Cultural Theft in DMC

See this photo.  This is a picture of our GRADS group ringing in Celebrate Dakota and American Indian Week, 2014, with the Mayor at City Hall.  My brother is in this photo.  He is holding a hand drum.  He sang a nice song for our upcoming weeks' events at City Hall, Rochester, MN.  My brother learned to sing from his father, McKinley Kingbird and Mack, as he was called, learned from his father, and so on.  These are our ways and this is how they are taught. Passed down from one generation to another, and DNA is involved.

Caution: Rant ahead. 


I live in Rochester, MN (DMC), perhaps one of the most historically racist towns, particularly toward American Indians, but it is slowly changing. Yet, I have to wonder. 

The other day someone asked me about the Native American Center of SE MN. I am tired of people asking me about this non-native organization. Because of my work with GRADS and networking with Indian Reservations, and promoting education of Dakota and Ho-Chunk culture within the Rochester Public Schools, it is just assumed that all Indian organizations must know each other or work together. Or worse yet, you are so small in number, why don't you all just get along? Ay, and do all of you white people get along?  Do you have just one organization?

For the record: I am not associated with NAC of SE MN at all! 

FYI, just because someone sings (badly), dances, uses a pipe, holds sweats with men and women, goes to the Federal Medical Center dressed as an "Indian" to pray with the inmates (Is this even legal?), holds an art expo (flea market), and wears borrowed regalia doesn't mean they are native. Hello! 

Please look at the Post Bulletin from July 3, 2013. In this article, the chair person of this tiny local group admitted he is white, but he has adopted the Osage culture. Whatever! It is Cultural Theft at best and you can't "gift" our birthright! Yet Friends Of Indian Heights, The City of Rochester Park Board and Park Department, the Federal Medical Center, Department, Mayo Clinic Chaplaincy services, Tom Hozier's Roundtable, Rochester Public Schools, Plainview Public Schools, and others, recognize NAC of SE MN, particularly its chair as being "Indian" and extends them privileges as such. 

I have to interject my favorite story about this right here.  During a steering committee meeting about Indian Heights Park,wherein Jim Wilson (white man) said that if any Indian had something to say about Indian Heights Park, they better talk to him and I responded with something like, "take a hike", Nora Dooley, chair of the human rights commission actually thought this self proclaimed chair of the NAC was "over all the Indians of SE MN" and felt I should pay him some type of homage.  LOL!  I am not making this up!  Who could, right?

Moving on, today someone called me with concerns about NAC (Non-native American Center) holding an event at Indian Heights Park (IHP), and the Mayor would be there, yadda, yadda. yadda. IHP is a sacred Dakota site. It was preserved as such, yet this non-native group will be sponsoring a native event at our sacred site. Wow! 

Indian Heights Park is a public park and it can be used by anyone, although it was preserved by the Park Board of Rochester as a sacred DAKOTA site.  

Yet I wonder if someone who was playing "Black" or "Mexican"  or "Jewish" and announced to the community that they were playing "Black" or "Mexican" or "Jewish" and invited the Mayor to the event, could actually hold the event at a sacred Dakota site?   

Yes, I have to wonder...