Diane Burns (1957-2006)Sure You Can Ask Me A Personal Question
How do you do?
No, I am not Chinese.
No, not Spanish.
No, I am American Indi-uh, Native American.
No, not from India.
No, not Apache.
No, not Navajo.
No, not Sioux.
No, we are not extinct.
Yes, Indian.
Oh?
So, that's where you got those high cheekbones.
Your great grandmother, huh?
An Indian Princess, huh?
Hair down to there?
Let me guess. Cherokee?
Oh, so you've had an Indian friend?
That close?
Oh, so you've had an Indian lover?
That tight?
Oh, so you've had an Indian servant?
That much?
Yeah, it was awful what you guys did to us.
It's real decent of you to apologize.
No, I don't know where you can get peyote.
No, I don't know where you can get Navajo rugs real cheap.
No, I didn't make this. I bought it at Bloomingdales.
Thank you. I like your hair too.
I don't know if anyone knows whether or not Cher is really Indian.
No, I didn't make it rain tonight.
Yeah. Uh-huh. Spirituality.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Spirituality. Uh-huh. Mother
Earth. Yeah Uh'huh. Uh-huh. Spirituality.
No, I didn't major in archery.
Yeah, a lot of us drink too much.
Some of us can't drink enough.
This ain't no stoic look.
This is my face.
Diane Burns (Chemehuevi and Anishinabe) was a poet and painter. She published one book of poems, Riding the One-Eyed Ford, in 1981. When she died in 2006, she was working on a novel about a Native American beauty queen. You can read more about her in this remembrance, and some of her other writings appear here.
[This poem also appears online here, here, here, here, here, and other places.]
I can agree with this so very much. But, the difference between me and her is that most whites would never believe I'm indian. Especially when you ger offended by something and their reaction is that "you don't look indian" or they ignore you.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteRIP Sister Burns.
I love this. thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete"This ain't no stoic look.
ReplyDeleteThis is my face."
wow. that just about sums up a chunk of my life. thanks for sharing this.
This ain't no stoic look.
ReplyDeleteThis is my face.
That's the best part in my opinion!
"This ain't no stoic look.
ReplyDeleteThis is my face."
"Smile!"
Yet it's not ok for you to tell other people what to do with parts of *their* body in return.
"Some of us can't drink enough" is a really hard-core line.
ReplyDeleteOuch!
ReplyDeleteGood poem. Love the last two lines.
I really like how this poem implicates the reader ... I find myself, like the fictional observer, also becoming curious about the speaker's race as he/she begins to tick off the various racial affiliations about which the observer is questioning him/her.
ReplyDeleteBy the time the poem's got the reader's eye pulled in tight with the fetishistic examination of the speaker's "high cheekbones" and "hair down to there," the speaker immediately turns on the observer--and by extension, the reader--with "Oh, so you've had an Indian friend?"
That quick, accusatory swivel where it feels like the speaker's caught the reader "red-handed," so to speak--taking voyueristic pleasure in an uncomfortable confrontation between the speaker and the observer--really makes the poem for me. The 2nd person "you" from that line down functions, in a way, to indicate both the fictional observer's and the reader's treatment of the speaker as a racialized "Other."
Thanks for posting this poem. I want to get down on my knees and thank "mother earth" that I've never said any of that, but then I remember that I've had those thoughts plenty of times.
ReplyDelete"Yeah. Uh-huh. Spirituality.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Spirituality. Uh-huh. Mother
Earth. Yeah Uh'huh. Uh-huh. Spirituality."
Oh gods, that is so funny it drew blood.
Wow what a powerful poem.
ReplyDeletePowerful poem, indeed.
ReplyDelete"By the time the poem's got the reader's eye pulled in tight with the fetishistic examination of the speaker's "high cheekbones" and "hair down to there," the speaker immediately turns on the observer--and by extension, the reader--with "Oh, so you've had an Indian friend?"
ReplyDeleteI believe you've misinterpreted the lines. The high cheekbones and "hair down to there" lines are the speaker responding to the inquisitor who's relating their far-off heritage. It's not the speaker's high cheek bones or hair, but the inquisitor's imagined ancestor. Same net effect, I guess.