Sunday, August 7, 2011
Can you honestly say that had this Native American been BLACK the whole world would have known?
I remember Mr. Williams. He used to sit at this little park near pike place market and carve. There's a group of homeless and non-homeless urban natives who gather there pretty much every day to visit, work on art (like carving) etc...I think its just to connect. You'll meet native people from all over the country there, each of them coming to the city with big hopes and arriving only to find even greater disappointment. I used to bring them snacks and hats and stuff when I was younger and went to the city often, I was good friends with a young guy whose family was always a pay check away from eviction and homelessness. He worked at Tilli Village on blake Island. Its a horrible tourist trap that prostitutes Northwest Native Culture (in fact, not a single native that works there is from the NW, its so offensive, young people in the city that are from the pacific NW opt for unemployment or whatever other job they might get, or homelessness) but these young urban indian kids from other tribes who will work for beans get stuck at this place (literally, the owner keeps them over night sometimes without pay) . But it puts food on their tables...the owner won't usually take adults. They aren't as easily manipulated... This friend of mine introduced me to this whole other subculture of Urban Indians, i'd experienced off-rez indian life and Rez indian life, but in the city its a whole different survival game, especially when you arrive with nothing in your pocket and no education or work experience to back you up. Not to mention the dysfunctions and cycles of poverty you drag along with you though you had tried to escape them by leaving the Rez. It isn't as easy for indians to just pack up and leave the rez like white people think, there are no moving vans or houses to put up for sale, often there isn't even any possessions to move other than some clothes and a ew sentimental things...Anyways, Mr. Williams and a few other carvers would teach these kids sometimes. Their families would be far off in North Dakota or Idaho etc..so people like Mr. Williams become their stand-in grandpas, only they are called "uncle" most of the time. Indian culture is different than non-native cultures like that, this is one of the things we have in common despite the great diversity in Indian country, the need for family. We'll make a cousin or an aunty or an uncle out of anybody that we love or loves us. Mr. Williams not only had his biological family that mourns his loss, but the family he made in the streets, with other indians who ended up there for the same reasons he did, or indians who weren't homeless, but who appreciated what he as a person had to offer. I know there was a great response from my people when he was murdered (his "carving knife" wasn't even a real carving tool, it was a pocket knife that can be found in most grocery stores for $10 or less, the blade being smaller than 3".
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