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I am Native, I am White: A Poem

Since I moved to the city and lost my in-person ties to the culture that was a part of my childhood, I've been grappling with my identity and place in the world and my community as a person who is both Native (Cherokee and Apache) and White. Native American Heritage Day seemed like an appropriate time to open up about that struggle. Here's a poem I've been sitting on that I'm still not 100% sure I want to be sharing, honestly, but here goes.

 I am Native, I am White

As much as I am Native

I am also White

And I cannot deny

That White blood

Flows in my veins

As much as Cherokee

As much as Apache.

As much as I was raised with Blackfeet traditions,

I was raised with White Man’s ones.

Only how can I reconcile

That one part of me

Has done so much harm

To the other:

Broken treaties

Broken Bodies

Broken Lives

Children Ripped from parents

Sent to boarding schools

Where cultures and languages

I love were stamped out.

Trail of Tears.

 

Blood percentages are a weapon of colonization

But if I am wholly Native

Then I am wholly White

And wholly responsible

For the privilege

Biases, and violence therein

I am wholly Native

I am wholly White

I do not see myself at peace

I see myself ripping apart

The structures within myself

That have enabled generations of violence

And then turning that fervent

Energy outward

As much as I am Native

I am also White

And I will apply the energy of two Peoples

To ending the violence

That has endured for generations


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