DAY OF OUR DEAD In many ways the appropriation of our culture has taken place by other people such as Europeans with their “6% Indian card” the Chinese mass reproduction of our artisan works of art and labor and Mayan astronomy passed off as astrology. But a lot has taken place from with in. The false shamans and elders that mislead our people with in our own communities. For some reason because we distantly identify with our indigenous ancestors and our accomplishments, even though we are them, we want the right to interpret it how we (FEEL) not how we collectively think or understand our beautiful past and our contributions to the world. Just because we say comunidad instead of community when we speak and throw in Spanish words when we refer to our people does not make us a better activist, or any more knowledgeable, nor does taking Chicano studies in college or even becoming a Chicano studies professor. Because we finish school and get a paper that says we did, does not make us any more critical when it comes to respecting and honoring our own culture. Just because we go to law school or med school does not make us a good lawyers or doctors, it simply means we passed tests, quizzes and exams laid down by the European colonizer and we met their standards and will fulfill the status quo they require to keep us in the dark and maintain control and power over us. We have appropriated a culture which we are tied to but don’t understand and have taken portions of it that make us feel good about ourselves, or in may cases that make us money. Take the day of the dead clown show that it has become. Our people buying Chinese made products in down town from Koreans to re-sell back to our own people and are passed off as art or ritualistic items. A runway show with “living altars” perpetuating the Eurocentric style of beauty and self worth, a runway which originated in Europe it the 1800’s and later brought to the US in the 1900’s is a mockery of a once great and meaningful ceremony to honor the great participants that helped create our vast and limitless culture. Prior to the European invasion it was celebrated around August and September when most plants begin to die (beginning of fall) it had less to do with dead people, rather the ending cycle of life for the year. But because of the Eurocentric influence of selfishness it has become about individuals. The day of the dead as we know it, has in many ways been used by the colonizer as a means to convert our minds bodies and ideologies for the interest of the Eurocentric ideals, goals and religion. The fact that it lands on all saints day of the Christian catholic imposed religions is no accident, just as the “Virgin of Guadalupe” is. It is and has always been a tool used by the Europeans to forcefully convert us to their world view and strip us of ours. Now we are selling what little remains of our indigenous traditions to the highest bidder, we have taken this and sold it to the Eurocentric machine and made it ok for Mc Donald’s, Disney, General Mills and Government agencies, to do as they wish with our culture, these are the same agencies and corporations that prohibit the education of our history in their institutions and that we willingly send our children to on a daily basis. They learned by example they learned from our own people. They saw we were making a profit from it, so be it that they are (capitalists) they wanted a piece of the pie. We let it happen we gave it to them. What do we have to show for it? How does the rest of the world view us, that we are willing to sell ourselves to the very people who destroyed us, who enslaved us who continue to oppress us? Is this the example we are leaving our children? Is this what we have done with the blood and sacrifices of our ancestors? In us is the will to succeed. In us is the will to do the things that bring us honor not profit, dignity not despair and self respect and not sell out. Lets truly honor the dead by acknowledging and maintaining our rituals and ceremonies, as the creators of them would expect. We will be dead, we will become ancestors, and lets not make this our legacy. Lets not help in the distortion and destruction of that which makes us who we are, great creators, care takers, artisans, educators, poets, warriors and historians. We only have each other. Only we can determine our future, only we can lay an honorable foundation for our children before we are dead and become the ancestors ourselves. What kind of celebration will they have for us? Will they even celebrate us? Or will we be a shameful chapter in our history? Lets practice RESPECT, respect, for the past, the present, and the future.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 14:28:39 +0000
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