TREVINO
L. BRINGS PLENTY
Social
media avatars of the Pretend Indian variety disrupt flow, but it's only a pebble unripppling
in a massive confluence. Pages or profiles enhanced by Indian imagery are bait
to attract a group of people to add or like them. It's the selfie ethnic-wound
licked by its victims, used by its predator.
~
We have
the academic Indian lecturer who is not tied to any indigenous community. A
system validates them and meets inclusion requirements of diversity and
multiculturalism. Would this create an Indian if non-Indians who bestow
Indianhood unto them validate them? They are suspect when they have never
stated any story at the beginning of their career of Indianness. They steer in
Tribal educational systems only to later find themselves some sense of Indian descendancy.
~
We are
told to be brave in writing and in telling our stories. Is it braver for a
settler-colonial operating writer to colonize a Native American narrative? To
pepper their work with enough suggestion to have its readers conclude its
authorship true. To wear an underrepresented people's skin is enticing. I get
it: to feast on struggle, to explore
imagined roots; to lay the foundational work for
academic jobs and publishing opportunities.
~
If I'm to
consider myself a Native American writer, a Pretend Indian is taking my potential
success, taking away and dismantling opportunities for my peers and future
generations. I guess this makes my work a consumable flavor for a
Pretend-Indian-Ethnic-Munchhausen individual. I'm not offended. I
acknowledge tactic, another tendril to colonization. We know the dangers of
inviting a settler-colonial agent into the group. We hope they don't
steal our stories, we hope better of them, we hope
they don't set to default and rip apart communities. We hope they don't prove a
disappointment.
~
Then the
Pretend Indian's work is published, then they are hired to a coveted academic
position, then there is a movie or made-for-TV-show about their overcoming
adversity as a Native American surviving in two-worlds. Then they Zach Morris
the shit out of their story (see episode "Running Zach"); then they Thunder
Heart a vision to the stronghold; then they John Dunbar a blanket and woman; etc....
So I
guess what are the next steps? Are they allowed back into the group after their
abusive behavior?
~
To honor
ancestors is to absolve the Vague Indian Family Lineage Narrative, VIFLN. It
served, for whatever mental health reason, a family-held origin connection to
place. To honor that vague story is not to exploit it, but leave it be. No
documented records, adoption, or severed family oral history clouds the VIFLN.
The concerted effort to genocide a people and the continued erasure from
intuitions and dialogue, we get that. How does a VIFLN decolonize and
strengthen resistance to the dominant settler-colonial narrative? One could
construe the VIFLN as another tactic for colonization. VIFLN is a shadow
untethered to communities and people. It continues to say the past when
Indigenous people live now and are future-bound.
Honor how
the current tribal group identifies itself. If they say descendancy (patrilineal or matrilineal) or Blood Quantum as part
of its identification, this is your language. Know who
you are related to in the group identified. Who are your relations? They make
who you are, they are the stories championed in your narrative. If you don't
know your relations, leave them alone. Don't bother them. Don't parasite the
experience.
VIFLN is
not the language of abundance; it doesn't instill thrivance for a people. Generate your own VIFLN ceremony to
unsettle it from your mind. Be critical of your VIFLN. Everyone else is because
it's not just a feeling, it's deeper and more
widespread than that.
~
As shitty
as it might sound, there is a part of me that appreciates the Pretend
Indian, PI. They are tricksters who antagonize a hard belief. I have to
check my eye roll when they relay their noise. In hearing them I imagine
a live choose-your-own-adventure-story unfolding. Usually, they start out west with tribal affiliation, but if you
press them for more details of the claimed identity, their claim starts to move
east and/or becomes more fantastic and prestigious. It's an inverse Manifest
Destiny masticating people's stories for how the PI builds cultural
cache. It's a deep seeded white privilege thing to feel underrepresented as a luxury; slumming
tragedy and exploring plight.
When they
say it's not our way to do something, in my mind I think, don't include me in
your "our way."
I know
they feel privileged when I discuss decolonizing settler-colonial institutions
with them. This validates them in thinking they are part of the group when
really I might be talking about them indirectly.
I
appreciate the PI as the ultimate assimilated Indian. Their vague descendancy is magical. I imagine unicorns with
the story or those rumored ancestors walked with dinosaurs.
I
do fear the PI,
they can pass for non-Natives. In that, they can be
deadly. They can use your information to pad their story. It's literate scalping.
They collect their bounty. They ingest you - entrails and all. Rim the skull's
eye cavity. They wrap your skin over their face,
tongue the inside of your mouth. They cultivate your image. Prop you up in bed
and slide their body next to yours. Wire-frame your brown body seated in a
landscape of their own invention. I can appreciate that kind of image
colonization.
~
The
Pretend Indian does not fear tribal disenrollment.
~
How does
the Pretend Indian decolonize?
~
To say
they have Indian blood in their family without evidence or actual tribal
criteria eligibility, the Pretend Indian has this story to feel more American
than plain-White. The Pretend Indian, in all their
heart, is Trans-Ethnic.
~
The
Pretend Indian, in exploring their native roots, emerge
from their chrysalis thinking themselves butterflies when they actually are
moths.
~
If Native
Americans are 1% in the U.S. population, the Pretend Indian is the 1% of said
1%. But a 1% based on a story or a feeling. So a 1% imagined.
~
The
Pretend Indian is an alt-reality. Their operating system is calibrated through
a magical pan-Indianism experience. A Pretend Pan-Indian; a Pan-Pretend
Pan-Indian. There is nothing to stop the Pretend Indian from grabbing on to
other identities.
The
Pretend Indian collects other Natives on social media to validate their
existence. The Pretend Indian steals Native dialogue to better hone their
rhetoric. The Pretend Indian feeds on brains.
I cringe
when the Pretend Indian poet drops Native words/themes in their work. Then say
we are all related. No. I don't think so. You are all on your own. That's all
you. That's your hot mess. I can't wait until we are Post-Pretend Indian. "It's not working," I will tell them,
"All of it. Jus' stop."
The
Pretend Indian is a construct of non-natives poorly imagined people. A coffee table book people.
~
P.I.: I
heard my great-great-great... Grandmother was Indian.
Me: mine
was too. Now leave me alone.
~
The
Pretend Indian has their identity as a core belief, which generally is
difficult to change. I get it. The imagination of a story took root. And when
inserted into an urban community, there is general acceptance or at least some
tolerance. The Pretend Indian uses the identity to build themselves
into the urban community narrative. This is a bit more difficult to do in a
direct Indian Nation; there are people who will remember you and your family
depending on the strength of the community.
Because I can't pass for White, I'm deadly aware wherever I go to not stand out
much, to be cautious in my actions.
To be a Pretend Indian to an individual who might suffer personality disorders
must be some sense of relief. To be special among other White people while
still benefiting from a racist system, it's like a life "theme" or
"flavor." I get it. I could, if my ethics were absent, pass as some
other Native American theme or flavor. But what would the benefit be?
Be
critical of the Vague Indian Family Lineage Narrative. As in this case, a memoirist
uses that narrative to become an authority to write of an Indian relationship without appearing to be a white captivity
story.
~
The Pretend Indian gets a double whammy. They
get to enjoy the wonderment, delight and
dangers of a narrative from a people who are the subtext of the American Dream:
genocide. And not really be a part of the said group, only their wet dream of
their participation in that group. Then discard that not to be bothered with further inquiry into the Indian group. Then
Pretend Indians rage hard. Pretend Indian anger at those Indians who call them
out. Is it lateral oppression/violence when it is Pretend Indian on Indian
prejudice? Is it "divide and conquer" tactic when Indians fight among Pretend Indians?
The Pretend Indian is the kitsch and Tchotchkes of the American experience.
It feels like sand in one's underwear when
Indians hear the Pretend Indian talk about us. The Indians, in their mind, tell
the Pretend Indian, whatever you are saying, that's not my tribe. That's all
you, creeper.
~
The Pretend Indian wants all the Indian glory
without all the Indian gory.
~
The Pretend Indian doesn't correct the mistake
when referred to as Native American. The Pretend Indian will go into details
about their features that might hint of an imagined Indian. The Pretend Indian
secretly wants to kill any Indian that questions the Pretend Indianness.
~
Construct the perfect Indian Name. Must have a Christian worldview. Mammals are cool. Reptiles not so much. Nature references must be Indian
Poetic; very bland. Nothing scientific. No John
Quark-Dust or Jane Quantum –Leap; no John Gravitational-Lens. Maybe Jane
Schrodinger's-Cat. Maybe.
~
The Pretend Indian is a formula. A phantom entity in the community, just as real as their story.
The Pretend Indian is a zero multiplied by everything.
~
Imagine two Pretend Indians seated across from
one another. Is it an identity doppelganger fairytale;
mirrored motions and phrases? How do two Pretend Indians greet each other?
Would they become feral and claw at each other? Or
spontaneously combust at any Indian utterance? Do they just nod at each
other knowing they are both Pretend Indians?
~
What Indian accoutrement
does the Pretend Indian pocket? Stone, bone, feather,
leather, or made in china relics. How Pretend Intertribal is the Pretend
Indian? Do they think collecting Indian names is like collecting Magic or
Pokémon cards? Collect and trade or sell.
~
To
begin with, Poetry is a hard sell. Very few invest in it unless they are craft
practitioners. In an anthology collection, to have the Pretend Indian's
work next to your work – it cheapens the experience. If I were to explore
seemingly cultural themes then to read the Pretend Indian's similar
work, there is the cultural mockery.
~
Can an
Indian Pretend Indian? Can they racially be of the group and ethnically not,
but be a Pretend Indian Indian-hobbyists? Can they be intertribal, but not of the infatuated ethnic target? Does coupling up with a
targeted group also lend one full reign of cultural practices of said group; a mutual orgasmic cultural knowledge acquisition.
Knowing
Indians don't have the same political power as Settler POCs, does this make it
easier to pillage Indian knowledge after having implanted themselves into the
targeted group and then assume the group is milquetoast?
Taking
knowledge, labor, worldview, intellectual and cultural property is a colonial
act, but isn't this interpretation of property a colonial attribute too? Does
the idea of "nothing about us without us" or "stories about us
without us is not for us" ("us" being the targeted group) still
apply if one has used a consultant for a project? The consultant used as a
buffer and validation of the project and the scapegoat if the project is
criticized.
Do
accolades for the project get a pass if other Indians praise it? Does the
offended group have any recourse to defend their cultural property if "they"
other Indians applaud the project? Should the offended group stay silent to the
deafening praise of the project because if the project is uplift with its
creator, it benefits all?
~
Did the
Pretend Indian become a US citizen in 1924? The militant Pretend Indian is scary but mostly confusing. The Pretend Indian
is about wolves. The Pretend Indian wolf is so sacred. I can't even.
~
The
Pretend Indian is the dreamcatcher on the rearview mirror. The Pretend Indians'
ancestry tall-tale gets so vast, ...again. I can't even.
~
The
Pretend Indian's drunk Indians are the drunkest, most tragic, but proudest
Indians to shed a single tear when garbage is thrown at them.
~
The
Pretend Indian is the error message in a universe that has error correction
compensation code.
If you
don't like the Pretend Indian, this validates their pretend oppression.
~
The
Pretend Indian is a micro-aggression. The accumulative effect
compounding on a targeted community until justified outrage strikes. As
damaging as the Indian mascot issue, the Pretend Indian causes psychological
distress. Their actions are a taunt
waving white privilege.
The
Pretend Indian author gets off on his actions. Their conflated fabricated
blurbs indicate a pathology hell bent on damaging a people's spirit to gratify self. The masturbatory nature of what he
flaunts as a white male who can yell racism if criticized but ignoring the fact
that it is racism that positions him
seemingly untouchable. He systematically uses gaslighting tactics every time.
It's too easy to digitally manufacture plausible deniability or credibility.
~
Ethnicity
is just a flavor. Anyone can identify as any ethnicity. This is the heart of my
Pretend Indian, PI, series. We see the John Smelcers, the Rachel Dolezals, the Andrea Smiths, the Ward
Churchills enter targeted communities. They stir any deemed detractors,
agitators into their gaslighting web and
continue to move forward with their agenda. Often positioning themselves in authority to dictate what Indians are allowed
to do or what a community can achieve.
The
tactics used are systemic and if challenged the PI falls back on their white
fragility to mask perceived persecution. These individuals find there really
isn't a border to contain whatever identity they wish to profess their persona.
They are okay not to correct someone if they are mistaken as part of the group.
These PI's fluidly move in communities and hide in the complications of Indian
identity. Other Indians or other folks with their agenda are quick to point out
the plausible tracks for the vagueness of the assumed identity. People were
adopted out, people had to hide their race on historical documentation,
whatever the muddiness is on any historical record, these are dragged out and
propped in the conversation. The PI shines brightest in this fogginess and in-fighting.
There is
a special kind of shittiness expressed by
some Pretend Indians. Usually, if they spend any amount of time with Indians,
an interior Indian seeds itself in the PI and begins to wildly bloom. Next
thing we see is the PI try on Cherokee, Lenape, Lakota, or etc... bloodlines to aid their personal
narrative. They gather information from grandmother Internet. They start to
incorporate "we" when around other Indians. A nation of Pretend Indians rises.
And they delight in the plight-skin of their identity conquest. The PI is a
bizarro-world Indian. The PI is pleather. The PI is the Great Gazoo Indian
popping into one's life to remind you they are there to shit on everything,
dumb-dumb.
This is
why it's important I have in my bio some indication of my tribal enrollment; my
citizenship to my nation and the sovereignty it represents. Not everyone has
this significant qualifier. But this might be labeled bully-tactic because the
PI is triggered and will lash out (white fragility). But it's none of my
business if the PI feels usurped by the Indian enemy. It's confusing, I know.
~
~
The
Speaker of this piece of writing is Lakota who sometimes self-identifies as
Indian, American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous. They have heard of
stories of Indian blood in their ancestry going back ten generations, which
contributes to their current Native roots presupposition. The Speaker is an
enrolled card-carrying member of a tribe and a Native Nation Citizen.