You see I have a love for many many people, all kinds of people. I hurt for those we see on the news, dying and starving. I laugh with those we see laughing, teasing and living a good life. At the same time I feel really bad. I have many friends who are not Native and family who are not Native. They are very good people. Still I see the pain the majority of non-ethnic people do and cause. Is it not my friends fault their people cause and inflict so much damage. I don't need to outline the damage, we see it play out every single day.
It pains me but I have known this realization for a long time. We as Anishinaabe folk have to stay with our own ones. I have a good friend who is Portuguese. He told me sometime ago about how people stick together. We have a mutual friend who is Italian, a very good guy. My Portuguese friend told me that no matter what, we can marry an Italian but we will never be Italian. Meaning our Italian friend will always view us as "other than Italian." This is how the world is. We see people not like us but as Others. Others can be good, special and all of that but we are never going to be them. Same with us as Indians, we have great Others but they will never be us. It is not wrong to be us. It is not wrong for Others to be themselves as well.
A friend of mine, Indian friend, had a White girlfriend. They were good together. It was like they fit like a hand and glove. She called his Mom, her Mom and his siblings her siblings. After many years they had a child together. They broke up. She stopped being his friend, and stopped being sibling and daughter to his family. Never reached out to his family.
My wife had these friends. One she treated like a sister. Even had her as the God-mother to our girl. The friend just stopped being a friend. Not a break up or anything. Just stopped. My wife used to reach out and try to maintain communication. The friend only reached out when she wanted to sell something. Needless to say God-mother is no longer in our lives. Another friend of my Wife's was a younger girl. The younger girl did not have a good relationship with her own mother. My wife took her as a daughter and when she had a child, we took him as our grandson. As time went on the young woman stopped being part of our family. No real reason why. We went visit her when she had another son. The young woman showed us some family photo albums. I noticed of all the photos, none of my wife and our daughter. My wife was absent in her adopted daughter's family photos, but there were many of her birth mother. My wife didn't seem to notice. I noticed. I know sometimes friendships just run their course and it's not bad or wrong. Still I have seen many other situations where Others have stopped being part of the Indigenous family.
I see this quite a bit in the Ceremony community. Others come in and become part of the community and then they stop. The novelty of the Native Ceremony ends and they go back to living in the White world. So for them, they can always just leave the family of Natives. Our people embrace lot of people into our lives. We don't seek them out but they come and seek us out. It is our generous nature to accept and we do it over and over again. Is it wrong? Of course not, it is part of who we are as accepting of folk. I like that about us.
The point is we are who we are. We can have many friends who are Other but they will never be us. Not wrong but it tells us to remember who to stick with. Just remember we are different and we should celebrate and embrace those differences or better yet, love the sameness we have.
There's a stranger And he's standing at your door Might be your best friend, might be your brother You may never know
