It is a relief to hear Vincent Schilling complain about being told to take a DNA Test. My response has always been that if it would answer medical questions about my arthritis, I would take one. But I have no claim to a First Nation just because my teeth & bones could only have come from an Ancestor who crossed the Bering Strait. Just as I have no claim to European Citizenship because my blue gray eyes could only have come from a European Ancestor.

But I do deal with the Hate, as I appear even less European than Vincent Schilling does. There is no way to hide being one & a half bus seats wide. I’ve been called names like “mountain man” by Native Americans, and things I won’t say here by Americans of European Ancestry. The question is are people like me just “the Other”?

Being determines consciousness. If you walk the walk; if you talk the talk. If you dance in the pow wows. If you live the life. If you honor the past; acknowledge the present, and look forward to the future. Is the past real, or is it like a dime store indian? To be dusted off and presented as a badge of "honor"? Or, is it a thing that is very much apart of you? i am not Native, nor do I claim to be so. I have stood with my sisters and brothers of the Native communities for a long time. I have gone to the pow wow's and even had Pilgrims in Plymouth run scared at the very sight of Native people. I don't live on the reservation, but neither does she. I am more native than she will ever be, but I don't claim to be one either. That is the difference between me and her. I am neither the other white (dark) meat. We either stand united or we shall fall divided.