HS 3100 Diversity
Reflection #4
Race
January 28, 2010
I chose to reflect on Peggy McIntosh‘s article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, to
discuss my racial knapsack. I will carry her knowledge to the sweat lodge ceremony; a place where two
worlds come together: the physical and the spiritual world.
The sweat lodge is designed to open up the sacred space between the two worlds so that the participants
may have access to the knowledge of their ancestors. Ancestors include not only the human ancestors, but
also, the Spirit of Mother Earth, Grandmother Moon, and others. Many choose to use their westernoriented religion to guide them in this journey. This is acceptable. My experience in sweat lodge has been
in wilderness settings with all Indigenous leaders with anyone, including full-blood Whites, participating.
Those ancestors who choose to participate can give us valuable insight and creative solutions to life’s
conditions.
I was taught that my Native American participation was normal according to Indigenous standards of action
and thought. I was taught that being ½ white was powerful medicine. It is my hope that I can
communicate this discussion with passion and power. I need to remind myself that I do not represent all
mixed-blood Whites or Native Americans. I speak what is true for me.
I choose to be aware that “White Privilege” means unearned advantage and conferred dominance. Unlike
McIntosh, I know what to do with her knowledge; not only do I want to reconstruct power systems, but also
to assist all humans back to their roots, face their mistaken self-image that they are powerful and dominant
individuals and explore positive solutions through sweat lodge. Sweat lodge is a place to work on selfappraisal.
McIntosh states we need to do more work on how conditions affect our daily lives. She discusses the
meritocracy myth: democratic choice of equality for all. She says that withholding the truth from the
majority of whites maintains the status quo for the privileged few. She states the first two truths that are
withheld from the majority of whites as:
1.
2.
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time
I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have
learned to mistrust my kind or me
(p.2)
The first 10 years of my life were spent protected by Native traditions and beliefs. We spoke Malemuit,
gathered regularly and are considered the nomads of Alaska. Malemuits are a mix of Western and
Northern Eskimos, Athabascan and White Russian descent. We accept the mixtures of blood as trades
people of the North. White Russian means that my ancestors were remnants of the aristocracy of Old
Russia who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution. Then, we believed we could arrange to be together in the
company of people of our race most of the time. I learned to translate it differently.
I moved to a white foster home, the next segment of my life included being systematically indoctrinated
into the White culture. It was so successful that I believed I was a full-blood White. That meant that the
first condition was valid for me. I could be with any of my White people anytime. It was not until I
watched a film called Soldier Blue, that I realized that I was not White. I cried a long time before I realized
that this first condition did not apply to me. I had been denied the opportunity to be within my race of
Malemuit at any time. I grieved for many years. A chasm existed between me and my ancestors. I forgot
how to make ceremony. I did not know how to make peace with myself for being denied and denying
myself the first condition.
Peace came quickly when I participated in my first sweat lodge, though. I comprehended that I was not
fully White and therefore, not welcome to be in the company of many White people; my foster family and
their race. I learned what it meant to be rudely awakened to the truth. It nearly killed me. I stopped eating
and socializing because I did not know who I belonged to. I remained puzzled for a long time.
I considered this time the darkest in my life. Then a Native American Spiritual Leader introduced me to
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HS 3100 Diversity
Reflection #4
Race
January 28, 2010
the sweat lodge. The sweat lodge enabled me to enter the world of the between: euphorically and
empirically. Further, the symbolic meaning to the first truth unfolded itself in a most tender and quiet
setting. My race was the human race. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race
most of the time. This was a big relief.
The second condition was a little more challenging. Some lodge ceremonies are dedicated to how we can
avoid suspicious people who view us as suspicious. I began this journey in 1983. It is 2010 now. I have
asked myself periodically if I have answered this question. I have not. But I have relaxed enough to not
ponder the condition until I find myself in it. Whites bring it up most when in counsel with me during
sweat lodge. Some feel responsible for their training even though they had no more power than I did when
I lived in a white foster home. Some Native Americans bring it up, too. They feel defeated by a condition
not of their own making. I do not to commiserate with either race because it is too serious not to come to a
situational compromise. I try to understand the condition and work diligently to recognize that it exists.
Finally, I ask for humility and creativity to reduce its affects.
I was exposed to McIntosh’s appraisal of White Privilege during my foster care indoctrinations: I can avoid
spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me
(p. 2). Its affects can negatively influence my and other’s behavior. Through diligent work in the sweat
lodge, we can change our response to it.
In conclusion, to deny that any condition McIntosh describes as strictly a White Privilege may not be far
from the truth. However, to deny the possibility that our response to it remains a mystery, is really far from
the truth. I choose to use the sweat lodge as a gateway to life’s most puzzling conditions. I welcome
Whites into the lodge to explore their response to the myth of meritocracy. There we can be exposed to the
truth even when it is denied to us by the elite power structures. After all, we belong to the same race…the
human race.
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