Everyone Laughed About The Indians by Cliff Taylor

For a century everyone laughed about the Indians

who didn’t want their picture taken for fear

of having their soul stolen. 

But what if it wasn’t actually a laughing matter. 

America, practitioners of Capitalism, the movies, 

all wound up appropriating our culture; without asking, 

without care for us, without acknowledging us at all.

Jeep Cherokee, The Atlanta Braves, Land O’ Lakes butter, 

all those Westerns my dad grew up watching. 

What if our Ancestors saw this coming?

How America would use its technology to strip 

our images from us and then leave us behind 

like discarded trash on the roadside. 

What if they were predicting a century of 

essence-stealing, essence-disfiguring Cultural Appropriation

and like so much else that was too big for 

America the Beautiful to face and stomach, 

it was turned into a joke. 

I demand an end to all of this Native

Cultural Appropriation, because I can, and 

because it’s time to put that shit behind us. 

Hear me clearly: I got a good sense of humor

but about this I’m not joking. 

by Cliff Taylor

Cliff Taylor is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. He is the author of The Memory of Souls, a memoir about the Sundance and his life/walk with the little people. He can be reached through his website @ www.cliffponca.com