The Mighty Few

The Mighty Few. 

That's the name of the latest fashion collection from 26-year-old Crow/Cheyenne designer Bethany Yellowtail. She says her line draws inspiration from "the sacred and reimagines it for the contemporary woman." According to an online article in HUFFPOST Style Canada, the collection is all about honoring the continuity, beauty and resilience of Native Americans. Go HERE to read more.

But this isn't a fashion post, lord knows I ain't a fashionista. I think it's super cool tho.

I bring Bethany up because diversity and Native appropriation have been on my mind a lot lately and not just because of the #oscarssowhite. But I'll get to that.

No, these things are on my mind because because of a few recent encounters that got my back up and I had to ask myself why, when they were coming from people that I love, respect and consider to be real friends. Was I or rather am I being too sensitive? I wondered.

For a large part of my early life, friends were few and far between. And good friends? Best friends? Even more of a rarity. As I hit my mid-twenties things started to change, maybe I changed, maybe cocktails helped, I don't know, but I was able to make a couple of friends with whom I am still close to to this day. I found it interesting to note that they were not white. You could assume that it's because I come from a mixed race background or perhaps because I met these people in Toronto which a very culturally diverse city, whatever the reason, because they were not white I never felt like a minority around them. 

I'm part white, I look at my family and most of them look white, I'm married to a white man. Yes dear reader, He Who Shall Not Be Named is British. So it wasn't because I had an aversion to the fairer-skinned race. 

As I grew into my thirties I actually made some white friends, women and men alike, but they were not ordinary white folk these new friends, if you can believe it they all happened to be either lesbian or gay. What can I say, I'm a fan of diversity? But things, they are 'a changing.

During my past six years as a devout Tracy Anderson Method practitioner and blogger of said practice, I have not only come in contact with, but have connected and since become truly great friends with a good number of women who also love Tracy. It may surprise you to learn after reading the above, that the majority of them are white. No kidding! They hail from all over the world too from Portugal, Spain, and England, to South Africa, Canada and the United States. This has placed me in a unique situation that in my forty-odd years I have been unaccustomed to. In this group of incredibly talented, loving and amazing women, I'm the only person of color. I use the term color loosely of course because I'm more of an invisible minority - I'm Cree (and white as mentioned above). For those unfamiliar, that means I'm Native Canadian.

This unique situation first became apparent to me on Halloween when one of the girls posted a picture of an intended Halloween costume. I'm sure it's not necessary to spell it out for you -- okay I'll spell it out -- it was a Pocahontas costume. It made me feel nauseous. I felt hurt and a little betrayed and worse I felt guilty for feeling hurt. I sat with it and wondered what to do. Well there was only one thing to do. I gently and cautiously explained to her that we are a "culture not a costume", and she was genuinely sorry. We're still friends. It was her understanding that Pocahontas was a heroic historical figure. Yep, that's the yarn that good old Disney and Hollywood spin. Pocahontas was in fact a teenaged girl who was taken prisoner by the English and held hostage for over a year circa 1612. Please don't ever call my husband Captain Smith, okay?

The next experience came in January of this year when I took part in the Got Your Back Girl (#GYBG) contest that Tracy Anderson held on INSTAGRAM. The idea was that we were to buddy up with a partner and encourage each other to work out for 33 days while doing daily challenges that Tracy posted from her feed. It was fun, we got in shape, we connected with new people, and got to know the people we already knew even better. Win win, right? It was great apart from the "post where you come from day" when Tracy innocently posted a photo of herself in a feathered headdress with the pronouncement that she has Choctaw heritage. No doubt she does, but had she been raised with the culture someone would have let her know that she shouldn't be wearing a headdress. (Once she was informed, she took the photo down and I'm sure felt horrible)

So fair enough, more education is needed.

Now, just this week during a conversation yet another friend made a comment about wild Indians. Again, totally innocent, but it too made me want to cry. I was afraid to talk to her about it, worried of what her reaction would be and not wanting to offend her. But then I thought, if she were a man making an inappropriate remark about women, I'd jump to women's defence without thinking twice. So I chose to speak up.

When I explained to her that we don't really say things like that she of course felt awful and I felt even worse for saying anything in the first place. Now you might be sitting there thinking, Shan why get your knickers in a knot? You know they love you, they didn't mean anything by it and what's so bad about wild Indians anyway, you guys were totally badass warriors right? 

Well yes and no, but mostly no. The misconception is that we were wild, savage, untamed, "wagon-burners." Ooooooo, you draw the line at that last one don't you. Yeah man, so do I. But I drew my line way before that.

I can't speak for every Indigenous Nation across Great Turtle Island (that's what we call North America - see? Education is cool), but many of us were matriarchal societies, COMMUNITIES run by WOMEN. We had social structures, we had our own cultures and practices however different from Europeans. And yes, the people I hail from were nomadic, meaning we followed the herds for food. Did that make us wild because we didn't farm? Were we savages because we didn't believe in your Christ? According to the dudes that wrote the history books it did, but we weren't, we were simply different. The thing that's so disturbing to me is that so many people still see us as these nomadic tribesmen of yore... IN THE PAST. 

Hello, my name is Shannon and I'm a Native Canadian,  alive here and now, so pleased to meet you. Do I have beaded buckskin moccasins? You bet your ass I do, but I pretty much wear Converse most of the time people, come on!

If I'm being honest, all this stuff bothers me. I hate the fact that there is still a sports team called the REDSKINS - that is blatant racism bitches! Jeep CHEROKEE, APACHE Helicopters? Stop stealing our names and using us mascots while pretending that we don't exist. Hello over 1100 Indigenous women and girls in Canada have gone missing or been murdered! I'm not talking last century. I'm talking about now. Today. This is currently happening and it's not in the news! Aboriginal people make up about four percent of this country's population yet our women account for 16% of the homicides? Are you kidding me? We're not a historical race we are right here in front of you. Where I come from, a native boy has a greater chance of going to prison than he does of graduating high school.

Okay, alright I'm getting ranty and I'm getting angry. My question is why aren't more people? Because we just don't occur to people, we are not even a consideration.

I became a screenwriter to write about Indigenous people, to create role models for our children, but even that's proving to be the Mount Everest of uphill climbs. I mean did you watch the Oscars this year? I had the slim hope that the subject of diversity was going to come up because of the entirely white nominee list. Oh sure, there was a hashtag #oscarssowhite and some big named stars boycotted the awards, but I can promise you the show was not about diversity. The show was about being "all white" and having "No Black Nominees". 

I applaud Chris Rock for the terrific job he did to bring awareness to the fact that no black talent got the nod, but what about the rest of us? I know I've said this on my IG, but it's worth repeating, in the Academy's current membership, Native Americans and Asians COMBINED make up less than half a percent.To my knowledge, Mohawk actor Graham Greene is the only Native American to be nominated. So there you go, Mr. Greene is our one-quarter percent! 

So what's a girl to do? Throw my hands in the air and say I quit? This is a useless battle? No one cares? My one voice cannot make the difference? I can't do that. I have to look to my people for support. And I'm happy to say I've found a kindred spirit in Matika Wilbur. 

Matika is the coolest and I really hope someday to meet her. She's a photographer from the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes of Washington and she travels around America taking photos of Native Americans hoping to shine the light on who we are as a real-life, very much alive, contemporary people. Like me, she wants our children to see images of our people that are not "past tense", not the noble savage as Pocahontas was purported to be, not the drunks or the beggars looking for a hand out, not the trouble-makers or complainers that so often the media makes us out to be.

Do yourself a huge favor and check out her website HERE. And then do yourself an even bigger favor by watching her TedTalks, she really is a rock star.

I also turn to my dear friend and colleague -- actor, producer, writer, all around amazing human being, Jennifer Podemski. The woman is like a sister and a mother or that favorite auntie. She's just the best.

Jen and I work together on the Indspire Awards, she's the creative producer and I help bring her vision to life through the script. It's a show that features Indigenous Achievers across Canada and hopefully it inspires our young people to understand and believe that they can do or be anything they want to. 

It's my hope that by continuing to speak up, make art, bring awareness and quietly educate one day we'll live in a world where none of us ever has to feel like "the only Indian" in the room. 

There will always be pitfalls, obstacles, rejection and disappointment but to all of that I say...

Carry on. Do not be afraid. Speak your truth whatever that may be. In the words of my beautiful friend, singer/songwriter Leela Gilday: "We are standing on the shoulders of giants, we are standing in the shelter of ancients, we are speaking the truth of the people, we are marching to the beat of ONE DRUM."

Some day, it is my hope that we will be ONE and until then I'll just keep on keeping on. Thanks for tuning in!


xoxo
Shan