FOR THE NEW YEAR, 2015: Holidays and Family are completed now, and we want to comment on those holidays, and on family, the HUMAN FAMILY, via a current issue, seen through the eyes and words of Melissa Bennett, a Native American poet. May this year be one of healing from racism and ethnic stupidity, everywhere in this lovely world.
As sent to Native News Online on January 1 prior to the Florida State Seminoles versus the Oregon Ducks appearance in the 2015 Rose Bowl. Melissa Bennett (Umatilla/Nez Perce/Sac & Fox Nations) is the Portland State University Program Coordinator for the Native American Student & Community Center. She earned her Master of Divinity degree from Marylhurst University along with graduate certificates in Pastoral Care & Counseling and Theological Studies. Melissa is a writer and emerging storyteller and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize after her poem “Church of Frida” appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of Yellow Medicine Review. She is interested in story as medicine, especially its ability to heal historical trauma among indigenous communities. Melissa is a member of the 2014-15 Native American Youth and Family Center LEAD Cohort, the Northwest Indian Storytellers Association, and WordCraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.
“FSU Goes to the Rose Bowl” By Melissa Bennett
Unwrapping my new stainless steel French press when you On the couch three nephews away from me
Unwrap your 1996 flannel shirt and show us all With a big smile on your face that points nowhere near me
Your new Florida State Seminoles t-shirt
And that pasty white face With the two red war paint stripes
With the low hanging feather And the mouth open in a battle cry or mourning wail Is the only thing I see in that room.
The Christmas tree with its white lights and red ornaments has disappeared
The presents left underneath fade away
The smell of holiday ham and Grandma’s pineapple sauce evaporates
The laughter of your boys as they open gift after gift has never existed
Mom and Dad are gone Your wife an illusory mirage at the edge of my vision.
It is you And it is me And it is that shirt
Almost 38 years I have been a daughter in this room 36 of those years I have been your sister In the time it took you to unwrap your flannel And reveal your allegiance To racism and oppression and colonization You made me the Indian sister to the white brother
The adopted one The outside one The alone one The one no one listens to Or cares about And it all comes back
When I was four and overheard Mom defending her choice to adopt an Indian baby
When I was six and our Great Aunt told her friend standing next to me, “You know she has that red blood in her”
When I was twelve and everyone began asking, “What are you?”
When I was sixteen and became a “Half Breed” certain to get one of those “Indian scholarships”
When I was twenty and my abusive boyfriend reminded me I was a “Lazy Indian”
When I was thirty-two and a man in my grad school class said, “I bet you could sneak up barefoot on a white man and slit his throat”
And on Monday when I heard that an Indian man was killed because the police officer mistook his sweetgrass braid for a knife and shot him
And how my friend was the dead man’s cousin
All of it comes back
Every cut
Every mirco-aggression
Every feeling associated with
Every word
Every look
Every act of violence
All of it
The adoptions
The sterilizations
The relocations
The reservations
The suicides
The homicides
The blood quantum
The boarding schools
The 522 years of genocide
All of it hides in that pasty white face on your shirt that is supposed to be me
An Indian
Your sister