Originally published as "A tale of Language and Privilege."
De-Nile is a River in EgyptThis post turned out to be too much for me to bite off and finish in a single 30-minute session. The idea is not only complex to present, but it is serious and not something to be taken lightly. This is a post to read with a cup of tea and to be followed by a long moment of contemplation.
My look at the word "indigenous" is yet another look at semantics and language. At meaning and usage. Specifically, I would like to show you how I transitioned from seeing the word "indigenous" as a conscientious word to describe native peoples, to being a word that reeks of White Privilege and Colonial Imperialism. This subject has been brought to us originally by a discussion I had a few years ago with my husband. When our discussion started, I was very very lost on a long ride down the River De-Nile. My guess is that most of my readers are probably also bobbing along on a raft that is not as sturdy as they once thought...
Before I get into my story and the following discussion, I think it is important to note that I was reminded of this story by an article that came through my Facebook feed several times in the previous 24 hours. Before or after finish my musings, I highly recommend you go and check it out (link at the end).My husband and I were both raised in families that value respecting individuals and cultures for their face value. We don't judge. We walk our own path. He grew up in the Antanosy region of Madagascar. I grew up in the State of Colorado, in the United States. Despite the geographic distance in our upbringing, it is often surprising how much we think alike. At the same time, we have had very different life experiences. Sometimes these experiences mean that we don't always see eye-to-eye. Sometimes these experiences mean that we have experienced very different things. Racism. Sexism. The vestiges of Slavery. Colonialism.
ColonialismMadagascar is just off the tip of South Africa and is on one of the trade routes from Europe to India. As a consequence, for many years ships with slaves, pirates, and various individuals intent on colonizing or just taking a break (for a few years or twenty), stopped off to settle and to terrorize in my husband's hometown of Tôlanaro. A town that has two names, one used by the locals and one used by foreigners and given to it by the French (Fort Dauphin).
Because of the already diverse cultural heritage of the Malagasy, the people of the Antanosy region are long accustomed to the idea that not everyone looks the same. Because of the passing of Indian (from India), Asian, Middle Eastern, and East African peoples, walking down the street you can see people that are clearly of mixed heritage. Blue and green eyes, deep pool black eyes, tufts of blond hair, straight hair and curly hair can be found. Certainly, the Antanosy tribe has a particular look, as do each of the 18 tribes in Madagascar, but historically, the Malagasy have not really been caught up in this idea of race. Foreigners are called Vazaha, which translates to "stranger" or "foreigner," but not in a derogatory sense. Malagasy are Malagasy.
Growing up, my husband knew that some people were foreigners, but he didn't know that racism existed. Some people were Vazaha, but people were people. And guests were to be honored in your home. Growing up in Tôlanaro, his parents were particularly interested in the foreigners that came to town, inviting them into their home, and learning as much as they could from the outside world. As far as my husband knew, guests and visitors were to be honored. And the color of your skin or the birthplace or birth status of your parents had little if anything to do with your personal value.
And then he moved to France.In the last 15+ years, my husband has become well versed in racism, white privilege, imperialist thought, and every other repulsive thing that goes alongside. This essay is however not a pity party and I won't get all the details, but I do want to share with you just enough that you can see how moving from Madagascar to France, changed his world view, forever. I also want you to think about what his experience might have been if he had been white (say British or American white). Or if he had been a Black American coming to France. Let's note during all of this that my husband has passed down through his family, French Nationality, so when arriving in France, his legal status never has been that of an immigrant. He arrived in France, legally, French.
When I was home in Colorado a few months ago, I had the honor of joining my mom's book club. The members had just read a book by a contemporary Black American Author. He, like so many other Black Americans traveling to France (particularly Paris), thinks the French are not really racist because as Black Americans, they don't experience the same racism they experience in the US. If you are reading this and you are a Black American, I want to you to think twice about what you experience in France. For example, if my husband dresses in jeans, flip-flops, and an American flag t-shirt, and he speaks English, he can get into a fancy cigar club on the Champs Elysees, no problem because the doorman thinks he is AMERICAN. If he returns with his Senegalese friend (who parks a Maserati and Aston Martin in his garage in Miami) dressed in a suit jacket and nice jeans, but speaking French, they will be turned away from the same club, because they don't meet the "dress code." In other words, they are guilty in the eyes of the doorman of being African and not French or American. Being rich doesn't even make a difference, which is surprising to an American. Poor Americans rank higher than Rich Africans and French Africans in France. Ponder that.
Imperialism (aka a White Capitalist Occidental People's superiority complex)
Americans (both black and white) are known in France to be hard workers, but Indigenous Africans are not. Africans are lazy. They are uneducated. Even Africans that go to French schools in Africa are considered slow. When I arrived in France, I was sent to a CV workshop, because I had tried to go to the French Employment office with an American Formatted CV, simply translated into French. The woman running the workshop started off by asking us to introduce ourselves. I was the only foreigner in a room full of white French people. When I said I was American the woman responded, "Great! You shouldn't have a problem getting a job, everyone knows that Americans are hard-workers, unlike Africans...." Um. Um. Ok. So Americans may be loud and impolite, but we work hard...
Politically CorrectThe aftershocks of colonialism and the imperial point of view, also continue to ripple through the United States. I grew up in Colorado. My mom's family had been homesteaders around the turn of the century (1900). I grew up proud of my heritage and my family's work ethic (I still am. Cowboys and Cowgirls are to be respected). We were tough, proud people. As a child and as a young adult, road-trips often included visits to regional museums, which in an attempt at Grace, often focused on the people who had lived in the area before white (and black) settlers came to the region. Boulder had been home to the Arapahoe Indians and numerous streets, neighborhoods and even towns (Niwot) are named after local leaders and tribes. One of my favorite childhood storybooks was about Sacajawea and I knew plenty about the history of the Native Americans or American Indians that had lived in the region.
Had lived.Museums cover the past. History is a study of the past. My experience (and I assume that of the majority of white and black Americans) was as though Indians were mythical romantic creatures of the past. We studied them in school. We visited heritage sites and museums. When I traveled to France, I was asked if Indians really wore headdresses and rode horses. My AP US History textbook (you know the same one that a conservative school board in Jefferson County, CO tried to ban because it is too LIBERAL) had a section titled the "Noble Savage."
We studied dead Indians, but we never studied living ones. Well, I studied them, a bit, as part of my Unitarian Universalist 9th Grade-trip. We spent 10 days between the Navajo and Hopi Nations in New Mexico and Arizona. We stayed with homestay families. We took walks. We visited the longest operating Trading Post in the United States. We also visited the longest inhabited village in the Americas. Old Oraibi. Maybe it was my own naivete, but the trip was still more like a trip to the past. I didn't really stop to think about the separation of living American Indian society from mainstream (primarily white) American society. The people I met seemed more like ghosts from the past than living people. I was disconnected and I didn't stop to consider what it must be like to be a First American, living amongst the vestiges of colonization. Getting up each morning and stepping out to be a part of "American" society.
The PeopleI had a dear childhood friend with whom I spent hours playing after school. Our mothers were friends and had offices in the same building at the University of Colorado. At some level, I knew she was Indian, Navajo to be precise. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, she told me that the Navajo's true name was actually "Diné" and that it meant "the people." Navajo was actually a name given the tribe by an opposing tribe. I don't recall it's meaning, but it is not a complimentary name. After this, for many years, in fact, I tried using the name Diné, but just about nobody, outside of people from the Four Corners region, has ever recognized the term. Many people, to my surprise, are not really even familiar with the term Navajo, and yet the Diné are one of the largest tribes remaining in the USA ( of the 560+ that are recognized).
Despite our friendship, I never realized the implication of our diverging backgrounds until my husband and I started to discuss the word Indigenous. I frankly never thought to ask my friend about her experience growing up in Boulder. Never. I may have been raised in an open-minded, politically correct family, but I was still the recipient of white privilege and I had no reason to consider that her childhood experience was any different from mine.
IndigenousI don't remember how the subject came up, but I argued my point valiantly, for probably a week or more, before I finally saw it from my husband's point of view. Growing up, I had been introduced to the terms Indian, American Indian and Native American. To me indigenous was a word reserved for those semi-wild people still living in the bush in Australia or Africa. Aborigines. Bushmen. And then I took a trip to British Columbia and went to the Royal Museum and I was astounded at the exhibit on Indigenous Peoples. As a student of Anthropology, I was in awe. Wow! I thought that the use of indigenous to describe Native Americans or American Indians was magnificent. Of course in ecology or plant biology, we talk about indigenous plants, so what better word, to call native peoples than "indigenous?" Or so I thought.
And so, for the next 15 years or so, I proudly called Native Americans, "Indigenous peoples," when I referred to them in conversation. Just as I did when talking about Pacific Islanders and others who have suffered under the invasive regimes of Occidental Colonialism. Until that fateful day, in which my husband said, don't use that word. I hate that word. "Indigenous" is a dirty, dirty, and demeaning word.
I tried to argue. I told my husband all the ways I was open-minded and respectful in my usage. He told me I had a serious case of white-privilege. I was shocked. I was outraged. My own husband telling me - ME! - of all people that I was practicing imperialism in my speech absolutely scandalized me. And then I let it sit. And I started to think. And I started to question.
Think about the following countries and list off the ones which have populations of indigenous peoples:
Do you see my point? Why don't we study "indigenous Koreans?" Or "indigenous Germans?" Why is it that the Maori are an "indigenous tribe," but the Danish people are just...Danes? As an adjective, indigenous is indeed accurate to describe American Indians, but if we are going to call Indians "Indigenous" with a capital "I" then we should probably start calling those of European, Asian and African descent who live in the USA, "Invasive." As we should anyone living in New Zealand or Australia, whose ancestors arrived sometime in the last 400 years.
Let's look at the definitions of the two words according to our old friend Merriam-Webster:
Definition of indigenous1: produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment indigenous plants the indigenous culture
Definition of invasive1: of, relating to, or characterized by military aggression
2: tending to spread especially in a quick or aggressive manner: such as of a non-native organism: growing and dispersing easily usually to the detriment of native species and ecosystems
Invasive" A non-native organism: growing and dispersing easily usually to the detriment of native species and ecosystems." Are we talking about thistles? Or Colonialists? I can't tell. As adjectives, indigenous and invasive are appropriate, but as nouns, especially proper nouns they are not. Why? Because it is the Invader who identifies the Indigenous as so.
The Imperialist PerspectiveIn other words, my white privilege, the same privilege, that never called me to question my girlfriend's perspective growing up, led me to see the word indigenous in a very different light than my husband.
You may not understand what I have shared with you today, you may even disagree, but I ask you to let it sit. Think about it. Contemplate it and if you are White living in the United States or if you are an American living overseas, think how your experience may be different those that you encounter in your daily life. At work. At school. In the supermarket. How are you treated? How does the woman in line behind you experience shopping?You will notice that the current Royal Museum in BC no longer calls their exhibit the Indigenous Peoples exhibit. It is now an exhibit of the "First People's" and their current exhibit is of "Living Languages." Language and how we use language is important. It goes beyond being PC or haughty, naive or gullible. Language is how we communicate with our fellow humans and the words we use have an effect on our fellow humans. On our experience and on their experience. Neither you nor I am responsible for the actions of our ancestors or other people's ancestors; however, we are responsible for our own actions. And the first step to healing a problem is to acknowledge that a problem exists.
For further reading:An article about what Native Americans and American Indians like to be called (hint - if you know it, tribal names are best!)
Blackhorse: Do you prefer 'Native American' or 'American Indian?' 6 Prominent Voices Respond, by Amanda Blackhorse
Similar concept to my piece, but a different situation, I recommend this piece:
" The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black," by Ijeoma Oluo
