The Honeymoon is Over. . .

. . . but this picture Becky took of me in Niagara Falls lingers on.  Normally I'd title a picture like this "Canada is Racist" and move on, but I have mixed feelings about all the Indian stuff I encountered up north.

Niagara Falls makes me wet.

Along with Health Care, lack of handguns, and being America's hat, Canada is known for its Natives.  It's tough to think of Canada without thinking of totem poles and canoes.  I don't know why Indians have such a strong political presence up north relative to US.  I do know I'd be tickled if one of our Olympic teams designed a jersey which somehow acknowledged that Indians live here.

Which is why, despite the grunt on my face in the picture, it's tough for me to call shenanigans like I usually do.

Would I rather Canada's Indians remained invisible, like they are most places?

The gimcrack tomahawks and teepee geegaws cramming the gift shop are probably every bit as asinine a tribute to Native culture as Ke$ha's fucking headdress, I just can't tell.  I can't see Niagara Falls clearly, and not because of the mist.  I went there a lot as a child, and I loved every visit.  I loved the bow and arrow sets then, and I was tempted to buy for one Dylan as an adult.  Yeesh.

Ultimately I guess I'm bothered by what always bothers me about shit like fringe shirt headdress dude; no one in my family has ever worn a headdress or a fringe shirt, or carried a hatchet unless chopping wood was in the offing, and they're Indian as hell, cos.  Being Indian is not a thing that exists in the past, in a teepee, in a buckskin shirt, eating scones around a fire.  Indians hang out in jeans and t-shirts and watch Cartoon Network while eating popcorn, just like you.

As long as Indian is something that can be patterned into a rug, or worn as a costume, or sold as knick knacks, it serves to make real Indians invisible.

And that sucks.

Incense is Racist

Thanks to Sweet Reader Cass from Syracuse (also known as my sister), who laid this on me on my recent trip up north.  An Indian on a package of incense that smells like Earth, Ocean, Wind, and Fields - ka-ching!    

This hits all the trite notes - the squinting, faraway gaze, the protruding cheekbones and deep clefts around the mouth, the bear claw necklace and ceremonial headdress, the connection with nature, the pseudo-spirituality.  

Ocean seems fine, but what’s the different between Wind, Earth, and Fields?  It’s a miasma; wind blows over the fields, which grow from the earth.  Going by the pictures, you wonder if they didn’t call Fields "Flowers" because they were afraid of losing the male buying dollar.  You also have to ask yourself what clouds smell like.

This ended up at the dollar store because E. Davis International of Watertown, NY lacks strength of conviction.  Once they had the Indian drawn up they should’ve blasted the theme with both barrels - Earth, Tobacco, Buffalo Chips, and Casino.  

Too tough to chemically manufacture “Casino," you say?  Bullshit.  Your olfactory technicians can re-create the subtle shades between the ground, plants growing from the ground, and wind blowing through the plants growing from the ground, and you can’t give me a combination of alcohol breath, industrial cleanser, and soured dreams?  Have faith, E. Davis.

Some words on these posts.  

I keep using the word Indian.  And I will keep using it.  My mother is Mohawk so it’s more accurate to call me Mohawk than Indian, Native, Native American, or American Indian (like calling someone Swedish vs European).  But really, I use Indian because it’s the word my family has always used when our heritage comes up (when we’re not talking about corn, beans, and squash, counting our casino money, or communing with nature, we talk about how Indian we are).  I’m also very comfortable using the word “tribe”.  I know it’s used to classify animals, and a lot of younger Indians who prefer calling themselves Native like to use “Nation.”  I respect that, and I like the fact that tribe is being phase out by a new generation of teachers.  I also don’t plan on feeling guilty for saying or writing Mohawk Tribe.  

Further, when I say that a certain place or object is racist, the reason should be obvious.   If it’s not, we can play the old game of “How would you like it if I put a wooden statue of a Negro with exaggerated features dressed in full African tribal gear outside of my store?” or “How would you like a caricature of a Jew on a sport uniform with a really fun derogatory term for the team?” or “How would you like a Chinaman in a conical hat on an incense package featuring the scents of Green Tea, Sesame Oil, Kung Fu, and High Math Scores?”  

Okay, the last two were a stretch.  How about Small Penis?  Small Penis is a smell, right?  Chinese stereotypes suck.

I’m joking because it’s more fun than walking around pissed off all day, but these images are obnoxious and running into them all the time is tiresome.  When people learn I’m Indian, I always, always, ALWAYS get that look, the weighing one, the one Meatloaf gives Ed Norton in Fight Club when Norton tells Meatloaf he’s a member.

Their thoughts are all over that expression; “You don’t look Indian.”  It’s not hard to discern the meaning because many people over the years have had no compunction about actually expressing the thought out loud.  Next time it happens, I’ll just answer, “Funny, you don’t look like an asshole.”       

I’m not fed up with images like these because the ubiquity of headdresses makes them easier to defile (that’s what it’s called when religious artifacts are disrespected, right?); I know some tribes give out eagle feathers for especially heroic acts and that a full headdress of feathers means your life is filled with some serious shit for which you deserve respect, but I couldn’t tell you if they’re culturally significant for Mohawks.  These images and statues bother me because they make us invisible.  Indians aren't something that happened, we are here, now.  We live.  We go unrecognized because we don’t look the way we’re supposed to, but we’re here.

Our invisibility as a people in the present also makes our current problems - suicide, alcoholism, infant mortality rates, unemployment, sovereignty, etc, etc. - invisible.  When I pose with a pissed-off face next to a Cigar Store Indian, it’s partially a joke.  It’s partially venting some anger. 

It’s also a message - we’re still here.    

New York City: Racist

You can't visit NYC, the Big Apple, the city so nice they named it twice without writing a thing or two about it.  Before I write my love letter, I thought I'd get this out of the way.

We passed a shop with a window full of Indian statues, the sort of kitsch with sets my teeth a grinding.  If these were statues of Indians, they'd be offensive.  But they're statues of Native Americans, so we're cool.

I like my face in one and the statues in the other, but until I learn how to use Photoshop you'll have to look at both.

Coconut Grove: Racist

Visiting the Grove on Boxing Day after the 29th annual King Mango Strut parade, I spotted a new cigar shop next to The Cheesecake Factory called Coco Cigar.  Touristy knick-knacky crap has been replaced by my best friend, the cigar store Indian.  

He's patriotic.

 Then we lunched at Mr. Moe's.  What are wooden logs from North Carolina, Colorado river rock, and Nova Scotia slate without a nice carving of an Indian head on the wall?

Psst, buddy... try the blue cheese burger.

Apparently, I missed the big one.  No matter how you present demeaning Indian Kitsch, it's fine as long as you use the respectful term of "Native American".

Happy New Year!

Daytona is Racist

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd post pictures of a real Indian.  Or half of one.  

On our recent trip to SIBA.  Becky and I passed that bastion of Native Kitsch: the smoke shop.

I wrote that Daytona is the town that time forgot, and its smoke shop sported the widest variety of Indian busts and statues I've ever seen.

There are only two shots because Becky felt nervous about going inside and flicking pictures of me looking pissed.  She would have done it if I asked, but I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Shame on you, Daytona.

Walk of Shame

Question: Are Latinos white?

Answer: Depends on whose labeling.

Q: Are halfbreed Mohawks white?

A: See Above.

Becky and I left the Halloween Sock Hop with Dylan at eight pm on a Wednesday.  George Washington Carver Elementary is in Coconut Grove, an area of Miami which is part tourist trap, part haven for black folks.  We left in the middle of a little league football game.  I assumed the folks surrounding the field were parents invested in the players.  Really, the whole neighborhood had come to bask in the bright lights.  

Groups of people clustered around the playground equipment, the bleachers, the sidewalks.  Plenty of entrepreneurs in the crowd, shooting dice, talking about the merits of products imported from the west coast vs. products imported from South America.  

They let us know we're white, as in, "The white folks leavin' their dance."  

Inside, I bristled.  But apart from going around and explaining that, actually, Dylan is mixed race, and so am I, and Becky is Cuban, I couldn't do much except walk on.  Since I'd just come from watching a bunch of costumed elementary kids run around and dance to Pit Bull and Flo Rida, I was grinning.  I got a lot of looks which I interpreted to mean, "Wipe that stupid grin off your face."

The streets were lined with enough cars to render everything one way.  People living within the arc of the floodlights had set up folding chairs in their lawns, where they could drink and talk.  It looked like a homecoming game, but it was just a Wednesday night and some eight-year-olds playing football.

A guy biked past with a toddler in one arm.  My jaw fell open, but no one in the crowd even blinked.  I might not be white, but I'm certainly a surburbanite.   

I wish I didn't feel nervous, but being the only faces shaded lighter than "Pennies from Heaven" on Benjamin Moore's color wheel was unnerving.  Why I read more than curiosity in the crowd's eyes, I don't know.  Okay, fine - racism.  I was scared because they're black and I'm not.  I hope one day that everything I dislike about myself will be gone, but until then I've got to own these kernels of racism in my heart. 

Dylan plowed through the crowd, munching on a Butterfinger.  He doesn't see race.  To him, we're all just old people, made invisible by passing time.  

Passing years will make a lot of things invisible.  Like the color line.  Mixed race will become the only race, and degrees, drops, and percentages won't matter.

In the meantime, please excuse the white folks.        

Just Another Day

Goldie is a six-foot, bisexual Haitian woman who cleans at Books & Books. She’s built like a linebacker, and she often lifts Becky from the ladder in the children’s section and slings her over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Becky is good-natured, Cuban, just over five feet tall, and tolerant of sexual invitations from Goldie which are off-putting at best and predatory at worst.

One day, Goldie bids Becky good day on her way home. Before she reaches the door, Goldie begins to sway. Her eyes go dull, her skin pops with sweat.

“Hospital,” she moans, “call hospital.”

Becky ushers the large woman onto a stool by the computer in the children’s section, bolstering her as best she can while dialing 911 on her cell phone. Becky tries to get information from Goldie for the 911 operator, but the Haitian is incoherent. Her eyes flutter, and she’s sweating like she’s running a marathon.

When the paramedics arrive, neither speaks Haitian. They check Goldie's vital signs, but there are things they want to know. Becky runs to Goldie’s boss, Irving, the café manager.

“Irving, there’s something wrong with Goldie. The paramedics are taking her away. Does she have insurance?”

“No.” Books & Books offers insurance for all full-time employees, but not all of them sign up.

“Do you have her address?”

Irving does not.

“What about her phone number?”

No dice. Further, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in finding either one.

“Call the office. Linda’s got to have all that for payroll.”

“Okay, great.”

Becky runs back to the paramedics to deliver the bad news (if there’s one person who won’t answer her phone, it’s Linda).

As they grunt and struggle the barely-conscious woman onto a stretcher, the paramedics laugh. They can’t believe the prodigiousness of Goldie’s dead weight. They ask more questions Becky can’t answer, so she runs back to Irving.

“Irving, do you have her Social Security number?”

“Whose?”

“Goldie’s!”

“She doesn’t know?”

“She can barely talk.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

Goldie is finally on the stretcher. The paramedics are taking a breather.

“Do you know how old she is?” one of them pants, hands on his knees.

Becky runs to Irving once more.

“Irving, do you know how old Goldie is?”

“These fucking Haitians, they don’t know anything.”

At this point it might be worth mentioning that Irving no longer works for Books & Books.

“Irving, fucktard, she’s un-con-scious. She can’t talk. Do you know how old she is or not?”

On her way back, Becky remembers a recent trip she took to Paris with her sister.

“Anniversaire,” she yells at Goldie, “Anniversaire.”

Turns out it’s Goldie’s fortieth birthday.

During the next few days, Becky is amazed at how blasé her co-workers are about Goldie’s health. Hospital visits, flowers, cards, phone calls, letters, no one makes an overture toward any of these standard procedures the Books & Books family has used for various health concerns over the years – and Goldie left the store on a stretcher.

Before Becky’s amazement has time to build into a righteous ire over what can only be racism – a specific kind, as various Latin American nations are strong in number among the staff – Goldie is back. She was tested in the hospital for three days.

“The doctors say anemia.” Goldie sucks air through her teeth, a short, clucking sound; the noise sums up the stupidity of white people and their hospitals. “I tell you what Papo told me.”

The other Haitian cleaning woman apparently used voodoo on Goldie. She told the cook, Papo, and swore him to secrecy, but Papo refused to remain silent. The physical manifestation of the voodoo is a small bundle, hidden in a cabinet in the men’s room.

“Now I take the voodoo to my friend,” Goldie says. “My friend make it go back on her triple.”

The flood happened before my time at Books & Books, but I saw the aftermath. A functioning alcoholic who went missing for days and weeks at a time during her ten-year stint as a buyer trained me to replace her. We had a manager who ruled by blowjob and cliquishness. From day one, I knew this would not be a normal job.

Five years later, employees are passing voodoo curses back and forth. It’s nice to know my job still has the ability to surprise me.

Last Word on New Orleans, I Swear

At least until my next visit.


You might find this hard to believe, but I found several instances of Wood Injuns on my visit to the Big Easy.


Seems no matter where I go, people want to put me in feathers.


Can't call these cigar store Indians, because they ain't. These are two tourist-trap gift shops and a bar. New Orleans, shame on you for these blatant acts of Native Kitsch.

When I go back, I'm going to flash my Tribal ID and demand royalties.

You Are All Immigrants Now Get Over It

As an Indian / Native / American Indian / Indigenous American / descendent of the folks who were here first, a few Sweet Readers and some friends have asked me how I feel about Arizona’s immigration law.

Asking me to speak for all Indians is senseless, but I'm happy to offer my opinion as a mixed-race American whose mother is Indian.

The law sucks.

Thanks for reading.

The Land of Twilight: Racist

In my love of vampire frolic I refused to believe that Forks, Washington, setting of Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire romance Twilight series, could perpetrate an act of Native Kitsch.

Then Sweet Reader Gabriel from Seattle sent me this image of a recent trip he took to Forks.

Say it ain’t so, Bella.

But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Racism: Not Just for Northerners

Here’s what makes the racial tension in Miami different than the racial tension up north. Growing up in central New York, I knew I was enlightened because only southerners were racists.

Forget my seventh grade science teacher, who said there were no instances of absolute black hair in nature, then pointed to where I sat between a black girl and a Chinese boy and said, “Well, maybe that table, but that’s about it,” in a dismissive, let’s-get-back-to-the-point tone. Forget that for me diversity was the two black kids, one Eskimo, and the handful of Asians and Latinos I went to school with. Forget that we few dusky faces came to represent the entirety of our respective races as we were called upon to answer our classmates’ often confounding questions about what, where, when, and how. Forget that co-workers and I swapped “the first time I saw a black person” stories as part of our getting-to-know-you routine (apart from Liz Ramirez, who, when it was her turn, smiled and said, “The first time I saw a white person…”). Forget that our northern enlightenment depended on how effectively we kept our racial populations segregated. Forget reality and learn the “truth.” School taught me northerners like us ended the Civil War and conquered racism, that racism itself was a southern problem.

Then I moved to Virginia. Interracial couples walked hand-in-hand all over the place, and the only one staring was me. I saw a wedding between two white people where the best man and two bridesmaids were black - and it wasn’t a movie. Black people ate next to me at restaurants. They shopped with me and worked with me.

By the way, I don’t know how folks I’m calling black feel about being called black but it’s my shorthand for telling this story. I hate the term “Native American.” I’m not saying dislike; I’m saying hate. I wasn’t invited to the vote that determined when I was supposed to stop calling myself Indian, and I don’t give a damn that the name is based on faulty navigation. That whole wave of political correctness grates on my nerves because the default setting, the given, is American, and it’s meant to be synonymous with white. Therefore I can’t bring myself to use African American, sorry. If we need labels, I tend to prefer “people of color,” but it doesn’t really speak to my point because I’m taking about one particular color.

Anyway, back to seeing lots of black people every day of my life for the first time in my life. I realize I’d been fed bullshit for twenty some odd years. The enlightened, tolerant, wishy-washy lack of racism I grew up with relied on keeping all people of color invisible.

Moving to Miami blew the definitions I’d learned all to hell. Someone who could be identified as African American in a picture would really be South American or Caribbean or European. Ditto the white folks. You might think that girl’s Spanish, but guess what? She’s Greek. Or Indian. Or Middle Eastern. It’s all a mish mash and ultimately it won’t matter, if we keep loving on each-other until no one knows who’s what.

I’m not sure how to feel about this. Racism is a blight on society and it’s dehumanizing to individuals. The world will be better off when it’s gone. But is homogeneity the only solution?

I want my Eskimo families gathered around a seal and ripping its raw flesh to pieces for sustenance. I want my gentile southerners and upper-crust northerners taking cocktails at five and calling it Attitude Adjustment Hour. I want my Haitians speaking English, Spanish, French, and Creole, and I want theirs names to be an exotic confusion of genders and verbs not normally lending themselves to proper nouns. I love our differences, and would prefer we celebrate and not eliminate them.

Places like Miami, New Orleans, Richmond, places where different races lay cheek by jowl, we have to get along. We rely on a rainbow coalition of colors to get us through our days, regardless of if we like each-other, whether or not we want to need each-other.

My solution to end racism? Forced proximity for people of all races. It’s way too much effort to hate the people who live with you.

And if you make that kind of effort, you deserve to die alone.

Disney: Still Racist

That last post was pretty heavy, so I thought I'd post pictures of my most recent trip to Disney.
Yes, that's a different Indian than last trip. Note the backgrounds.

Then there's this:Don't get all offended, it's just an Indian on a horse's ass.

Since I've got two more uses on my 4-day pass, we'll hopefully be able to feature more shots of me doing my best to look pissed next to Indian Kitsch here at Sweet.

Which will be sweet.

Vilar Cigar Shop Opens in South Miami

Which can only mean a nice cigar store Indian. Sheesh.

Disney Is Racist

Or maybe just The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. There's a minority in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a fun name, too. Where are his signs?

Since we're only 1% of the population, it's not really racism.