Stories and a White Man: An Open Letter to My Navaho Students
Some of your Elders encourage you to leave the university and return to the reservation. They tell you that the university is not for you. I respect your Elders because I understand that they wish the best for you, but I cannot agree with them. Come here. Let's share a place together, here on this page, as real as Second Mesa where the wind makes its own stories and all of us must listen to the language of Crow in order to find our way home. Right now let's share a place where we wait trustingly and where storytellers are never victims because they have their stories to protect them. Let our moment together be a home of stories, and let us agree to live in a world where such a place as this one exists.
My Uncle Mace was Native American. I'm not sure what nation he came from, but I understand it was one of those "civilized" tribes because unlike the Apache they did not tell jokes that ended with "White men are stupid." So White men called them "civilized."
Uncle Mace told me stories. He would start with, "Now, everything I tell you is true." Then he would tell me something confusing and crazy and wonderful, something about bears or ants or giants. Some of his favorite stories were about a race of great ones who were men but did things men could not do. Anyway, I believed they were true stories, and I have to admit that I probably still do. There's a place in me where Uncle Mace still lives.
My great grandfather used to take me along when he went to visit sick animals. He was a homemade veterinarian, and the farmers loved him because they never got around to paying him. His specialty was to cure bloated cattle. He would walk up beside the animal and stick a knife into its belly. Anyway, he always drank whisky as we drove along, and he always made up songs. He had a voice filtered through gravel and tar, but the songs were stories, and I believed them like the stories of my Uncle Mace. One song went something like this:
When I was a young man
I had long green pants.
I wore them all day
but they were full of ants.
Sometimes at night I would wonder how he was able to get along with his green-ant pants.
Did the five-generation family known as the Grayson’s chronicled in detail by Claudio Saunt in his non-fiction book, Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American deny their common origins to conform to “America’s racial hierarchy?” Furthermore, use “America’s racial hierarchy as a survival strategy?” I do not agree with Saunt’s argument whole-heartedly. I refute that the Grayson family members used free will and made conscious choices regarding the direction of their family and personal lives. In my opinion, their cultural surroundings significantly shaped their survival strategy and not racial hierarchy. Thus, I will discuss the commonality of siblings Katy Grayson and William Grayson social norms growing up, the sibling’s first childbearing experiences, and the sibling’s political experience with issues such as chattel slavery versus kinship slavery.
It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of income. Aminata’s father taught Aminata to write small words in the dirt when she was small. Throughout the rest of the novel, Aminata carries this love for learning new things to the places that she travels and it inspires her to accept the opportunities given to her to learn how to write, read maps, and perform accounting duties. Early in the novel Aminata meets Chekura and they establish a strong relationship. Eventually they get married but they are separated numerous times after. Aminata continuously remembers and holds onto her times with Chekura amidst all of her troubles. CHILDREN. The only reason why Aminata Diallo does not die during her journey into and out of slavery is because she believes strongly in her parents, husband and children; therefore proving that people survive hardships only when they have relationships in which to believe.
Around the world there are groups of people who refer to themselves, or we refer them, as indigenous people. Indigenous people are “originating in and characteristics of a particular region or country; native.” (Dictionary.com) Sometimes they are referred to as Native Americans. One tribe that has been around for many years is the Chippewa tribe there are approximately 150 tribes or bands. They call themselves the “first man” or the “original” man, also known as Anishinabe, in the Chippewa language. The Chippewa tribe originated in North America, mainly in the United States, however, over time they have ended up in parts of Canada as well as the United States.
In America, essentially everyone is classified in terms of race in a way. We are all familiar with terms such as Caucasian, African-American, Asian, etc. Most Americans think of these terms as biological or natural classifications; meaning that all people of a certain race share similarities on their D.N.A. that are different and sets that particular race apart from all the other races. However, recent genetic studies show that there’s no scientific basis for the socially popular idea that race is a valid taxonomy of human biological difference. This means that humans are not divided into different groups through genetics or nature. Contrary to scientific studies, social beliefs are reflected through racial realism. Racial realists believe that being of a particular race does not only have phenotypical values (i.e. skin color, facial features, etc.), but also broadens its effects to moral, intellectual and spiritual characteristics.
As a European immigrant in the USA, I have encountered many new cultural phenomena in the last 4 _ years that have challenged me to perceive who I am differently. This experience has been even more polarized by the fact that I have lived most of that time in Los Angeles, a melting pot to be reckoned with. Coming to America, I expected these adaptations to my Irish self but the intensity of becoming cognizant of my label of 'whiteness' has mocked the limitations of my anticipations.
White privilege is a term used to refer to societal privileges granted to people identified as white in western countries. These privileges are beyond what is experienced by non-white or people of color living under the same economic, political and social environments. These privileges could be obvious or less obvious that white people may not realize they have. These include cultural affirmations of one 's own worth, presumed greater social status, and the freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely (McIntosh, 1990). The effects of these privileges can also be seen in personal, educational and professional contexts. In both Tim Wise’s, ‘White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son’ and Ta-Nehisi
Many diabetic patients undergo minor surgery in an ambulatory care setting. Basal insulin management must occur as outlined above. However, no evidence exists that perioperative blood glucose control improves outcomes after one-day surgery. Thus, it is not advisable to use a perioperative insulin drip, even if blood glucose values exceed the recommended goal. In the event of an excessively high blood glucose level, deliberation for postponement of elective surgery should be given. The definition of a cutoff point for cancellation should be in consensus with a hospital policy.
Anesthesia has been used throughout medical history; the purpose of anesthesia is to prevent pain during surgery or any other medical procedure. Claudia M. Caruana (2010) mentions that anesthesia works by blocking nerve signals from going to the brain to allow the body to respond to and try to stop the pain (p. 8). Anesthesia has many different uses for many different types of surgeries from using very powerful sedatives for intensive surgeries to using very light sedatives like nitrous oxide to relieve the pain. All of the drugs in the anesthesiologist’s arsenal have different uses for different occasions which can be a benefit and can also be a defect.
One great story my family has told me is my family's history. My maternal grandmother's parents came to the United States from Ukraine by boat around 1906 or 1907. They initially settled in Export, PA, because they had relatives and friends living there. My grandmother was born in 1921 and was the seventh of eight children. A year after she was born, they moved to Warren, OH, where they stayed until my grandmother graduated from high school. The family's religion was Ukrainian Orthodox. My grandmother grew up speaking Ukrainian and English. Ukrainian was spoken in the home, and English was spoken at school. My grandmother started kindergarten at the age five knowing no English. She picked up the English language from her classmates. My grandmother's family did not own a car. Every Easter, they walked about seven miles to go to church. My grandmother grew up during the depression. She was the only girl in her family to own a doll from a store. All of her sister's dolls were homemade.
William, Shakespeare Twelfth Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1079-1139.
"...the effect is a tendency toward lighter complexions, especially among the more active elements in the race. Some might claim that this is a tacit admission of colored people among themselves of their own inferiority judged by the color line. I do not think so. What I have termed an inconsistency is, after all, most natural; it is, in fact, a tendency in accordance with what might be called an economic necessity. So far as racial differences go, the United States puts a greater premium on color, or better, lack of color, than upon anything else in the world."
Richard Wright’s autobiographical sketch, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow was a glimpse into the life of a young black man learning to navigate the harsh and cruel realities of being black in America. Through each successive journey, he acquired essential life skills better equipping him to live in a society of inequality. Even though the Supreme Court, provided for the ideology of “separate but equal” in the 1896 case, Plessy v, Ferguson, there was no evidence of equality only separation (Annenberg, 2014).
Anesthesia is used in almost every single surgery. It is a numbing medicine that numbs the nerves and makes the body go unconscious. You can’t feel anything or move while under the sedative and are often delusional after being taken off of the anesthetic. Believe it or not, about roughly two hundred years ago doctors didn’t use anesthesia during surgery. It was rarely ever practiced. Patients could feel everything and were physically held down while being operated on. 2It wasn’t until 1846 that a dentist first used an anesthetic on a patient going into surgery and the practice spread and became popular (Anesthesia). To this day, advancements are still being made in anesthesiology. 7The more scientists learn about molecules and anesthetic side effects, the better ability to design agents that are more targeted, more effective and safer, with fewer side effects for the patients (Anesthesia). Technological advancements will make it easier to read vital life signs in a person and help better decide the specific dosages a person needs.
When I first viewed the trailer for Dear White People I was more than thrilled. I imagined the film was going to be it was going to be my generations’ version of the Spike Lee Joint School Daze based off of the perverse I viewed, but as I began to watch the movie I realized I was mistaken. Unlike School Daze, a film tailored to a black audience, while the latter is tailored for a broader audience. Dear White People beautifully depicts the different types of black people, how foolish stereotypes are, the struggles college students’ faces in finding themselves, and most importantly, that black empowerment is not the same as black supremacy. While the film has many great attributions it fails show positive relationships that does not involve a
In the “White Man’s Burden”, Rudyard Kipling claims that it is the duty or burden of the white men to civilize the non-whites, to educate them and to religiously lift them (lecture notes, 2/8). Kipling is specifically talking about the colonized non-whites (lecture notes, 2/8). The idea that the newly colonized non-whites were lacking and needing help from a greater society was common among American whites at this time (lecture notes, 2/8). Rudyard uses the whites’ public feelings towards the issue and writes “The White Man’s Burden” in an attempt to move the whites to help the non-whites because he thinks it is a very beneficial movement for the U.S.