Courtesy Wind Over Fire Healing Arts Center/Facebook
A New Age “ghost dance” held in southwestern Minnesota has many indigenous people wondering just when the cultural appropriation will end.
White “aggrieved entitlement” people. They never seem to run out of excuses for their bloated sense of entitlement, of helping themselves to the least little thing; of exploiting marginalized peoples. It’s damn near a way of life for many white people. When it comes to “new age” rites, seems to me there’s a wealth of pagan history to mine, gosh, you might even find some you’re related to in some way.
Towards the later days at the No DAPL camp, I wasn’t quiet about all the entitlement-minded white people there, who had no use for the rules laid down by the people running things. Because of course, rules, they are never for white people are they? I wasn’t quiet about all the white protest/event tourists, either. People who were there to honestly provide support and help, no problem. As usual though, they weren’t the ones making a fuss or making it all about them, because they knew it wasn’t about them. They knew that in the end, they would go home, and not have to deal with it all.
In Minnesota, there’s a group who recently held their 2nd annual “Ghost Dance”. When called on this, they denied it was a ghost dance. They said it was a “Ten Moons” dance. Then they decided to go with “Ghost Dance isn’t exclusive to Indigenous people! Lots of cultures had ancestor dances! China! Africa! So it isn’t indigenous in nature.” Oddly enough, their not indigenous at all dance is decidedly indigenous in appearance, and specifically so. The history of the Ghost Dance is a dark one, once the colonials got terrified and started up more wholesale slaughter, and brutally oppressed indigenous peoples all the more out of fear. It’s not a toy for white people to play pagan. It’s not yours. It’s not your culture, it’s not your history. If non-indigenous people ever wonder why various rites and dances have been closed to outsiders, look no further.
“It would be great if everyone just joined together,” said Laven, discontented by the scrutiny of their ceremony and the charges of cultural appropriation. “We have enough crap. I was at Standing Rock, and I hear the Native Americans, and I had heard them.”
Oh my. What a fine example of white entitlement. There’s really nothing else like it. Golly, white people have had enough crap! It’s just like everything indigenous people have gone through! And now, Standing Rock is the latest excuse. Fuck you, Ms. Laven. A universe of fuck yous. You have not heard one godsdamn thing. You don’t give one little shit about indigenous people or their struggles. All you care about is exploiting them to make money. I hope you are bad-mouthed from here to the end of the galaxy, because that’s the very least of what you deserve.
Really.
Why do those Europe-derived folks expect to commune with their ancestors by using a Native American ceremony?
“Sorry, dearie. I think you dialed the wrong number.”
Apparently, out the numerous cultures who had ‘ancestor dances’, only this one works.
I thought I might be mis-remembering, so I looked it up.
I was correct. One of the main points of the original Ghost Dance movement was that the white invaders would be sent away.
How did Ms Laven miss that?
I expect Ms. Laven was one of the blondes with 10 lbs of ”celtic’ dreadlocks piled on their heads in the later days at camp. There were a fucktonne of them wandering about.
There were a lot of white people on the wrong side of the lines at Standing Rock.
*facepalm*
I’m white, and I don’t get why white folks can’t just leave indigenous things to indigenous folks. If we ain’t invited, there’s probably a good reason, and we — as a people — need to respect that.
I find it fascinating that, while some white people apparently still feel nostalgic about Wounded Knee massacre, some others think “Native American Culture” is the best cool thing ever, and yet others aren’t even aware that Indians still exist. Just shows how culturally diverse white people really are.
(pardon my snark)