Oxygen

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I am "subscribed" to probably a few Native reddits. I generally only read and don't comment and don't do much of that either, if only to reduce the odds I will comment.

I did leave a comment a few hours ago on one of them. No doubt due to lack of oxygen going to my brain since I was bitten by a poisonous spider something like 2.5 weeks ago and have been suffering the effects of hemotoxin and neurotoxin both.

Most spiders only have hemotoxin. This was probably a black widow, which uncharacteristically has both.

I was in the ER a few days ago and they didn't take it seriously that the poisonous spider bite was relevant to my acute health crisis. They chalked it up to heat exhaustion and dehydration and didn't even adequately address that issue. 

I spent two weeks eating very little and throwing up most of what I did eat, but that could not possibly be relevant to my dehydrated, stressed state, no. Medical professionals say so and my opinion about my own body be damned, what with not being a licensed physician. 

So I was recently extremely sick and life is generally on my VERY LAST NERVE here lately, thus me idiotically deciding to take up old bad habits and say something knowing it would get me nothing but hatred and not caring because I wasn't talking "to you."

If the OP got something out of it, that's the ONLY person I was trying to talk to.

Except for the last two paragraphs where I preemptively gave my heritage in a nutshell so I wouldn't feel compelled to come back later and say "No, I'm WHITE." if a bunch of white buttholes decided a beat down on a "Native" person in a Native subreddit was in order for saying what I said.

I had no plans to say anything more. I wanted no reason to change my mind.

Mission accomplished and since a mod told me leave it be, people likely imagine that's why I shut up. It's not.

Before seeing it was a mod, I'm still just crazy enough from hemotoxin to feel tempted to go back and reply to that.

I told the OP to try to "starve it of oxygen" and then two Natives felt compelled to reply to a white woman in their space. It annoyed me.

I do understand that in many places, Natives have no real choice but to try to actively defend themselves from bullshit from white people, but not here. You really don't and you shouldn't be giving MY white ass your attention in a Native space merely because I'm white.

I wasn't in any way interested in derailing the conversation with my presence. And when Natives feel compelled to reply to a white person simply because they are white though it's their subreddit, you are effectively kowtowing to white supremacy. 

If you really think my comment is shit and I've told you I'm white and in your space anyway, a better answer is to starve it of oxygen: Do not reply to it. Ignore it. 

Downvote it to hell if you wish. But don't talk to them.

It won't offend me. I don't WANT to derail your conversation. 

It will cause a LOT of other white people to burst a damn blood vessel and behave so badly you can reasonably ban them and no longer have to politely put up with their shit while ASKING them to please kindly stop.

There were two replies to mine and one instructed me to not say I am "part" Cherokee if it isn't documented and also told me to try to check it or prove it or whatever. 

I said I'm a very small part "according to oral family tradition." That's as much as I know and that's as accurate as I know how to be and that's not likely to change anytime soon, if ever, because I'm extremely poor and have dire health issues and simply do not have the wherewithal to seek answers.

Yes, I'm fully aware some people get told they are part Native and aren't. 

While I understand why Natives are defensive about such things, I think telling someone like me to not describe themselves that way is a mistake.

It's a form of gatekeeping that does nothing to improve your situation and actively discourages potential allies from coming forward and participating in good faith. It's also very much like the blood quantum problem of setting such an arbitrarily high bar as to help kill off your people and your culture.

I'm not asking to be recognized as a member of a tribe.

I'm not applying for any legal rights based on this oral family tradition.

I'm only explaining why I have an interest in reading Native subs and that my interest is a good faith personal interest, not a white supremacist agenda to butt in inappropriately. 

If you think "starve it of oxygen" is terrible advice to the OP,  address that. But don't give unwarranted attention to who I am and how I describe myself. 

It's a derail that serves to keep my whiteness held up as so ridiculously important compared to other things and it annoys me since I brought it up precisely to say "Don't go there. These are MY words and should not be blamed on the Native community. If you want to argue them, let's skip the part where you make assumptions about the color of my skin."

Perhaps someday I shall learn it was a lie and my father wasn't part Cherokee. I doubt that though. 

I had too many part Cherokee friends as a kid who had few or no other friends. My life didn't begin to make sense until after my father died and I realized how much he looked like a full-blooded Native man and I began to think and write here on this blog about things I had been blind to, all of which got redacted repeatedly because it was overly personal though it helped ME sort some things out.

Note to self: Try to not get bitten by black widow spiders. And even if you do, don't go posting on Native subs. You aren't welcome there and if you do it too much, will likely be accused of being a Pretendian.

(I'm not actually sorry I did it though. I knew at the time it wasn't a wise move and did it anyway.)

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