I won’t be going to work Monday because Columbus Day makes me sick. Really sick.
I could be honest with my employers and tell them I'm staying home to celebrate Native American Day like they do in South Dakota, but, hell, I'm so tired of "fighting the good fight." Really, I am. So tired of defending Truth. Even when it doesn't appear to fit the picture.
Sometimes it's easier to let them (whoever they are) live with their lies.
I have enough documented American Indian (Ojibwe) ancestry--land patents, birth/death certificates, photographs--along with the community/family relations required by law to claim Native American ancestry. I do not qualify for enrollment, or CDIB because my family is not on any of the Dawes Rolls or Half Breed Scrips. I have never lived on any reservation, though have visited often enough, and do have living relatives on several. I possess a land patent issued to my great-great grandmother under a July 31, 1855 Treaty between The United States Government and the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan, signed by Ulysses S. Grant in the year of their lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy two...a tract of land, containing 80 acres, to my great-great grandmother, her heirs and assigns, to have and to hold, forever.
My great grandmother was the last person in our family to be listed as "American Indian/Ojibwe" on her death certificate. It's not like she was an anonymous name on a certificate--I knew her, from my childhood before I was placed in foster care at the age of 9. Later, as an adult, I came back to care for her in the last years of her life. When she died in 1993 at the age of 107, I buried her, back in Michigan, on Indian Land. Had she been on the rolls, she probably would have been the oldest living Ojibwe in my state at the time. I've never put much stock in papers because as she always said: "I don't need the US government to tell me who my grandchildren are."
So I wouldn't have to risk my employer going all Scott Brown on me. Or would I? I recently surprised one of my superiors at work by telling her I was American Indian. "Oh! I thought you were white. I mean you look like a nice white Jewish girl, and your name....".
As I said, I'm tired of "fighting truth to power," so I did not take the time to tell her that the Jewish name I recently traded in for my husband's "slave name" was the name I inherited from the white man who raped my Indian mother at a time when marital rape was not a crime, and when it was not "fashionable" to be Indian. If you could pass for white, you did, and if you had to lie about the Beaudoins and the Archambeaus in your family tree, you did that too: they were "French". Sounds fancy enough innit? You sure as hell didn't go around digging for Indians in your family tree, even if you knew damn well your backyard was full of them!
Anti-Semitism is "not a problem" where I work. I mean, yeah, it is a problem. A big one. But it's so pervasive, and has indeed become second-nature to the culture at my place of employment that Jew-hating (and Jew-baiting) is commonplace, and not even recognized as such. If you dare to call anyone out on it, it is denied. When I married my husband about a year ago, I dropped my maiden name and took his slave name instead. I was tired of bearing the burden of the white man who raped my Indian mother on my back--and on my CV, my publications list, and, not least of all, on my ID and in the HR department of a place where anti-Semitism is "not a problem." But many of my colleagues have been slow to get the memo about the change from my quintessentially "Jewish" name.
The other reason anti-Semitism is "not a problem" where I work is that there are very few Jewish people (if any) who work there--this is Farrakhan territory, for the most part. The first day I wore my badge to work, someone stopped me in the elevator, looked at my name and said: "Wo. Are you Jewish?"
Anyway, the stigma of my rapist-father's name has stuck, and it was this, in part, that caused my colleague to assume I was not only white, but Jewish. Double-whammy, as my colleague in fact conceded. Yet she was insistent, even after I told her that I was Indian, and that was how I self-identified. "But those aren't the characteristics you display. Look at you, you have a Jewish nose. And everything about you is just, well, Jewish. You look like a white Jewish woman."
"Well, yes," I said, "I won't deny that I have Jewish blood," and I certainly could have gone Godwin on her (or even thought about lawyering up, since these comments were in fact coming from a superior), but I didn't.
Instead, taking laughter as the best medicine, I continued, "but I never knew my Jewish father--I grew up as a ward of the state, and well? About the nose. Certainly, it has served me well. Especially when it's come to digging the lies out of the lie-bury!"
(Did she get the joke? Maybe.)
"But I am not, by any standards of culture, a white Jewish woman. I'm not."
"But that is what you look like."
"Um. I know that. And I'm tired of it. Do you get that? I'm really tired of people making assumptions about me based on what I look like?"
She made some comment about the kind of hair I was supposed to have, as an Indian.
I had to laugh, since for many years I actually did sport precisely the 'do she expected --I'd cut it all off just before I took the job at this place. And yes, there was a reason for that, and it had little to do with looks.
Finally, I said, "Do you even know what an Indian looks like? And btw, I'm not talking about facial features. I'm talking about the Indian MIND."
My colleague is not evil. She's not even nasty. I kind of like her, actually, and this was the first time we'd had any extensive conversation beyond "Hello Professor X/Hello Professor Y." in the halls. Based on appearances alone--and by that I mean fashion statements ;-)--I suspect we have too much in common for this awkward introduction to stand in the way of developing a solid, mutually appreciative working relationship. That's why I believe she took home something to think about as we parted ways that night in the parking lot. It's also why some day I will probably take the time to let her know what she said that really, truly made me sick, and why I will not be lying when I call in sick for Columbus Day on Monday. Because I am still sick to my soul about that part.
The last thing I said to her was, "You know, Dr. X, this is Indian Land. We are standing on Indian Land." That was a true statement. Like literally: the land we were standing on was ceded to the US government in the Treaty of St. Louis in 1816. I know that because I recently purchased a small piece of it (back), and--to my surprise--learned from the plat of survey that it was Indian Land.
She looked at me and said, "So what?"
Indian Land. So what?
Apparently, my colleague didn't know about the sanctity of land, Indian Land, in the mind/heart/soul/spirit of an Indian. Explaining it that evening to another colleague (who also happens to be a good friend), I said, "You know, it's like it's the MOST important thing. Especially when all that's left of your family is a drawer full of death certificates, a few distant memories, and yeah, well, the land patent--um, er, the broken treaty. And the spirits of your ancestors inhabiting the land."
My friend said, "It's almost like telling an African American woman to 'get over' slavery, isn't it?"
And that is exactly how it felt. To me.
"Yeah, it's exactly like that. Reminds me of a quote from a Sherman Alexie story I've been using in my classes":
When you're hurting, it feels good to hurt somebody else. But you have to be careful. If you get addicted to the pain-causing, then you start hurting people who don't need hurting. If you turn into a pain-delivering robot, then you start thinking everybody looks like Mr. Grief and everybody deserves a beating.
So, anyway, yeah, I'm calling in sick. Because I am. Heartsick.
If she turns out not to have learned the lesson, I may in fact just lawyer up. Because I am tired of it. Sick and tired and sick and tired of being sick and tired. Knowing me, though, I'd be more inclined to say, "Hey, Dr. X, next time you feel like beating up a Jew, why not try a strongly worded letter to Rahm Emanuel or something because I really don't need the shit." ;-)