Being Native American in the United States – by Aric Clark

The video above is from Mark Charles who is the son of an American woman (of Dutch heritage) and a Navajo man and lives on the Navajo reservation. He speaks all over the country on the complexities of our country’s history regarding race, culture, and faith – and when I heard him use this metaphor of the grandma locked in an upstairs room it really brought it home for me.

It is astounding how thoroughly we have repressed the awareness of our ongoing participation in settler colonialism in this country. For many people, Native Americans are an artifact of the past. The only place they belong is in stereotyped depictions of the 19th century American West. Native Americans are almost entirely invisible to us.

This is not by accident. It is the result of extraordinarily effective ethnic cleansing. We have spent centuries pushing Native Americans into smaller and more remote territories, attempting to erase their culture through boarding schools and missionaries, and reinforcing stereotypes in our media and entertainment.

Nevertheless it is a testament to the incredible resiliency of Native Americans that they have not be eradicated. Over 5 million Alaska Natives and American Indians live in the US today, many on the 325 reservations scattered across our country, and there is a resurgence of cultural vitality taking place among them.

It is time for those of us who have been living uninvited in this house to go visit that upstairs room and realize what we have done.