Kawlija
Shared on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 09:23First of all, I have to thank everyone who’s taking the time to read my posts. That last one was a mouthful. Ha! I’ve taken the time to surf around some of the other blogs around here and they’re not usually as meaty and certainly not addressing serious topics on a regular basis. Taking the time to read mine, which are more like essays than daily notes takes a certain commitment from you and I’m grateful for it. Look at it this way, I only post every now and then. Ha!
It was suggested to me to do this because someone thought I had a lot to say. As such, I felt that if I was going to do this, it would be a forum for me to address the various issues that affect my people and their struggle to continue as a distinct people. Can you understand that I feel an obligation to do something with this? I’m a little too busy with other things to simply write about my [dull] daily life.
The purpose for writing though, especially in what has to be acknowledged as a predominantly white-anglo forum, is to have other people learn what Indians are like. Arguably, I may not be the best exemplar as I do tend to be somewhat militant when it comes to my people. For me, I’ve suffered too many indignities at the hands of others to stand there and take it anymore. So naturally, I come out swinging and that attitude tends to come out in my writing.
This approach and worldview in Indian country though, is antithetical to what Native Americans as a whole are like. Please believe me when I tell you that most people in Indian country are very soft-spoken and not the confrontational type at all. There’s still a persuasive attitude to take care of our own and keep to yourself. At times, it can be an effort to get our people to rise up and do what is necessary to bring about change.
I’m glad then, to read comments like: “You do your homework, Kawlija! I am constantly reminded of things that happened in the past…” But then this same guy went on to say, “I haven't ever said anything about Native Americans or your blog because this is such a touchy subject.”
I’m doing this to prompt discussion and trying to get people thinking about this stuff. I can only hope that those of you who bother to read my blog do not have any preconceptions about me or the subject matter that would prevent you from commenting. Whatever your opinion of the subject matter, I’m only interested in getting us all talking. Learning is usually an exchange of ideas on both our parts. And besides, I’m not always right. Ha!
Another guy had this to say, “Man, I feel for you. Firstly, because you're getting angry over things you can't control. Seriously. No one wants to listen to a person who's pretty angry over a topic that's so throdden flat, minorities started to avoid it. Secondly, because you're absolutely right, but see my first observation.”
My response to this would be to ask you if the answer would be to stop talking about the things in my blogs? What would that do? Allow me to repeat that for too long my people have been quiet, kept to themselves, and didn’t raise hell while they had suffered so many injustices. Would you make the same recommendation to Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton? I don’t think I’m a crusader for my people on their level, but if you don’t hear about it, it don’t matter, right? That’s just human nature. Somebody has to do something to change what’s happening to my people out there.
This same guy went on to write, “…talking about discrimination has become a catch-22 of sorts, since the person fighting the hardest against it, is the one standing to lose the most. In the end, you might make some headway, but you have to ask yourself how high the price is you're willing to pay.” You must be psychic buddy, it’s been a career killer at work and cost me promotions and other opportunities. It hurt me professionally and my family suffered financially. That resulted in an EEO complaint at work which took me 3 ½ years to fight. I still don’t have a lot of friends in high places around here and that was 9 years ago. Ugh.
The blog that prompted the largest response was that last one about my having to document my Indianness. Let me get to the pointed comments from a fellow LEO, “If you were my employee and I [was] your supervisor and you wrote me some giant diatribe over a simple request I'd simply look at you and say "What the f*ck is this crap?" Then I would deny your request until you provided the requested documentation.”
Two things to say to this, the first of which is obvious, where do you get this documentation? Does any culture have a handbook? You can find books that would give you a reference to what you should believe in, but none of them tell you how to dress or wear your hair. It’s just silly to think that any culture would have something like this and I thought the request was B-S from the beginning.
Secondly, while I talk about filing an EEO complaint as a result of the request, it should be apparent that this was the EEO complaint. I filed one years ago. They all have the same format. The only thing missing from this lengthy diatribe was the first paragraph that said, “I have been wronged because…” and the closing paragraph that said, “…and this can be resolved by allowing me to grow out my hair.” I think it was recognized as such because it was never brought up again. I struggled for weeks how to tell these people they were full of crap and decided on a pre-emptive strike.
Then there’s some historical background behind the next comment that the writer could not have known about. “Where is your common sense? A company (or agency in this case) has a right to monitor their employees dress and presentation. When allowable exceptions can be made based on such things as religion or in your case historical custom. That’s fine and dandy, but it also makes sense that when allowing for such an exception a request and a reason is provided. Simply stating "I'm Indian and I want to wear my hair out" *shouldn't* cut it or else any Tom, Dick and Harry could make the same argument.
The background to this is that I wasn’t the first person in the office to ask for this. There was another officer here who, for the last 12 years, has worn shoulder-length hair. He’s also a traditional dancer and has performed for management during Native American heritage events hosted by our agency. Management here was equally aware of my work with the Native American community as this other officer. They’ve made arrangements for me to attend the National Native American Law Enforcement Association conference in order for me to represent our agency. For whatever reason, I got singled out for something the other officer wasn’t requested to produce 12 years ago.
I didn’t exactly feel splattered with mud when this guy went on to write, “If you want people to understand your culture and respect your culture, as I believe you do, it would be more beneficial to be less of a lecturing, antagonistic and arrogant jerk and more of an ambassador and teacher. (I'm not necessarily saying you are a jerk but frankly that’s how the above comes off.)
Fair enough. We’ll see how that advice works in future blogs.
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Submitted by J-Cat on Mon, 05/07/2007 - 10:06
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