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My unhelpful pat answer is that religions that aren't big on persecution tend to be killed off by those who are. Or outlawwed, abused, robbed blind and laughed at.
I sometimes wonder why my family, which is very mixed, when you get down to it, tends to focus on the Native angle, as it were. In particular (since we've got a few tribes intermixed) the Tsalagi angle. And I always come to the conclusion that it's because there was just emphasis being put on personal responsibility, much more than any birth-trait. This does not work as some pan-Indian thing, and certainly other tribes and traditions aboriginal to the Western Hemisphere, do not necessarily hold the same views, nor to many modern Cherokee, of any random clan or faction.
But I've almost never heard my grandpa say (or stand by while someone else says) horrible things about someone because of the color of their skin, their sex/gender, their sexuality, or any habit or belief they hold that doesn't infringe immediately on others. And he always downplays it as if everyone tries to be that civil about things.
And, of course, Native Americans didn't have what amounted to the freedom of religion accorded virtually everyone else in the United States, until the whole AIM fiasco of the seventies. Literally. We're still under, in many ways, the Fish and Game Admin. Which, is better than the Dept. of War, but still... Argh!
We are continually referred to, and sometimes refer to ourselves, as matriarchal. But, we aren't, and we weren't. No more than we're patriarchal. Because one of the basic things is that, there are roles people take on, actions people commit - by choice, because someone can always put a gun to your head, but you can always take a bullet even if you do it crying and dirtying your underpants - and many are arranged by gender/sex, but they aren't necessitated or limited to those elements.
The whole thing of, especially plains tribes referring to women as being 'on their sicktime' is something we joke about as being evidence of some unhealthy paranoia. But it's an unhealthy paranoia held by cultures all over the world.
Again, if you accept, culturally, that women are there and are capable of whatever, or extending past that 'whatever' then you are labelled matriarchal. And probably shut down.
So, when people ask me - and I get a little ashamed/paranoid - about 'why didn't you have more Christmas in your life?' or whatever holiday or get-together... The coolest cats in the New Testament, tend to be the women Jesus chats up at the well, or Mary and her donkey, and not Paul - I'm so meek I'll call myself 'Humble'- with his absurd regulations and concerns, or whoever basically decides yet another Mary is just taking up time and once she announces Jesus is Back! and is routinely ignored, is simply shuffled out of the narrative. That's why we didn't have more Christmas, because the whole thing kinda sucks on so many levels, and the good stuff... is easy to adopt, adapt, and otherwise take interest in without the creepy womenz-have-oozy-cooties-and-brought-damnation paranoia.
And we all, man, woman, nonsexed, third-sexed, intersexed, straight or gay or sleeping with the bears, get to say "That's wrong," or "Right on," or any other judgment call. Doesn't make it a law, but we were never particularly good with laws, anyway. Hopping up and delivering a list of your badass achievements isn't going to help, showing your creatively applied scars or throwing out all the bad shit you've been through in life isn't going to convince anyone you're anything but human. And human is a helluva thing to be.
I mean, all us homoplasmates gotta stick together, yeah? Or, at least, be where and what we think the best position to be is, and hope everybody else makes it, too.
That's something else I picked up from my grandpa: 'acceptable losses' is bullshit. Everybody's coming along, even if you have to make your distance and wait for the stragglers or procrastinators. Because we all get there.
Ever notice that the really sexist, racist, or otherwise xenophic and self-paranoid religions are all based on the idea that only a chosen few are gonna get to the good end? Sets up a false competition, y'know? And a harsh trap, for that matter. Man, that's gotta suck.
We get somebody looking over our palms, soles, history and style, and then a cup of tea and a place to relax. (It goes on, from there, but it's nice break, y'know?) Any Hell looks so so so silly next to that. Heaven(s), too. |
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