http://www.buzzfeed.com/elissawashuta/this-indian-does-not-owe-you
I am here before you, a living Indian, upright and animated, full of
blood. I am a young Cowlitz woman, not one of the dead chiefs flattened
into history books. I have come to expect that you may want to know what
an Indian knows and feels; you may want to unroll before me your
knowledge about Indian wars or toss out a fun fact about totem poles —
conversational niceties, perhaps, attempts at connection. Fair enough.
Know, though, if I have no response, it is because I have only a few
inches of innards left to pull out for examination. I must place some
limits so that I might keep myself intact.
I do not owe you a
complete breakdown of my ancestry. I do not keep a blood quantum chart
sketched out on my palm like crib notes for an exam. I do not have to
tell you where my mother was born or what substance forms my father. I
don’t have to justify the place of my birth, necessarily off-reservation
because my tribe has none, all of our land taken from us. I cannot stop
you when your gaze searches my face, gouges out my eyes, and roughs up
my cheekbones, but I don’t have to respond when you offer your
assessment. I don’t measure my blood in pints and quarts, and I will not
spill it at my feet for you.
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