Native American Stereotypes

I haven’t always been so sensitive to racism. As a white, heterosexual, Christian-raised male, I wasn’t really exposed to it very often. It wasn’t until I lived abroad that I experienced first-hand what it is like to be discriminated against.

The first time it happened, it actually was like a novelty to me. I was with a real estate agent in Korea. I had lived there for a year, so I knew enough of the language to get the gist of what the landlord was yelling to her. She tried to put it to me nicely:

“He says that he cannot show you the property because…well…it’s for Korean people.”

“A Bigot! A real life bigot”, I thought to myself.

After four years, though, the novelty wore off in a big way. I could now understand a good deal of what was being said about me when I was in public. Holding my girlfriend’s hand on the subway was enough to generate whispers and stares. I would say something simple in Korean, maybe I would ask about a price in a store, or tell a cab driver where to turn. Some would respond with a smile, happy that I had made the effort. Most would giggle and say how cute it was.

“Cute” is not what I was going for.

A few weeks before I left, things got pretty bad. I heard a group of twenty-somethings behind me having a conversation. One stopped and said to his friend, “OH! Look, foreigner!”

I stopped dead in my tracks, turned around, and screamed “OH! Look, it’s a Korean person; A real Korean person! Woooooooooooah!!!!” It was completely ridiculous, but indicative of just how far I had been pushed. After I screamed out this phrase in presumably the worst and most aggressive broken Korean possible, I read the man’s eyes. He was drunk and simply curious. I was in a part of the city where it was not commonly inhabited by foreigners. He apologized and walked off.

I never realized how much my experiences abroad had influenced by opinion of racism until I heard the word “nigger” used in front of me recently. It used to bother me. Now, it enrages me. And my experience has made me realize that I can never really sympathize with any hyphenated minority American for one simple reason: No matter how bothered I was by being stereotyped, there was always a country on the other side of the pond that would accept me with open arms. My home would never treat me that way. For black people and for Native Americans, their home was their source of bigotry.

I expected this lecture to be something that I would only half sympathize with, and I have to say that the speaker, Dr. L. Marie Anselmi, did not hit too many of the typical land dispute oriented topics I had anticipated. I was happy about that. She instead discussed the different types of Native American stereotypes, and the way that they functioned.

The two most incredible things that she brought up were: 1- Native Americans carry a card that identifies their Native blood ratio. They are the only minority group asked to do this. That’s bonkers. 2 – There are certain Native American tribes that are not recognized as Native American tribes. This is also bonkers.