Editor’s note: Switching gears but staying on track is what we do here @ DP.com all day every day. The following drop comes from a fellow reader, a friend and a baseball roto-league afficionado. When GYASI ROSS isn’t kicking my A in fantasy league baseball he’s busy trying to rebuild a nation. Take a moment to read his thoughts on the state of Native Americans…
We’ll all gladly admit that Native people have come a long way in a very short period of time. At the beginning of the 20th century things were an absolute disaster. The Skin population within the United States was only about a quarter of a million people, our families were messes largely because of forced adoptions and boarding schools, and our lands were being auctioned and pawned off en masse via allotment. Bad stuff.
Yet, in the span of barely 100 years, a few tribes went from dirt poor to obscenely rich, and many more transitioned from dirt poorer to stable. Tribes have also largely addressed the most basic issues – food, shelter, clothing – and are now able to focus on loftier goals – politics and education, for example. Still, all that glitters is not gold.
This is Part 5 of “The Thing About Skins,” but oddly enough, it is the introduction to the series. Supposedly this series contains a few thoughts on what has occurred as a result of Skins’ recent success in the world. While this may not be, as Paul Harvey so profoundly posited, “the rest of the story,” it is, at least, more of the story. Questions and observances if you will. I am not a scholar, a politician or a preacher – I don’t know all the answers. But I am a curious person, as I think most of us are. So I’ll ask some questions about assumptions that I (and hopefully a few other people) hold.
We’ll start with the assumption that Skins’ prolific mating habits are a good thing. I mean, it has to be a good thing that there are a lot more Skins in the United States than there were 100 years ago, right?
Well, let’s see.
According to the 2000 census there are more than 4.1 million self-identified Skins, “alone or in combination” with another race. That’s probably a bit high. Now, we can probably split that number in half for the “grandmother was” stories (many of these say that they’re Cherokee or Blackfoot. Why us?). After that, we can probably subtract another 100,000 or so “East Indians” who mistakenly identified as “American Indians/Alaska Natives.” Finally, we have to add a few people. There are some folks who always thought that they were white – they were adopted into white families and their parents never told them that there really was, in fact, a reason they felt so satisfied when they ate fruit cocktail or meatball stew.
So we’re probably really dealing with about two, maybe two-and-a-half million Skins.
Despite the inflated numbers, there’s still a lot more of us than any time before the Civil War. And the number’s ever-growing – and when I say “ever,” boy do I mean “ever!” Now, much like Whitney Houston and my beautiful mom, I believe that children are our future.
Yet, Skins are a dynamic people – not at all relegated to the past’s strictures or conventions. One consequence of being a dynamic people and loving procreation, however, is that Skins have mimicked and perfected the United States’ love affair with single-parent families (just as a shorthand, 63 percent of Native children are born to unmarried mothers, compared to 25 percent for white women. Only black women, ethnically, have a higher percentage of unmarried mothers, according to the Child Trends Data Bank, “Percentage of Births to Unmarried Mothers.”). Consequently, many of these beautiful Native children, who are of course the future, are raised in homes that simply cannot provide an ideal amount of support for them.
Now, I’m not saying that Skins historically were the most monogamous people – some tribes were, and some tribes were not. That’s not the point. Also, obviously Euro and Christian values play a large part in what we consider “conventional.” My suspicion, however, is that there was a time, married, monogamous, or not, where the success, well-being and love of the child was worked-toward and invested-in. It didn’t matter if the parents were married, monogamous, or not. And my suspicion goes further, based upon conversations with folks who know a lot more history than I do, that there were actual consequences for deadbeat daddy-ism (or deadbeat mommy-ism, but I imagine that this was a rarer phenomenon).
To wit, I – like most of my close male friends – grew up with a single mother. Our wonderful mothers, almost unilaterally, absolutely loved us. We were their little princes and they essentially raised us to be their husbands – to make up for the absence of a man in the home. My uncles provided the discipline (belts, willows and all that). In theory, this sounds beautiful – you’ve heard it before, “I grew up close with my family because of abandonment, poverty and dysfunction.” Sounds sweet, right?
Still, the practical truth was that it sucked not having a dad around for many reasons, and I have to think that it’s not ideal for other kids as well. Now I’m not saying everybody should run out and get married (God forbid – I’m certainly not!). But it does seem like the idea of making Skin kids just for the sake of making more Skin kids may be just setting them up for a difficult life.
A fair question, then, would seem to be, “Is the Skin population boom really an altogether good thing?” It sounds cool to say, “Yes, the more Skin kids, the better” – but is that really the case?
I’m just not sure that we have the same investment in our children that we once did – especially we Skin men. Yeah, we’re bridging some population gaps and we can certainly be thankful for our peoples’ resurgence – it shows that we’re physically healthy. Yet, I’m not positive that the way to true equality and access to opportunity for Skins is by bombarding the world with gobs of kids, without true supervision, mentorship and parenting.
What do you Skins think?
GYASI ROSS is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and his family also comes from the Suquamish Tribe. He is a lawyer, a warrior, a teacher, an entrepreneur and an author. He is co-founder of Native Speaks LLC, a progressive company owned by young Native professionals which provides consultation and instruction for professionals and companies, as well as young adults. Gyasi is currently booking dates for his presentation, “The Best: An Indian Theory of Existence.” E-mail him at gyasi.ross@gmail.com.
