BILLINGS, Mont. ? American Indians face continuing racism from the outside, but ‘lateral’ racism is just as debilitating, participants at the recent School to Work Career Institute 2002 conference here were told.
‘We cannot struggle against the oppressor, so we struggle against each other,’ two-time vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke told scores of high school students who attended workshops on the volatile topic. ‘We’ve got to question why we’ve got to fight among ourselves.’
Extreme poverty, cultural isolation and generations of being put down by the dominant culture can cause frustration to stream out against relatives, friends and other community members, LaDuke and other speakers said. The lateral venting often results in back-stabbing, gossip and a general undermining of each other, particularly those who strive to get ahead.
John Potter, a Utah-based artist and newspaper columnist, brought the point close to home. He told the students that he was accosted by another Indian man at the conference who accused him of being ‘nothing but a white boy.’
Potter, an Ojibwa who frequently writes about cross-cultural issues, said he considers racism to be a disease, just like cancer and alcoholism. No one is immune, he noted, but prejudice is not innate. It is something that must be learned.
While he was growing up, Potter said it was common to hear that other Indians were from the ‘wrong’ clan, family or tribe. Conventional wisdom perpetuates the myth that whole blocks of tribes don’t like each other, he said, and that Indians with mixed blood are not as worthy as those with full-blooded heritage.
‘The white man is not your enemy,’ he said. ‘Ignorance is the enemy. How can we expect the white man to appreciate diversity when we don’t?’
‘This is the beauty of us,’ added LaDuke, who resides on Minnesota’s White Earth Indian Reservation. ‘We are not all the same. Diversity is what ecologically sustains life. That is what sustains our communities. People died for the right not to be called a nigger. Our ancestors died for these rights.’
LaDuke, who ran as a Green Party vice presidential candidate with consumer advocate Ralph Nader in the 1996 and 2000 elections, said she wants to attack the root causes of racism. Most Native Americans have inadequate housing, not enough jobs, not enough services for youth and substandard health care. These and other factors combine to fuel negativity, which in turn poisons advancement.
‘That’s all we have in our communities ? the crumbs,’ she said. ‘The challenge is to not pound each other over the crumbs.’
Potter detailed living in Wisconsin in the 1980s when battles over off-reservation fishing rights tore the lid off Indian-white relations. Non-Indians formed groups like Protect America’s Rights and Resources and Stop Treaty Abuse. Posters and bumper stickers advocating the ‘spearing’ of Indians abounded, ‘Treaty Beer’ was launched to help fund anti-Indian activities, and public harassment of tribal members was common.
‘It turned northern Wisconsin into the Montgomery, Alabama of the north,’ he recalled, adding that he found Wisconsin’s motto ? ‘You’re Among Friends’ ? to be ironic at the time.
‘Oppressed people, we like to do ourselves in,’ added Clayton Small, a Northern Cheyenne educator and consultant based in New Mexico.
While it could be argued that overt racism against Indians and other minorities has declined over the past few decades, all of the 600-odd Indian students who attended the conference will eventually face it in some form, Small said.
‘If you’re a dark-skinned person, you will experience it,’ especially as the academic and career ladder is climbed, he said. ‘It’s everywhere, and we all have the responsibility to reduce it.’
America, he explained, was founded on the concept of oppression, and pulling yourself ‘up by the bootstraps’ really implies that you have to step on other people to get ahead. The main components of racism are power and control, he added, and that’s how oppressors maintain their societal position. In the education system and in the workplace, power and control are often institutionalized through racist policies inherently designed to keep minorities down.
Racism, Small added, is really much like wearing glasses. Everyone has his own viewpoint colored by his personal experience, and ‘no one has the same lens.’ Cultural oppression and multigenerational trauma, which is passed on in families and communities without resolution, can help distort the lens so racism turns back onto itself, he said.
Combating internal and external racism takes a blend of self-understanding, a sense of history and a strong belief in the teachings of traditional culture, Small said. It also means that Indian people must continue to push into leadership positions so they can enact change.
‘Getting at racism isn’t fun,’ added Frank Rowland, an educator at the Northern Cheyenne Reservation’s Dull Knife Memorial College. ‘It’s a hard task. You have to get at people’s minds.’
‘We are human beings and have the right to be respected,’ LaDuke said. ‘There’s no social-change fairy, no one who fixes things in Indian Country. There is only change made at the hands of individuals. You’ve got to go to college so you can be involved in these complicated lives we have on our reservations. Do not let anyone put a bad thought on you.’
Conference participants also heard from South Dakota education consultant Wayne Zako, president of the Rapid City-based Human Options. Zako trains teachers and school administrators on how to improve learning environments.
‘Everyone deserves to be successful at school, work and in their relationships,’ he said. ‘Miracles happen when people feel successful and worthy.’