Apple

Though we continued to use laughter as a social lubricant and I knew that Chemawa students probably needed a break from the reality that is life, things got deep and serious for me last night.

I spent the first 20 minutes working Sudoku and crossword puzzles with Brittany. She's a regular, and it's important to me that we check in each week. She lights up when I give her compliments about her hair and her sweatshirts, but she absolutely glows when I remind her that she is capable and intelligent. She ditched me to read and get on Bebo (like Myspace, I think?!), but we had a good validation session.

Patty was sitting with a new friend, making a decent amount of noise, so I sat myself down to see if they'd have me. Patty and I have established an element of trust, and she's becoming my "in" with other students--she will immediately introduce me and give the "she's cool" nod which provides a level of comfort and breaks down that inevitable wall. I met Leanne, a sophomore from Yakima with some funky blue contacts and enough sass to fill a room. We did the "hey, what's up, how you doin?" and then jumped back into their verbal sparring. Patty kept saying "I'm not an apple, don't call me an apple." They were partly joking, but I could tell there was something deeper going on. I sat and listened for a while before I asked, "Patty, what's an apple?" Leanne looked down at her hands while Patty explained, "You know, red on the outside but white on the inside."

I've talked with students before about the pressure to look native, act native, and stay native. Leanne said that Patty acts white and she's not "g" enough to be totally red--she's even starting to dress white. I played the ignorant card a little bit and asked Leanne what she meant, but all kinds of things started playing in my mind. The things that make Patty stand out are characteristics that are broadly associated with white people, and especially through a native youth's eyes. In my opinion, these qualities are given to whites all too generously, often incorrectly, and as a vehicle for maintaining a culture of supremacy. Patty is smart, she thinks for herself, she has goals after high school, she is more focused on her education than partying and fitting in, she works hard and makes money, she is a peer tutor, and she hasn't bought into the pressures that affect so many of her friends and family. Patty is paving her own path and she is going to make a difference in her community. This makes her an apple--white on in the inside, red on the outside.

Leanne sees Patty as a race traitor, someone who can't "hold it down," someone who has chosen to leave her identity as a native and become something that she's not. THAT is internalized racism and oppression at its best (read: worst). I get it; I get that there is power in a group identity; I get that we have a tendency to define ourselves by what we are not; I understand that racialization is a personal, powerful experience that manifests in complex identities within "boxes" that are determined by outside influences. I also understand that if we don't begin to seek opportunities outside of our race stereotypes and formulas, we will never change and progress as peoples of the world. Not all white people are intelligent. Not all white people go to school. Not all white people say no to substance. Not all white people are motivated. And those that are usually don't have an understanding of their own socialization to be that way--they are not aware of the white culture that makes them competitive and places them on the college track. On the flip side, native students have got to believe (and we've got to help them believe) that they have every right to an education should they choose it, and part of a native identity can mean using that education to work for sovereignty and maintenance of culture. It can also mean challenging the cycles that drag spiritual, powerful people into substance abuse and poverty.

We cannot speak in absolutes--group identity, individual identity, binaries or a continuum, racial profiles, tribal membership, nationality... We are human beings influenced by what we see and think and feel happening around us, cognizant of that fact or not. And, we cannot allow our agency to be stripped away, our identities marginalized and our selves simplified to fit a prescribed box. Patty is a native woman with native survival and well being and tradition at the heart of her motivations. She has chosen an education and a career path that she believes will allow her to return to her community with tools to dismantle the system that keeps her family in poverty. I don't think that makes her a race traitor.