What I Do

I don't mean to offend anyone when I write about the reservation. My readers on Multiply are wonderful people that pretty much don't judge me. The readers on blogspot are also wonderful people but there are some who are local readers, who do judge me, criticize and piss me off. I had to moderate my comments just because.

I can handle criticism, but not being attacked.

I was recently attacked in an email by someone who I really pissed off. Apparently they went far back into my blog and became pissed at me for just about everything I wrote. Everything from the welfare system to food stamps to poverty to living on the reservation.

So here is what I want to say on both blogs today.

I don't write to piss people off, however that reaction to my writing does mean something, doesn't it? I mean somewhere I touched something inside you if I pissed you off. And I don't write to make people feel guilty about the way life is on the reservation. I KNOW it's bad here, and maybe I want to others to see it. I want people to know about our history and our plight and our culture as it is today. (In fact, I just got a new camera and will soon be posting a beginner's beading lesson, along with pictures of the reservation.)

But that is why I write, if someone feels guilty and says I make them feel like they should say sorry to every Indian because the government screwed us over, then I AM sorry, sincerely. I know you didn't personally screw us. I know it was your ancestors. And I am truly sorry if I make you feel guilty.

I KNOW it is history and NO I won't forget it already. In fact I write it so my children will know the versions I hear from my elders, not the governments messed up version that call massacres...battles. I write for that. It is IN me to let it be heard. My kids' great grandma gave me one of her indian names "Singing Woman." She said because she wants me heard.

Is it not possible that somewhere buried in my DNA the pain of the history of my people still burns inside of me as bright and heated as a flame?

Is it not possible that because of that spark inside me I feel the need to teach people of life here today?

Is it not possible that that is why so many of us speak of our history like it happened yesterday?

Is it not possible that the importance to carry these stories on is why I write of them?

And is it not possible that maybe somwhere deep in your DNA, you feel guilt, which in turn turns to anger....which makes you lash out at me?

As I said before, I'm sorry you feel that way.

I know how life is here, I'm not leaving because of it. And I won't shut up, or err, stop plucking at the keyboard.