LOVE to be Native.” “You are so lucky.” “I was Native in a past life.” “I really want a status card and I think I have Native blood, can you tell me how to get one?”

Again and again, I’ve heard these things from you. And my heart pains. And my throat closes and my tears get swallowed.

Do you really know what you’re saying? Do you really know what you’re asking for?

I love my heritage. I am proud of who I am. Even when I wear my beaded earrings and people whisper behind my back asking,“Who does she think she is?” Even when I walk in my mukluks and teenagers shout Indian calls at me. Even when I’m discriminated against when I enter the hospital.

I love who I am. I am a proud Anishinaabe, Ojibwe Woman.

And it’s taken me 42 years to get here.

So, dear White Woman, I want to ask you this: I know that you would take on the dreamcatchers and the pow wows. I know that you would take on the headdress and the sage. I know that you would take on the wisdom and the beauty.

But do you want the rest of it?

Truly?

Would you like to experience people asking to collaborate with you so they can receive grants for their work?

Would you like to be seen and treated as less than when you have pneumonia and are in desperate need of hospital care?

Asked by medical professionals how much alcohol you’ve had to drink when all you need is medicine?

Would you like to have big dreams and wonder every single day whether you will ever be seen and honoured they way people with lighter skin are?

Would you like to feel physically ill every time you read the comment section and you see the horrible views society has about your people?

Would you like to shake violently afterwards and wonder if you and your children are safe in this world?

Would you take on a painful chronic illness and later wonder if part of the reason you have it is due to the oppression and pain your people have experienced?

Would you take all of this on too?

I look around at a world that has reduced me to a costume. A world that has romanticized me into a character. A world that takes the teachings of my people and uses them without any acknowledgement or an invitation for us to join them on their stage.

This is the world we live in.

And so, dear White Woman who wants to be like me:

Are you willing to take on all of it?

Or just the pretty parts?

Are you willing to take on the trauma?

Or just the wisdom?

Are you willing to deal with the intergenerational trauma of the residential schools and the alcohol and the suicide and the violence and the genocide?

Are you willing to carry all of that in your cells, your blood, your tissue? Willing to do the work every single day to heal this so you can make sure your children don’t carry it as you have?

Dear White Woman who wants to be like me:

Do you?

Or can you be like you? And reconnect to your own sacred medicines. Your own beautiful ancestry. Your own power, presence and brilliance?

I see you wanting to. I see you aspiring to. I see you reconnecting.

Can you be like you?

As I reclaim and remember me.

And then, we can finally walk in right relation to each other.

Miigwetch,

Nenaandawi Nagweyaab Kwe – Healing Rainbow Woman

p.s. if you are wanting to learn how to use teachings in a sacred way, click here: Appreciate not appropriate

♥

p.p.s. if you are looking for a way to reconnect to your own sacred medicines and come home to who you truly are, I welcome you into my circle: Sacred, a membership filled with teachings, healing circles, love and deep medicine from the source. Sign up for the waitlist here: sacredmembership.com

♥

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