"We're all the same..."

Dear Well Meaning Friend,

I know you are completely sincere when you try to defuse discussions about race, ethnicity, religion and prejudice by saying, “we are all just the same. Why can't we just get along?”. I do have to point out, however, that we are not the same, at least not when it comes to how our various cultures, religions, and the color of our skin, affects our world view and behavior.

Sure, we all have the same basic wants and needs: food, air, water, shelter, the desire to love and be loved, to be free, to be respected and appreciated. We all bleed the same color blood when cut. For the most part, we all are conceived, born, age and die in the same ways. That's because biologically, we are all the same species. Yet, to reduce our cultural diversity to biological uniformity is a grave error in perception which actually fosters problems rather than offers solutions.

I'll explain what I mean from the perspective of a Native American, specifically from a Mohawk perspective. Please understand, friend, that I am not offering this explanation as a way of putting you down or creating conflict or trying to make myself appear superior to others. (In fact, I will touch on the subject of superiority and inferiority later on.) I'm doing this because, as I noted above, what seems like a good approach to racial, ethnic and religious differences actually isn't.

Let me start with a foundational difference within my traditional, Mohawk culture.  My Mohawk ancestors lived in a culture that was Matriarchal. Clan Mothers had the ultimate authority. Clan membership was passed through the mother. Property rights were held by the women. Our male sechems (chiefs) were chosen by the Clan Mothers, who held the right to veto the sechems' decisions and if necessary, remove an unsatisfactory one from office.

Our very language communicates the idea that women are fully equal to men, and in a certain way "superior", because they bear the gift of creating and nurturing life, whereas men can only manipulate that which is already created. So profound was our view that women possess great spiritual, creative power that it was they who oversaw the cultivating of our crops. We never had a need for “Women's Lib” or Feminism because we never placed women as being beneath men in any way.

This fact alone tells you how different the Mohawk were, and are, from Euro-American culture. Europeans, and then Americans, have always had a Patriarchal society, which treated women as second class citizens for centuries. They were the property of their husbands, viewed as tools for sexual gratification and child bearing. For centuries they were not allowed the same education as men, because it was expected that they would be satisfied being wives and mothers. In the U.S. women were not even allowed to vote until 1920, and then it took a Constitutional Amendment because the foundational document of the United States did not originally allow women the same rights as men!

So, caring friend, your very idea of how women should be treated is going to be fundamentally different from mine and my traditionalist Mohawk relations. This applies to some extent to all First Nations, even those which have a Patriarchal, rather than Matriarchal, tradition.

Many other aspects of Mohawk culture were, and are, different from your own. Our spiritual tradition, as with other First Nations, holds that nearly everything in Creation is to be considered sacred. We view ourselves as spiritual beings dwelling, temporarily, in a physical world that is not truly separated from the spiritual realm. Most of your religions tend to teach that we are physical beings seeking spiritual experiences. We see Creation as existing as one great circle. 

Your culture tends to impose a dualist view, in which there is the World of Flesh and the World of Spirit. It becomes very black and white for you, because the World of Flesh is inherently evil but the World of Spirit is inherently good. We don't see it that way, because we don't view Creation in terms of either/or, black and white. It's a multicolored, holistic Creation in which both sides of everything are needed, they coexist in order to maintain balance.

We have many items we consider sacred: drums, rattles, flutes, pipes, eagle feather fans and other feather items. All of these are treated with great respect and according to certain protocols. Your religions tend to say that this is a form of idolatry, that no “thing” is needed to commune with Creator, only prayer and faith. With that we will agree: our sacred items are used to demonstrate our faithfulness in both their making and in their use.

We don't try to convert others to our religions. We view that as something between each person and Creator. We, as Mohawk, see no threat or are not concerned that the Navajo or Lakota or Tlingit have a different spiritual tradition than our own. The same Creator set before them traditions that are different from ours. Different, but not better.

In your culture, there is constant argument about which religion is the right one. Yes, you have many who feel that “all religions lead to God”. But you have many more who argue constantly that their own religion is the only right one. This even occurs within the same belief, such as the thousands of Christian denominations or the various sects of Islam. This constant conflict of spiritual ways is one reason why we have been so skeptical of missionaries trying to convert us to their “true path”.

The most telling difference in our spiritual views is this: the First Nations views our relationship with Creator in terms of where we dwell, that we live and die in the place we believe Creator placed us. Your religions tend to focus on the historical events in which you believe Creator manifested Himself as a demonstration of His love. To us, our land, and the provision it offers, proves His love for us. For your religion, it is His intervention in events throughout history. Therein lies the major difference in our view of land.

We view land not as something we own, but as something of which we are a part. The land “owns” us. All of us. Equally. As a community. It is not ours to sell, but rather to manage as stewards. This includes offering a place for others to dwell in peace, if they so desire and are trustworthy. Taking us from our land is disruptive to us not only physically, but spiritually. It is the same for us as locking up all the churches and confiscating all the Bibles would be for Christians.

You view land as a commodity, something that can be bought and sold. It is used to make a profit: indeed your culture views all of Creation as something which can be exploited for profit. It is normal for you to think you can own more than you need: more land, more possessions, more money, more power. Your culture even values people not for who they are, but for how much they have. Those who have the most are allowed to exploit those who have little, and it's called “good business”. Some of your culture even blame the poor for being poor!

These seems to be because in your culture, you are always looking for enemies, for reasons to fight. Anyone who doesn't agree with you is automatically a potential enemy. Of course, not all of you are this way, but it is so deeply ingrained in your culture that you cannot escape it's influence. Your culture applauds competitiveness and the arrogance that goes along with it. Our culture does have competitive games, but in the end we applaud those who cooperate more than those who contend with others. That is because ultimately, our lives are richer, and even depended upon, a sense that we are all family.

Our view that we are all related leads us to have a very different view of private possessions. Many of our Nations held all but the most basic items such as clothing or weapons in common. It was not unusual for someone to simply pick up an item that was not in use and make use of it for a time, even if that item “belonged” to someone else. The “owner” always knew he could get it back when he needed to use it.

We celebrate birthdays not by heaping presents upon the person, but by that person and her family giving away what they could to their family, friends, and members of the community. Our chiefs were often the poorest people in our communities materially, because they tended to give away what they had to those in need.

Our spiritual elders and our healers dare not demand any sort of fee for their services. Such things as the ability to heal are a gift from Creator, and so should be given freely to the community. They didn't fret about this, because the community made sure such vital members as healers and those with spiritual wisdom were provided for.

So it is we had a very different views on material possessions and wealth. In fact, in many of our Nations, a person's wealth was counted by how many relations he had given something to, by how she had enriched their lives, by how much better off the community was for his or her presence and efforts.

By contrast, your culture is very much about making a profit off of even the most sacred of giftings. Your religious leaders and healers can be some of the wealthiest people around. You even find it acceptable to withhold care for the sick or injured if they don't have the money to pay for care.

Overall, my Mohawk ancestors would be called “Socialists” by those of your current culture. The implication by some who did so would be to claim that we were inferior to “Capitalists”.

Which brings up what I mentioned above about being superior or inferior. Euro-American culture is driven by the desire to conquer, to improve, to own more, make more, be more than everyone else. There are things that are admirable about this desire, such as it leading to improvements in technology. Better food, clothing, shelter, medicine, tools and machines have come as a result of the drive to improve that is at the heart of Euro-American culture. If only you tempered that drive with greater respect for Creation, and people, so that less harm was done to the earth and to others in your pursuit of “bigger, better, faster, stronger”.

By contrast, our cultures took such things very slowly. Because we emphasize our relationships with Creator, Creation and other people over accomplishment, we would be reticent to make “improvements” that might be too disruptive. We were content to live at a level of harmony with the earth and each other that didn't drive us to force changes in our lives.

I will grant that this is because we were blessed to have a vast land available to us. There was not a lot of pressure on our resources. Between our spiritual traditions, our views of community and the simple, Eden-like environment in which we lived, there as not the “Mother of Invention” (necessity) pressing us to develop technology as was the case with Europeans.

Europe had a great deal of people in a relatively small area. Your feudalism meant that nobles owned a disproportionately large amount of land compared to the commoners. You divided yourself into nations based on bloodlines and who was supposedly given divine mandate to be king. It is no wonder that you developed such a competitive world view and were forced to always find ways to make the most of what you had, and to defeat your enemies.

Such a crucible of conflict has bred a deep attitude of competitiveness over the centuries. This attitude naturally leads to assumptions of what is inferior vs what is superior. Superior is what will win: inferior is what will lose. The result is that Euro-American culture indoctrinates individuals into the attitude that if anyone questions your status quo, they are attempting to prove their own status quo to be superior to yours. After all, that is what you would do, right? There is little room for the idea that diversity is not only not a threat to the status quo, but can actually enhance people's lives.

The Europeans came to Turtle Island, looked upon how the First Nations lives, and immediately declared us to be primitive savages. Because our political, economic and social structures were different from the Europeans (though no less sophisticated), we were judged to be simplistic in our lives. Our less developed technology regarding metallurgy, construction, medicine etc (though our agricultural wisdom was greater than yours) led the early colonists to deem us as inherently inferior to themselves. Their religion even led some of them to classify us as less than human.

As a result, for some Europeans found it quite easy to enslave and murder us in the Name of God. For others it was a Manifest Destiny to push us off our lands and force us to adopt their culture, language, religion and form of government. The First Nations suffered five centuries of such treatment. Millions were killed or died from disease and deprivation. We have been driven off our traditional, sacred lands. Our languages have almost disappeared. Our spiritual traditions have been suppressed, even outlawed. Our form of government has been replaced. We have, as a people group, suffered the greatest disruption in human history.

People cannot endure such things without there being profound changes. Scientific research has even uncovered evidence that such catastrophic events cause changes in the DNA that is passed on to children and grandchildren. The reality is that the First Nations (along with many other minorities) have suffered events that still deeply affect us today, and will continue to affect our people for generations to come. We cannot just easily dismiss the impact of the past upon the present, and the future.

Despite modern efforts to improve things minorities still suffer from the differences between the majority, privileged group and ourselves. We see the same events and statistics, but because of our differing world views, interpret and process them differently. At times we simply don't come to the same conclusion as you do regarding what to make of a given event or statistic. It is our view, not yours, that we are expressing.

Which brings up the hardest part of this letter, friend. 

Consider this: maybe, when you try to defuse arguments about race, ethnicity, religion and prejudice by saying, “we are all just the same. Why can't we just get along?” what you are really saying is “You should all act like I do, and be like I am, and view the world as I view the world. Then we can all get along because we are all pretty much the same.” That is how we, as minorities, can interpret such a statement. Coming from someone who embraces the majority culture, (a culture that committed offenses against minorities) we see a not too dissimilar attitude from that which contributed to the worst aspects of colonization: slavery, genocide, betrayal and theft.

If we were only just like you, there would be no conflict. 

You see, my friend, the very fact that we are members of a minority (different) culture, race, ethnic group or religion means we are indeed different from members of your culture in many profound ways. Please accept that not as a threat, but as an opportunity to embrace and celebrate how each of our cultures can enrich the entire world and in so doing, each other's cultures.

You want to defuse conflict not by changing yourself and your culture's view of diversity, but by attempting to make the diversity disappear. The only way to do that is to get us, those who are different, to disappear as well, either by assimilation or annihilation.

It's that attitude, even more than any words or actions, that causes us concern.