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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7852975" data-attributes="member: 4937">What I was trying to draw out is how incoherent your own viewpoints were.First you link to a post by a Native complaining that other Natives go to Germany and give permission to people there to hold Pow-Wows, and how those Natives are treated like royalty while his feelings are ignored.And then you tell me "I'd generally suggest that that permission is important, if I have can genuinely say such and such a community gave me such and such an item to wear, or song to sing, or whatever I'm good to go. Some other person, or persons, might be upset but that's for them to take up with the original people that gave me permission."Can't the people at those Pows Wows generally say, "I got permission. Some other persons might be upset, but take it up with the original people that gave me permission?"And this gets to what I've been trying to say for pages now, that "permission" is a terrible standard because it (in typical racist fashion) presumes that The Other has a single mindset, single culture, single opinion, and can be represented therefore by some single person who acts as a token or window or whatever you want from that group of people. And no such touchstone exists because out in the real world, no group of people has a single opinion, single mindset, single feelings on a subject or even has entirely the same culture - as if culture could solely be defined by ethnic heritage. We don't think of our own culture in this manner, but we persist in imagining you can do it with other cultures.And we pick and choose who the "authentic voices" are as suits our own needs.But back to this whiner, I treat him in my mind exactly I'd treat someone who wasn't a person of color. He's prone to generalities, unqualified absolutes, exaggerations, false analogies, and thinking of himself as being some sort of authority figure."...I shared my experiences as a person of colour with Indigenous heritage. I received numerous interview requests from some of the largest media outlets in the country, but they never got the story right."It's journalists. They don't get the story right if you are white either. But, in this case in particular, his idea of "getting the story right" turns out to be only taking his opinion over that of other people with equally valid opinions. He goes on to say:"we only ever hear about the hobbyists or the Indigenous there to sell products and perform ceremonies because they heard about the “Indian craze” and want to get on the European “pow-wow” trail. Not ones that live and work there full-time."So he's got beef against Indigenous people who hire themselves out as expert consultants and speakers at these events. And his credentials that supposedly prove his opinion weighs more than there is he lives and works full time in Germany. How does that give you more ownership of the culture than anyone else? Moreover, he's actually wrong, because researching this I did find quotes from Native residents in Germany who were impressed or flattered by the whole deal. Was the press self-servingly picking out only Natives who aren't offended? Maybe so, but again why is his opinion better than theirs?Again, how many people do you need to get permission from anyway?Again he complains:"Visiting Indigenous invited to perform (only traditional regalia and songs!) are treated like royalty while resident Indigenous in jeans and t-shirts with cropped hair, are either un-recognized as Indigenous or scorned by hobbyists who believe they alone can recognize authentic indigeneity."But who can say what is authentic anyway?  Are the visitors somehow less authentic than he is?  Who gets to give their opinion on that?  This guy?   His comments about "in jeans and t-shirts with cropped hair" echo my own earlier about how people want to pin Natives down into a static culture of the past, but if "jeans and a t-shirt with cropped hair" are authentic, it's not authentically native but rather authentically consensus American culture.  We've done a really good job of exporting it worldwide, but I don't see how you can complain that if you look like an American people just assume you're an American."Indigenous North Americans who live abroad often deal with rejection from relatives who only support or recognize those who choose to live in North America. They report negative experiences such as abandonment, disrespect of their heritage and lack of cultural support. This trauma leads to depression, anxiety and frustration because Indigenous living in Europe can’t simply be themselves."So are his beef with the Germans, or is his real beef with the Natives back home that are saying, "If you wear jeans, a t-shirt, have cropped hair, and live in Germany, you've abandoned us and the culture." (See a parallel complaint at the heart of the movie 'Whalerider', only with native Maori.) This has all sorts of complexities about whether ethnicity is blood or culture that I can't begin to unravel, but the point is that this guy has complex real complaints that he seems to be just trying to rationalize by blanketing them with terms like "colonialism" and "white supremacy". Personally, I don't appreciate trying to simplify the discussion down to trigger words like that, especially using them so vaguely and so broadly that they cease to have a clear meaning.And as a larger point, I think you're ultimately picking him as an authentic voice we are supposed to be sympathetic to because it fits your politics, even though - as I pointed out earlier - your opinions don't actually fit together in a logical fashion.Is he right to be offended? Are the other Natives right to go to these Pow-Wows and offer permission for them to continue? I don't know. But I do know it's a complex question that you can't answer by saying, "I am the sort of person that listens to upset people, and if you don't you are a jerk." Because even by this guys account, there are several - not even just two - sides to this story.</blockquote>

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