Question: Can’t we just called ourselves Two-spirit people, rather than Gay people, I read Am-Indians call gays like that…?
Response:
While I totally hear what you are saying about wanting to use or claim the term Two-Spirit, it is problematic for several reasons for the Two-Spirit community if Non-Natives choose to use our term.
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This is a post written by Sâkihitowin Awâsis that was originally published on website Kwe Today.
We need Indigenous feminisms because feminism does not imply it is for everyone. Mainstream and whitewashed, it isn’t always the friendliest if you are queer, trans, or a Person of Colour. We are creating space to acknowledge power and privilege. I am read as cis-gendered, able-bodied, English speaking, and a light-skinned Two-Spirit. I say “we” because I believe that we are part of each other, but in no way intend to speak for everyone, or anyone for that matter. I say “we” as a term of solidarity, appealing to Two-Spirits and people with whom I have common experiences.
We need Indigenous feminisms because the very way we understand gender and sexuality is colonial. We are surrounded by notions of what it means to be a man, woman, have a gender and access to power that were imposed upon us. In dominant discourse there are assumptions made about sexualities based on an interpretation of our gender of which we have no ownership. Reinforced everyday, everywhere, the polar binary has become ingrained in how we feel about ourselves. We are part of a colonial landscape that does not meaningfully reflect who we are or how we want to be. This violence is an extension of the systems that oppress and marginalize women.
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NYTIMES
Published: January 20, 2010
After more than a century of obstruction and delays, still another deadline looms for a settlement that would compensate hundreds of thousands of American Indians for billions of dollars lost by a government that failed miserably to manage tribal lands that had been entrusted to it.
A law passed in 1887 conveyed the land in trust to the federal government. The government-controlled trust accounts were mishandled and lost, cheating the Indian owners out of fees from grazing livestock and gas and oil royalties.
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
There it was, the ever-so-fleeting moment during her speech at the Republican National Convention when vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin paid tribute to her hubby, Todd — her brief mention that he’s of Yup’ik Eskimo background. Todd Palin beamed with pride at the acknowledgement in front of the packed convention crowd and one of the largest TV audiences to ever watch a candidate’s convention speech.But the cheering convention participants and millions of viewers won’t see the same smiles on the faces of scores of other Yup’ik Eskimos. Nor on many other Native Alaskans, who make up nearly 20 percent of Alaska’s population.
A devastating report by the Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 2002, “Racism’s Frontier: The Untold Story of Discrimination and Division in Alaska,” painted a picture of decades-long economic misery, discrimination, neglect and alienation for Native Alaskans in Palin’s state.
