Kanyen'kehà:ka; July 19 2020

I’ve missed my last few blog posts! Sundays have become a rather hectic day for me, so in the future, I’m going to try posting every Saturday instead.

There’s something I’ve begun to do, something that makes me equal parts excited and uncomfortable. And here’s my disclaimer:

I am a white person. I have not forgotten that I am white and that I benefit from the privilege of my skin colour. I won’t be forgetting that, either, even as I start to explore my ancestry.

See, my grandmother was Kanyen'kehà:ka. In other words, Mohawk, an Indigenous tribe. Bear clan, if you want to get super specific. From what I know of her (which is, sadly, a lot less than I wish I did), she didn’t raise her children with much connection to those roots, most likely trying to get away from the rampant racism against Aboriginals in Canada. My father and his siblings have Native status, though, and in the past few years have felt extremely connected to Mohawk heritage.

Also in the past few years, I’ve detached very deliberately from the idea of connecting with Mohawk culture. After all, I wasn’t raised Mohawk, and I am a white person. It felt downright disrespectful to try to claim this culture as my own.

It wasn’t until I had a serious conversation with a friend of mine that I rethought this stance. She’s a person of colour and forthright, so I trust her when she tells me I’m forgetting to check my privilege. She said this on the subject, though I’m paraphrasing:

“White guilt shouldn’t be your excuse not to learn.”

I’d been so wary that I distanced myself from knowledge. When she put it that way, I realized how ridiculous that was. Learning about other cultures is never a bad thing, and in fact, it’s the best way to avoid appropriating or taking up spaces you don’t belong in.

Slowly but surely, I’ve started gathering sources to read up on Mohawk culture. I don’t qualify for Native status, myself – it’s passed down through mothers, so while my Aunt’s son qualifies, I do not. This is actually kind of a relief for me, because I think that will help me keep my privilege in mind as I read. If there are aspects of the culture I feel I want to adopt, I’m going to have to look long and hard at why I want to and what the proper, respectful way to go about it is.

Now, there’s stuff I’m iffy about on that topic, too. Picking and choosing from a culture you have a tentative connection to seems... potentially very problematic. But I also believe that someone raised within a culture, no matter what it is, should be allowed to decide what parts of it are important to them. I’m going to keep thinking about that.

All that being said, you might disagree with me, here! You might think I have no business approaching these studies as anything but an outsider, and I think that’s a legitimate stance too. I’m still so new to this school of thought that I don’t have a concrete opinion.

If you’re a person of colour, what’s your stance on white (or white passing) people learning about your culture, especially if they have a familial connection to it?