The news (if
you consider Kim Kardashian news, which I don’t, so assume I’m using the term
loosely) of the past week has not been lost on me, despite my efforts to write
a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The events of the past week, both in the news
and personally, have left a swirl of emotions in my mind that I just cannot
clear out unless I write it here. So, I will write it here, and hope that there
is some spark of serendipity that makes this coalesce.
When I was a
child about Ant’s age, I asked my Nanny what being an Indian Giver meant. I had
heard the term several times in school—with girls swapping trinkets and toys. I
knew that whatever an Indian Giver may be, it wasn’t good. Nanny, possessing a
quick wit and a quicker tongue, didn’t tell me the truth. She told me that the
term represented what the United States had done to American Indians—given land,
signed treaties, made proclamations of sovereignty and then taken it back
whenever the mood possessed them.
I learned as
an adult, the term is a derogatory slam against American Indians, disparaging
the cultural systems of reciprocity and shared ownership. Native populations
(and let’s get this clear; there were over 550 different tribes, or sovereign
nations, on this continent before Columbus, and they did not share the same
cultures, practices, languages, or even styles of houses or dress, despite what
your 4th grade teacher may have mis-taught you) took pride in giving
gifts, of maintaining protocol, of ‘making nice’, for lack of better term. This
was an important practice, and greatly misunderstood by European settlers
during the time of first contact.
Which is why
I take offense with the stereotypical response Kris Jenner gave on national TV
concerning her daughter’s two million dollar ring. She “hates an Indian Giver.”She should apologize, immediately. It is not native people’s fault that the
European settlers had a different concept of ownership. Perpetuating this line
of thought is egregious; I don’t care how much of a celebrity you are or are
not, or how you got there.
Honestly, I
don’t even know how they got to be celebrities. Was there a sex tape or
something? Isn’t that how Paris Hilton got famous? I just cannot keep up with
the celebrity-reality-TV crap. But, I digress.
Stereotypes
seem to be the theme of this week in our household. I suppose it got kicked off
when I was re-reading some of Redneck Mommy’s posts around Halloween. One of
those posts was from last year’s Halloween. For those of you unfamiliar with
Tanis Miller, her third child, who was disabled, died suddenly a few years ago,
at around the age of five, I believe. Ultimately, her child’s death and her
advocacy of the disabled community led her and her husband to adopt another
child, also disabled. In that post from last year, she chronicles how her son
is invisible: no one wants to give Halloween candy to a child in a wheelchair;
no one wants to see what severe disability looks like, up close.
It struck more
than a chord with me. When I was in college, I spent a year working in special education
in the public school district. I worked with non-communicative autistic
children. I worked with the profoundly impaired. I worked with students who had
learning and behavioral disorders. I worked with children as small as three and
children as old as nineteen. I fed and changed and held and rocked and soothed
and cared for these children. I remember the first word one autistic child
spoke, and cried along with that child’s teacher. They had worked with this
child for years, literally, and then one day that child pointed to the maple in
the schoolyard, ablaze in red with the autumn, and said, “tree”. It was one of
the most significant moments of my life.
Which is why
I was so heated with Ant yesterday evening, I suppose. I’ve since apologized to
him for my diatribe last night, but it caught me off guard, and I cannot, will
not, tolerate stereotypes or mockery in our house. We were watching the news as
I cooked supper, and there was a piece on Gabrielle Giffords, and the book she and her husband has written about her recovery from a nearly fatal gunshot wound last January.
Part of the coverage described how Gabby has had to re-learn speech; not able
to say any more than the word “chicken” in response to the Bush’s when they
visited her months ago in the hospital. I’m not a doctor, but I know that this
woman has suffered a traumatic brain injury. I know how important the left
front cortex is for speech. I know how hard individuals have to work to
re-learn speech without the benefit of the brain plasticity we each have as
small children (when we learn language for the first time). When Ant laughed at
this; likely something he’s learned from his third grade peers (seems to be the
common age for playground politics, doesn’t it), I literally saw red. Why in
the world it was reported in the first place, I will never be able to explain.
We had not
had to discuss this with Ant before. I think it’s safe to assume he now knows
that it is unacceptable to take any individual who differs from you less
seriously than you would take your best friends or your family.
It also
reminds me of the young woman who posted the YouTube video of her father using
a belt on her seven years ago. Now, the vast majority of that story is a post
for another day (and boy, do I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind
about that man) but the thing that got me is that once it was mentioned that
this woman had cerebral palsy, the media latched onto it like this was the
story. It was not the story! Does it make what he did any less despicable if
she did not have cerebral palsy? No! The only thing that has come out of that
father’s mouth that makes any semblance of sense in the aftermath of that video
is the statement where he said, “As multiple media appearances clearly
demonstrate, Hillary Adams is articulate, possesses a superior IQ, and is
capable of functioning as a productive adult in today’s complex society.” If
this horrible man sees past her disability then why the hell can’t the rest of
us?
I couldn’t
sleep early this morning, and decided to give up tossing and turning in bed and
go downstairs. As I drank my coffee I flipped through channels, hoping to find
some extra-cheesy movie that would make my early morning travails worth the
time. I found the Crucible—which details the events of the Salem Witch Trials
(with some artistic license, to be sure). The story of the Salem Witch Trials
has always astounded me; it was the perfect storm. There was the possibility of
ergo, and a hard existence with coming winter. There was pettiness and jealousy
and irrational fear. Then there were accusations, and ultimately death. Old
women- widows. A child. A few men. Why did all of that happen? The only reason
that makes any sense to me is that those who were different, separate, strange,
outside the norm, whatever you want to call it—those individuals were removed
from society (by death) because an unchecked and irrational sense of what is normal and what is not normal overtook
everyday citizens. A mob mentality that I highly suspect was started with
something akin to stereotypes.
We could
descend into something akin to the Salem Witch Trials again. I see the
possibility with the Occupy Wall Street detractors. “They don’t want jobs.” “Oh,
they are rioting and vandalizing, and raping.” “They give the real unemployed
people a bad name.” I sometimes wonder if the people who make these comments
actually know someone who is protesting, or even more than the nightly sound
bite they hear on the news. Perhaps they should keep their opinions and
speculation to themselves, if they don’t know the whole story. Or, if not the
protests, then perhaps political speculation? Or fear of different ethnicities?
Or the harassment of immigrants, illegal and legal?
Because it
is all based in fear, in not knowing, in not understanding, in not being able
to make sense of a situation. That’s all
it is. You do not know the answer, you feel uncomfortable, and then you
fall back upon some useless and incorrect stereotype. You do not want to feel
weak. You do not want to be wrong. You do not want to be mocked. So you put
someone else in that place. Stereotypes are nothing more than the confessions
of ‘witches’; naming others as ‘accomplices’ to take the focus or danger off of
themselves. It’s time we stopped relying upon and condoning stereotypes in our society.
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