albionidaho (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
albionidaho) wrote2005-09-20 02:19 pm
albionidaho) wrote2005-09-20 02:19 pm
writing ethics
I've been thinking about writing ethics and cultural appropriation and other such things lately. Mostly this is because of the story I just wrote and Haddayr Copely-Woods' recent article. (And yes, I know she was talking about people taking the Ankh and the fairy circle and the dreamcatcher and mixing it all up, etc., etc., but it still got me thinking.)
My geneology is the following: Welsh, English, a drop of Mohawk and a drop of African, Jewish (but a very long way back), Chippewa, Pennsylvania Dutch and maybe German (it depends on who Grandma's dad was, sometimes it's questionable). But that's blood.
Culturally, which I believe carries more weight, my geneology is: Mormon pioneer, Western American, Chippewa, German Catholic, Midwestern America and Sioux (Lakota).
My father's family came across the plains to Utah and eventually ended up in Idaho. The town I grew up in was very much like the old west in a lot of ways (though I think it's less so now). But as far as I know, the cattlemen and sheep ranchers still carry a grudge for one another. My mother is Chippewa, Crow Wing Band of the White Plains Reservation. She has a laminated ID with her picture and gets a statement from the tribe every month notifying her she is receiving no money for being a tribal member. (It's a very poor tribe and reservation.) I don't get a statement -- I wasn't born on the reservation. Her mother, who was also Chippewa, was reared by Catholic nuns at a convent and at Haskall (a Native American boarding school). My mother's mother's family also spent a lot of time at Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. I grew up surrounded by both Sioux and Chippewa beliefs, and a great deal of Sioux cultural pieces (a God's Eye, pots, blankets, a Medicine Kit). My mother's father was from Iowa, and his family was once Pennsylvania Dutch.
The stories that come out of me come from these foundations. Last year I wrote a story about a Sioux girl. I wrote about her again last week. I am not Sioux. But there is still an intensely strong tie there I can't break.
My Great Uncle Clive was about as white as they come. He ran the store out at Wounded Knee. But in his heart he was Sioux. He practiced the religion and the life. The Indians called him "Black Coffee". His wife was Chippewa. He would go from Saturday all night religious practices where he would smoke and ingest whatever substances were part of the ceremony, and then maybe he'd make it to Mass the next morning, just like the other men on the rez. He sold Black Elk Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and told my father some things about Black Elk and his place in literary history that I probably shouldn't repeat here. Maybe another time.
I grew up reading books about the Sioux. In a weird way, they have had more of a cultural influence than the Chippewa have had on me. But that doesn't mean I don't have Chippewa beliefs deep within me.
I spent one year getting a minor in American Indian Studies, particularly focusing on health issues and beliefs. It was a surreal experience. I have a lot of, um, magical thinking practices that are almost innate that when I rationally think about them don't necessarily hold up with modern science. Where did they come from? After the minor I knew -- the came from the syncretization of my grandmother's and mother's Catholic and Chippewa heritage.
I could write so much here. I could write about going out to Wounded Knee and seeing the Black Hills. I could write more about my family or the way I've been influenced. So many things.
But instead I wonder this...
When my stories come from me, wanting to be written, and they're full of the Lakota and Chippewa influences, what do I do? Technically, I'm not either, particularly Sioux. Am I ripping off another's culture by writing about Ta Tanka and the White Buffalo Woman? Should I stop and start writing about King Arthur instead? Or I'm from the West, so maybe Brigham Young and Diamondfield Jack. (Which wouldn't make a bad story, btw.)
But as an anthropologist, I believe a person's bloodline is a very small part of who they are. When Rice and I got our marriage license I refused to list a race. Race is an artificial construct in terms of biology. (This is a long argument, so maybe another time.Absolutely there's human variation, but there's more variation within one "racial" group than without. ) When my features are analyzed, I'm 100% Negroid. When I meet people, I'm often asked if I'm a "tribal member". According to blood quantum, I'm almost Native American, according to the One Drop Rule I'm African American. Culturally? I'm white middle-class Magic Valley Idahoan, with some central Idahoan thrown in. What did they want me to list?
So I write my stories and hope I'm not offending someone somewhere. And wonder that if I write someone's else's story in a way that appeals to me, in a way only I can, is that ethical?
My geneology is the following: Welsh, English, a drop of Mohawk and a drop of African, Jewish (but a very long way back), Chippewa, Pennsylvania Dutch and maybe German (it depends on who Grandma's dad was, sometimes it's questionable). But that's blood.
Culturally, which I believe carries more weight, my geneology is: Mormon pioneer, Western American, Chippewa, German Catholic, Midwestern America and Sioux (Lakota).
My father's family came across the plains to Utah and eventually ended up in Idaho. The town I grew up in was very much like the old west in a lot of ways (though I think it's less so now). But as far as I know, the cattlemen and sheep ranchers still carry a grudge for one another. My mother is Chippewa, Crow Wing Band of the White Plains Reservation. She has a laminated ID with her picture and gets a statement from the tribe every month notifying her she is receiving no money for being a tribal member. (It's a very poor tribe and reservation.) I don't get a statement -- I wasn't born on the reservation. Her mother, who was also Chippewa, was reared by Catholic nuns at a convent and at Haskall (a Native American boarding school). My mother's mother's family also spent a lot of time at Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. I grew up surrounded by both Sioux and Chippewa beliefs, and a great deal of Sioux cultural pieces (a God's Eye, pots, blankets, a Medicine Kit). My mother's father was from Iowa, and his family was once Pennsylvania Dutch.
The stories that come out of me come from these foundations. Last year I wrote a story about a Sioux girl. I wrote about her again last week. I am not Sioux. But there is still an intensely strong tie there I can't break.
My Great Uncle Clive was about as white as they come. He ran the store out at Wounded Knee. But in his heart he was Sioux. He practiced the religion and the life. The Indians called him "Black Coffee". His wife was Chippewa. He would go from Saturday all night religious practices where he would smoke and ingest whatever substances were part of the ceremony, and then maybe he'd make it to Mass the next morning, just like the other men on the rez. He sold Black Elk Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and told my father some things about Black Elk and his place in literary history that I probably shouldn't repeat here. Maybe another time.
I grew up reading books about the Sioux. In a weird way, they have had more of a cultural influence than the Chippewa have had on me. But that doesn't mean I don't have Chippewa beliefs deep within me.
I spent one year getting a minor in American Indian Studies, particularly focusing on health issues and beliefs. It was a surreal experience. I have a lot of, um, magical thinking practices that are almost innate that when I rationally think about them don't necessarily hold up with modern science. Where did they come from? After the minor I knew -- the came from the syncretization of my grandmother's and mother's Catholic and Chippewa heritage.
I could write so much here. I could write about going out to Wounded Knee and seeing the Black Hills. I could write more about my family or the way I've been influenced. So many things.
But instead I wonder this...
When my stories come from me, wanting to be written, and they're full of the Lakota and Chippewa influences, what do I do? Technically, I'm not either, particularly Sioux. Am I ripping off another's culture by writing about Ta Tanka and the White Buffalo Woman? Should I stop and start writing about King Arthur instead? Or I'm from the West, so maybe Brigham Young and Diamondfield Jack. (Which wouldn't make a bad story, btw.)
But as an anthropologist, I believe a person's bloodline is a very small part of who they are. When Rice and I got our marriage license I refused to list a race. Race is an artificial construct in terms of biology. (This is a long argument, so maybe another time.Absolutely there's human variation, but there's more variation within one "racial" group than without. ) When my features are analyzed, I'm 100% Negroid. When I meet people, I'm often asked if I'm a "tribal member". According to blood quantum, I'm almost Native American, according to the One Drop Rule I'm African American. Culturally? I'm white middle-class Magic Valley Idahoan, with some central Idahoan thrown in. What did they want me to list?
So I write my stories and hope I'm not offending someone somewhere. And wonder that if I write someone's else's story in a way that appeals to me, in a way only I can, is that ethical?
no subject
I have to say, first, that if you worry about offending people with your work you'll squash it down too much.
Second, and what is often lost because of the dominant culture's obession with race, culture is _culture._ It is not tied to race -- especially when it comes to American Indian cultures. Adoption and cross-tribal marriage was and is common, as is the embracing of folks outside of the tribe for cultural involvement. I think its' best to think about cultural designations as socio-linguistic designations rather than bloodlines. So, from what you say, even the purest purest snob would be hard pressed to claim you did not come by your Sioux interests honestly.
That said, especially with fiction, I believe that if you write convincingly enough, and with enough background and understanding, all bets are off. Fiction is where your characters should be able to be whomever you want them to be, and your themes and images should be whatever you want them to be. Look at Jenn Reese's Chinese Zodiac stories (most printed, I think, at Strange Horizons). They're wonderful, and ring true. And she's a white Heinz-57 (albiet with an obviously intelligent grounding in Eastern cultures and storytelling).
It is my belief that if you have a shallow and intellectually lazy connection to whatever culture you write about, it will suck, though. Even if you were 100% pureblooded Sioux, and could prove it. :-)
Unfortunately, for my own Gaelic culture in particular, there are many many shallow and intellectually lazy folks who write about our myths, customs, and culture and it really, REALLY annoys me.
no subject
But I'm very glad you did. You're speaking my language, what with your discussion of culture and race and bloodlines and sociolinguistics. It feels like home.
You make some excellent points. First of all, you're right -- it's important to write honestly and not worry about who might be offended or hurt or think what an awful person the writer must be for writing the things that are in their story.
Secondly, you're absolutely right about the tendency for tribes to intermix --biologically, culturally, and linguistically. This has been especially true with the whole pan-Indian movement. An example -- my grandmother was Chippewa, or Ojibwe, as previously mentioned. But during her teenage years she took the role of the White Buffalo Maiden for a ceremony.
Finally, if one is going to write stories about Indians, or the Irish, or T'Kung (sorry, not sure how to write the click here), or white-bread boy on the street one needs to do so with integrity. There are a lot of people out there who vomit up whatever comes to them, maybe run a spell-check, and then throws it out to the world and calls it done. That's how you write a blog (okay, at least that's how I write my journals, and I don't always get around to editing or spell-checking them -- yesterday's entry that we're commenting on for example), but not anything that really matters. Have a work-ethic, for crying out loud.
I, too, have enjoyed Jenn Reese's stories at Strange Horizons. I've been reading them all year, but I hadn't thought of them in this context. She does do an excellent job of telling the stories. Thank you for pointing that out. It brings me some comfort.
I think one of the biggest things I'm left with is the memory of how a lot of the tribal members from Fort Hall (Shoshone and Bannock) used to talk about the anthropologists and archaeologists and artists who came in and stole their culture for profit (monetary and professionally), who dig up their dead and affect the souls of their loved ones. I've always tried to be sensitive of such things, and my time as an anthrogeek really drilled it into me. Navigating this territory as a writer is a different thing, though.
Again, thank you for the points you've brought up. They're excellent, and very helpful.
no subject
Now, now -- you're on my friendslist and I would have read it anyway. :-)
It's the last point you bring up that makes this issue so important and touchy (although a lot of white folks just don't get it). But fiction is, as you point out, different territory.
Besides, you can never please some people. For instance, when I was in grad school teaching fiction writing, I taught from some of the work of David Treuer, a local Ojibwe writer. His mother is Ojibwe, and his father is a Jewish immigrant from Austria. He speaks Ojibwe, his mother is a tribal elder, Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake reservation. He wrote about his own experience: Indians on the rez. When we read his stuff, my class (which contained a lot of American Indians) mostly loved it. Then, when he came to lecture, they saw him:
<img src="http://english.cla.umn.edu/creativewriting/photos/treuer.png"/>
He wound up looking just like his dad. A fluke of genetics. And the stinging, angry questions started to fly from my Native students. One woman wondered why he couldn't write about being Jewish. David isn't Jewish, but that didn't matter to her. He looked Jewish; so he should write about a culture and life he never knew. He had no right to write about his own experience, according to many of my students. It made me want to puke.
So I think the thing I'm trying to say is if you worry about doing the right thing someone will always think you did the wrong thing, and if that person happens to be an idiot you probably shouldn't get all worked up about it.
no subject
I suppose it comes down to what people always say: "You can't please everyone."
But I can please myself. If I feel I've done the ethical, moral thing then that's all I can ask of myself.
I'm so glad you're on my friends list and have been speaking up. You have some great comments and insight which I really appreciate.