Of Clicks and Pixels and Hearts.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

There are days when I am entirely disheartened.

This is one.

I've been doing this a lot of years now. Writing, I mean. Writing about our issues. Writing, in some cases, about matters of actual life and death.

I don't expect that anything I write, however important the issue, will somehow magically trump the Kardashianing of American life, especially on social media.

What I did think I could expect is that those who proclaim themselves my — our — allies could spare a second or two, and a click or two, to spread the word. 

Apparently not.

I have, as most people know, very little discretionary time in which to write. There is some writing that I have to get done every day, without fail, and that is the daily entry (and accompanying viral posts) for Wings's site. It is a labor of love, yes, but it is most definitely labor. It's my job. I really don't think people understand that — that no matter how creative I'm able to be with each post, no matter how artistic the subject matter, this is our livelihood, and this is, essentially, part of my job, every day, rain or shine, no matter what else may be going on in my life that makes it nearly impossible to string two words together coherently.

But what that means is that what very little time I do have to set aside for writing (most of which, incidentally, is interrupted constantly anyway) must be devoted to that set of tasks. And what that means is that anything else I write, however important the issue, must be wedged in minutes at a time, cadged when and where and how I can at a moment's notice. Typically, it means that I have to drill down into an issue and churn it back up and out into readable, comprehensible form in a way that (I hope, apparently in vain) will capture enough interest and speak to enough people to make a difference. And usually, I wind up having an hour or less in which to do it.

An hour or less.

So last night, I finally had forty minutes or so to work on an issue that had been eating at me all day long. Lately, my feeds are filled with stories of appropriation beyond the usual, systemic violence and erasure of Native women's labor, cultures, identities, our very bodies and selves. I know a little something (more than a little something) about this. I live it, and I've had it brought home to me very personally several times over the last four months or so. and so whether the topic is one of true life and death, #MMIW and our indigenous sisterhood of the disappeared, or appropriation of our histories and narratives for self-aggrandizement of white celebrities, or the outright theft of historical designs and personal intellectual property by a high-powered European design house, well, I get a little irritated. And so I write about it.

As I did last night.

That post? When I shared it on Facebook, it got exactly four likes, zero shares, and one comment that had nothing to do with the subject of the post itself.

But let me post a photo of one of our animals, with no significant content, and it'll get 20 shares in an hour. Yes, I love our animals; they're family. No, this is not about the fact that people spend their entire day on Facebook commenting on other people's cat pictures. I understand that, really, even if I don't have the faintest idea where all these people get all this free time such that they're able to be on Facebook liking and sharing and commenting seemingly every minute of every hour of every day.

But really: Among all that liking and sharing and commenting, would it hurt people to put it to use that can make a difference in the lives of people of color (and especially lately, of Native women)?

See, this is the thing that bugs me: People who fall all over themselves to proclaim, as loudly and frequently as possible, their status as allies, hell, even their sisterhood with me and mine . . . when I look at where the rubber meets the road, I don't seem 'em anywhere around.

And it hurts me, literally hurts my heart, when I see these same folks investing so much social-media time and effort being "seen" in the "events" and the celebrity-ish stuff that pretends to be about us but isn't — hell, half the time, they're run by fakes, frauds, appropriators, and thieves — and yet they can't be arsed to spare a click for what I know in my heart is really good, really resonant work about issues that are genuinely important to our lives, our very existences. 

I've been forcibly rendered invisible most of my life, and in recent months, that erasure has been taken to new levels by people who were supposedly allies. It hurts to see people who call themselves my friends and family doing the same.

Yes, I'll keep writing about the issues that matter. Because even if white "allies" will never get this lesson, I know, as Native women have always known: It's not about me. It's not about any one person, and it sure as hell isn't about self-aggrandizement, celebrity status, or personal gain. It's about the issues, and about the people, the women, the children, all the others who need what little I can do. Spirit knows it's little enough. 

I am tired. I am disheartened, dispirited, dejected. I feel unseen, unheard, erased from existence in favor of false celebrity-style fronting that steals from us to flog an inauthentic "authenticity" that appeals to the childish mythology of dominant-culture stereotypes. And this isn't even the hard work; this is clicks and pixels. Yet today alone, I've been hit full in the face with nearly a half-dozen new instances of appropriation and erasure, acts that render us yet a little bit more invisible each time.

Meme returned this morning. He called and called and called, and finally, I took the camera and went outside and captured his image. When I was done, he departed again. 

Maybe that was his message for me: You speak, and speak, and speak again. Eventually, someone listens, someone hears. And even if you never see it happen, you do it, because someone has to do it. It's a calling, and you have to answer.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.