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Here’s my kid & I cosplaying Ma’ii & Maggie from Rebecca Roanhorse’s (RR) “Trail of Lightning” at @IndigenousCon in 2018. We devoured her book(s), not just bc it features badass Indigenous everything, but it’s a fabulously entertaining story worth all 5 Goodreads stars ;) +
I’ve been following RR for years. She’s sharp, smart & I’ve learned TONS about advocacy & law & representation & Indigenous parenting from her posts. I remember when she posted a ‘Buffy on the Rez’ Twitter pitch (which would later become TOL)! She was well-supported pre-fame +
She was out here doing amazing work to uplift Native people before she was famous. That’s a big deal for me when it comes to folx who ID as being part of a marginalized community, esp Indigenous communities. I look for givers. And RR has given much. +
As someone who aspires to be “A Writer,” watching RR earn accolades for her short & long pieces was (is) truly inspiring. For both my kid & me. Plus, MANY Diné friends/fam of mine (many of them trusted educators) have told me time & again how awesome they think her books are +
I’ll pause here & say I’m not a fan of tokenizing a few voices to further my own biases. I have read EVERYTHING questioning RR’s enoughness & identity — oops, I mean cultural appropriation! That’s what’s being critiqued all these years, right? +
I would consider some of her most vocal critics my friends — ppl I respect. Questioning authenticity is important (done carefully) & those concerns are valid. +
But there comes a point when that critical lens turns obsessive & harmful. We’re well into censorship territory seasoned w/ colonial club membership mentality & gross anti-Blackness. +
What http://Indianz.com posted wasn’t journalism. It was a gossip column that read like a Mean Girls lunch special: “U can’t sit w/ us! Ur adopted & don’t know ur birth family or our tradish ways that somehow follow a colonial calendar! Enrollment or bust! SACRIT SEECRITS!”+
Like, damn, even Andrea Smith, Ward Churchill & Elizabeth Warren got a break. Alexie’s not a pretendian per sé, but him & other known abusers continue to be lauded for their literary contributions & accepted in Native spaces w/ minimal callout from the same ppl wanting RR’s head+
Let’s add non-pretendians like Stephanie Meyer, Tony Hillerman, Faith Hunter & Patricia Briggs who somehow get a huge pass from the kind of incessant criticism RR has received FOR YEARS. Wonder if they got an after-hrs call on a personal cell to talk about their identity...? +
Speaking of profiting off Native imagery, what about famous Native actors who portray Natives from other tribes on screen? Or all those neon-Native artists making bank by trendifying images of non-related/open-sourced ancestors? What about NDN tacos bullied by Navajo tacos?!?! +
