I speak

I have spoken

I have spoken across the so-called United States of America

I have shared stories

Ideas

Historical antidotes

Social justice tales

Personal lore

And the like

This one time I was speaking, and a young man interrupted me

Interrupted me with all the authority he could muster, in what I can only imagine was placed, or misplaced, in his whiteness

The caucasity

And he knew he could interrupt me because his parents likely told him he could

But I'd be remiss if I didn't admit I was intrigued

What could possibly be so important as to interrupt me as I told stories that these children have never heard

Stories I was invited here to tell

His query: why do you spend so much time complaining and not putting your energy into actually helping your people

The shock

The offense

The caucasity!

When he asked his question, he nudged his friend next to him

Looking for an agreeable partner

Allegiance

Validation

A mob of two

Which is technically the smallest mob you can have, I think

But his friend physically moved away

Shaking his head as though pleading

\"Please don't drag me into this

Please

Please.\"

The room rumbled, as though providing the soundtrack for the \"friend's\" discomfort

The caucasity!

Perhaps instead of saying the thing that comes from your place of ignorance, you should ask why am I here?

Why have you never heard these stories?

Why has your poor education told you that the whites are the heroes and blacks and browns are the enemy

In the way

Property

Less than

Savage

Godless

And you have the audacity

No, the caucasity, to perceive inconvenient truths to be complaining

In a learning institution?!

Why do you believe that an educated Indigenous man is unable to teach, speak truth, and help his people at the same time?

And why, as a 19- or 20-year-old child, do you think you know better?

Assured of your righteous place in the world?

Why do you ask your questions with that smug look on your face?

That same smug look carried by your ancestors that enslaved, lynched, murdered, maimed, and plundered

The caucasity!

I get it–you're at a disadvantage

Information has been omitted

And you carry things that are systemically in place

Like that my people especially are magical or something

And your love of Native Americans is rooted in the romance of our existence

Something to fantasize about

Unique

Exotic

Not human

In reality, we were people in the way of so-called progression; we were being murdered and enslaved

Your idea of us is a sports mascots

The antagonists in a John Wayne or Kevin Costner film

We are D-list characters

Eliminatable characters

People that are frequently treated as foreigners in our own homelands

That we've gone so far in the colonialist process that we barely exist to you

And we aren't something to be seen, respected

Or something that stands as a cautionary tale of how to avoid dehumanization

And assimilation

And ignorance

And brutality

And imperialism

Or Genocide

Because we are an inconvenient Indian

Something that challenges your own sense of superiority

Something you don't have to think about because you don't have to

Look! Your privilege is showing

And I hope you learn two things here

First, you don't do that

And second, Why do you spend so much time complaining and not putting your energy into actually helping your people . . . be better

By not being this

Not this

Never this

The caucasity!