[YouTube Video]

Swan Says No Native American Erasure
ClarityIsClear
640k views/Posted 5 years ago

(The camera view is low-quality and narrow, the type of video taken from a phone, shaky and slightly indistinct. The first view is the inside of a meticulously organized locker, but then shifts away from alphabetized text books to face a girl at a neighboring locker, who is rifling through her backpack with a mild expression.

The green-eyed girl, cheeks freckled and round with youth, pulls out a stack of papers held together with a huge binder clip. She lifts her head, wafting the stack triumphantly. "I'm ready," she says to the person holding the camera, carefully not making eye contact with the actual lens.

"You're really doing this," says the girl holding the camera, tone a little dismayed.

The green-eyed girl pulls herself up in affront. "Of course I am! Coach Cowan should be teaching real American history, not the editorialized crap in the book! What better day than right before stupid Columbus Day?" She huffs, a terse pinch between her brows. "Coach wasn't so busy planning for another failed football season, maybe he would have the time to teach us facts instead of white-washed nonsense!"

"Sick burn, dude," says the girl behind the camera.

The green-eyed girl frowns. "Do you, like, not care about this at all, Leah?"

Leah, who is apparently the one filming all of this, is quick to respond. "Of course I care. How can I not care? Look at how small the La Push res is now, compared to like 100 years ago. I care a lot," she says firmly. Her tone then turns sly. "But why do I need to get worked up when you're doing it for me? You never lose your chill, but look at you now."

"I guess this is why you're abandoning all subtly and filming me right now?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The green-eyed girl shifts her gaze right to the camera. "Really?" she asks dryly.

"Oh, bite me," Leah grouses. "You said you'd be my subject, didn't you? This is a great opportunity, Bella!"

Bella, the green-eyed girl with the pretty face, sighs as if resigned. "Just don't get caught, I guess."

Leah snorts. "Yeah, out of the two of us, I don't think I'm the one at risk of suspension."

Bella gives her a dirty look.

"Well, you're the one who's been planning on deliberately pissing off your history teacher, for at least the last two weeks," Leah says at length, maybe a bit defensively. "Nobody is going to care about what I'm doing. Look, you even printed brochures."

Bella rolls her eyes and marches off.

Leah takes a moment to spin the phone around so that the camera is pointing at her, too close, showing her laughing dark eyes, brows raised in expectation. "This is going to be really great or really awful, viewers," she says to the camera. "What's going to go down is basically Bella Swan losing her shit, as politely as you please, and it's going to be glorious. The last time she was this worked up about something, she ended up punching our friend and breaking her own hand. Not that he didn't deserve it - he was bullying my brother - but still! Anyway! Let's hurry and catch up."

Leah turns the camera back around and rushes to catch up to Bella, who by now has navigated through half an outdoor hallway and stands on the threshold of a classroom. Bella steps into the room, stops and narrows her eyes at the white board reading Christopher Columbus, and then practically stomps to one of the first-row desks. Leah and the phone camera follow at a more sedate pace.

The camera catches Bella sorting through various print-outs, before popping up to place a sheet of paper on each desk in the room, and then a larger stack on the desk at the front. She then sits down, ignoring the questions and stares of other students, and seems to wait patiently for the bell to ring.

Bella straightens up marginally when an middle-aged man, dressed in jeans and track jacket, comes into the room. He is presumably Coach Cowan, because he steps right up to the desk at the front, sets down a thermos of coffee, and lifts up the stack of papers - he reads them only for a few seconds before he puts the stack down and spins around to the class with half a scowl already in place.

"What is this?" he asks loudly, gesturing to the papers on his desk, to the paper on all the desks in the room. "What is this all about? Who is responsible? Someone answer me right now -"

Bella stands up, hands clasped in front of her stomach, and the camera follows, the angle down low as if being held near the surface of the desk.

"Those are my papers," Bella says calmly, and some students in the class snicker.

Coach Cowan, round in the middle and grizzled in the face, draws himself up. "You'd better start explaining yourself, Ms. Swan, and it had better be good if you're disrupting my class like this."

Bella Swan speaks promptly. "Christopher Columbus is a liar, a rapist, a murderer, and is responsible for the enslavement and genocide of the Tiano Indians in the Caribbean, not to mention countless other Native peoples who -"

"Bella Swan!" Coach Cowan says sharply.

"Coach Cowan!" Bella Swan returns, albeit more softly. "We shouldn't be celebrating Columbus Day, or even learning about Christopher Columbus as if he was an honorable explorer! He didn't even step foot in Northern America, and what he did is - is - it's just wrong that we have to learn about him as if he's done something good!"

"That isn't for you to decide," Coach Cowan tells her.

"But shouldn't it be?" Bella counters, and the rest of the classroom is silent, students watching and listening with bated breath. "Shouldn't we be learning about what really happened, and not the whitewashed nonsense in these textbooks? This isn't real history!"

"You don't get to say what's history and what's not. Now, sit down, Ms. Swan, so I can start my lesson."

Bella does not sit down. She raises her chin defiantly, and says, "I don't want to learn about Christopher Columbus, and I don't think anyone else should, either-"

"Swan!"

Bella raises her voice to be heard. "We shouldn't support Native erasure by celebrating Columbus Day! Not to mention celebrating this day is only supporting the gross institutionalized racism baked into the US Constitution and the continued atrocities against Native peoples and their land still committed by the government - "

Some classmates chime an agreement, but Coach Cowan doesn't appear to hear them. "That's enough! Sit down or get out of my class, Swan!"

Bella's posture falters for a moment, a flicker of draining courage. She bends down to pick up her backpack and hoists it over her shoulder. She takes herself to the doorway, the camera following her after catching the reddening tone of Coach Cowan's face.

"You can take yourself all the way to the front office to speak with the principal!" Coach Cowan says hotly.

Bella leaves, but not without a chorus of whoops, hoots, and claps following her. The camera captures the chaos of the classroom as Coach Cowan tries to cow the students who have already read the plucky printed brochure Bella Swan left on their desks. A few more students are sent from the classroom too, inspiring a walkout for the entire class in under five minutes.

Leah is the last one to leave the classroom, after capturing a parting shot of Coach Cowan seething at the front of the room, papers clutched in one hand.

Leah steps out of the classroom, closes the door behind her, and spins the camera around her face her. She has a complicated expression on her face, part proud, part serious. "Whether or not they walked out because they agree with Bella, or they just wanted an opportunity to skip class…I don't think that matters," she says thoughtfully. "Part of me thinks it's all pointless, because the school isn't going to change anything or teach anything different. But…it's still nice…."

A small smile creeps up on Leah's face. "You know," she says conspiratorially to the camera. "She's going to be my sister. Our parents are getting married soon. I thought, you know, starting high school here instead of the Res would be weird, but it's not. Bella…she cares about this kind of stuff. It…means a lot to me, you know, because of my own heritage. She's…going to be a great sister, I think."

Leah sniffles, a little teary-eyed, and then adopts a more brisk tone. "Now, I should probably go find my film subject and see how her little rebellion is going. Later! Oh, uh, and don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel!"

The video ends abruptly, but not before final black screen reading Bella Swan was suspended for 1 day for disrupting class, but she was not grounded! Victory is sweet!)

Comments

WillisIsNice
Whoa can't say I'd be so bold

Mnewton
She's so hot

PaulyHatesTheCracker
She did us proud, its all anyone's talking about at the res

View More Comments


A/N: I will never get over the fact the SM really saw the Quileute Tribe and thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun if I made up a tribal legend for them?". There are no wolf-related stories in the Quileute folklore - it's all about the Raven and the whale, and to be frank, any dog-type Native lore anywhere is related to coyotes. So, on the whole, using wolves was dumb for two reasons (wolves are not coyotes, and Quileute use ravens), and that's on top of just straight-up erasing the Native culture for her own devices, which is just grossly offensive. The best rule of thumb if you really, really want to use a Native culture in fiction, is to either pay exact homage to the culture, or pull a Tolkien and just invent your own. Otherwise, it's insulting and disgustingly privileged.

I mean, is vampires vs werewolves (shapeshifters, wtvr) a classic in genre fiction? Of course it is - when done well, like in Underworld, it's even fantastically cult. But erasing Native folklore to use as a vehicle for your own storytelling? Not cool.

Now, whether or not this applies to, say, using Norse or Greek mythology as a basis for a story is something of a grey area. For the most part, I think authors who use other culture folklore and mythology (including myself) honor the spirit and integrity of the original tales - the lore is embellished, rather than erased. Using ancient mythology to craft a story is vastly different than taking a culture and replacing everything about it to suit your needs.

To that end - I have significant issues with Columbus and the American education system. Columbus didn't discover North America, for one, and for two he facilitated the rape, genocide, and enslavement of native people in South and Central America. He was a truly awful man, and to boot he couldn't read a friggin' map, either. We Americans, of course, choose to glorify him only because of a false narrative about how "great" it was that he discovered "new" land, which he then decided to steal from native peoples, much like colonists in every other part of the world - and that makes us Americans trash. The fact that Columbus Day is a national holiday boils my blood every year. Hopefully at some point in the future, history teachers will stop teaching from the book and teach actual history.

Anyway.

Obviously, I have an opinion about this. You don't have to share it or agree with it. It's just there. I hope that I can continue to write mindfully and continue to grow. Thank you to certain readers who engage in the intellectual argument with me! Let's continue growing together!

If you are interested in learning more, please look up NonProfit Quarterly and information about Indigenous People's Day, which should definitely replace Columbus Day on our national calendar. /indigenous-peoples-day-combating-the-erasure-of-native-people/

As always, be brutally honest. I can take it. Stay safe, stay inside, and stay cautious!

~Rae