[Catch]

Originally Posted by Saya

I live in Canada so I can't say what's normal in the states, but many people continue to be oppressed in very real ways. Most people I know hate indigenous people. Not just old people, most people. Even people my age. Economic oppression and refusal to help is often justified because they are lazy parasites who do nothing but drink and sniff gas. Even in law, our Indian Act dictates how First Nations people organize themselves and dictates who can call themselves First Nations. Until very recently, if your mother was white and your father was First Nations, you could get Indian status. If your mother was First Nations and your father was white, you are not. Even on the new changes, Indian status runs further in paternal lines than it does in maternal lines. And there's the wage gaps, here a black man might make as much as a white woman (who makes 79 cents for every dollar a white man makes), a native woman only makes 49 cents for every dollar a white man makes.

And there's the little every day things. I know a Metis girl who is insanely gorgeous and is always dressed up, she doesn't do this all the time because she enjoys it. She knows if she dresses like I do, she can't go to the mall. Security will follow her around. They never follow me. I've also met Metis people who can pass for white (Metis are mix indigenous with French settlers, so some can easily pass while others can't), and so their parents always presented them as white and wouldn't tell them that they were Metis. They remember residental schools and don't want it to happen to them. I found out very recently my own grandmother is Metis, but passes for white and never talks about it, I never knew. She's a stereotypical racist grandmother, to make it sadder.

So, considering all that, I'm okay with just feeling self conscious that I might say something that could be perceived as racist. Its white privilege, that I never have to think about the kinds of oppression other people go through unless I intentionally seek out this information, and the most I have to worry about is feeling awkward.

I think everyone has stereotypical grandparents. Mine is positive she isn't racist. I don't care. After a certain age people have the right to die in peace. They've already dealt with enough without having to readjust to new social norms.