A few weeks ago, as I walked through security at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, a T.S.A. agent grabbed onto my braids and snapped them like reins. “Giddy up!” she said.
I’m a Native American woman, and my hair is part of my spirit. The woman treated me like a horse.
This lack of respect is unfortunately common. Varying degrees of disrespect — from slurs to theft of land — are part of daily life for indigenous people in the United States. As an Ojibwe, I grew up knowing that most Americans have little to no idea who we are.
On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl. Chiefs fans will don headdresses and mark themselves with red paint to perform the “tomahawk chop,” a wordless chant complete with a swinging motion of the forearm, caricaturing what they believe is Native American culture.
The 49ers aren’t much better. They are named after the Gold Rushers, who played a major role in forcing out indigenous Californians from their lands in the 19th century.
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