The following article appeared in the "Cultural Survival Quarterly",
Winter 1994.  It was written by Andrea Smith, who is a member of "Women Of
All Red Nations" in Chicago, and who was the Chairperson for Women of
Color for the "National Coalition Against Sexual Assault" at the time she
wrote it.

For All Those Who Were Indian In A Former Life -
c 1994   Andrea Smith
 

  The New Age movement has sparked a new interest in Native American
traditional spirituality among white women who claim to be feminists.
Indian spirituality, with its respect for nature and the
interconnectedness of all things, is often presented as the panacea for
all individual and global problems.  Not surprisingly, many white
"feminists" see the opportunity to make a great profit from this new
craze.  They sell sweat lodges or sacred pipe ceremonies, which promise to
bring individual and global healing.  Or they sell books and records that
supposedly describe Indian traditional practices so that you too, can be
Indian.
  On the surface, it may appear that this new craze is based on a
respect for Indian spirituality.  In fact, however, the New Age movement
is part of a very old story of white racism and genocide against the
Indian people.  The "Indian" ways that the white, New Age "feminists" are
practicing have little grounding in reality.
  True spiritual leaders do not make a profit from their teachings,
whether it's through selling books, workshops, sweat lodges, or otherwise.
Spiritual leaders teach the people because it is their responsibility to
pass what they have learned from their elders to the youngest
generations.  They do not charge for their services.
  Furthermore, the idea that an Indian medicine woman would instruct a
white woman to preach the "true path" of Indian spirituality sounds more
reminiscent of evangelical Christianity than traditional Indian
spirituality.  Indian religions are community-based, not proselytizing
religions.  For this reason, there is not ONE Indian religion, as many New
Agers would have you believe.  Indian spiritual practices reflect the
needs of a particular community.  Indians do not generally believe that
their way is "the" way, and consequently, they have no desire to tell
outsiders about their practices.  Also, considering how many Indians there
are who do not know the traditions, why would a medicine woman spend so
much time teaching a white woman?  A medicine woman would be more likely
to advise a white woman to look into her OWN culture and find what is
liberating in it.
  However, some white women seem determined NOT to look into their own
cultures for sources of strength.  This is puzzling, since pre-Christian
European cultures are also earth-based and contain many of the same
elements that white women are ostensibly looking for in Native American
cultures.  This phenomenon leads me to suspect that there is a more
insidious motive for latching onto Indian spirituality.
  When white "feminists" see how white people have historically
oppressed others and how they are coming very close to destroying the
earth, they often want to disassociate themselves from their whiteness.
They do this by opting to "become Indian." In this way, they can escape
responsibility and accountability for white racism.
  Of course, white "feminists" want to become only partly Indian.  They
do not want to be part of our struggles for survival against genocide, and
they do not want to fight for treaty rights or an end to substance abuse
or sterilization abuse.  They do not want to do anything that would
tarnish their romanticized notions of what it means to be an Indian.
  Moreover, they want to become Indian without holding themselves
accountable to Indian communities.  If they did they would have to listen
to Indians telling them to stop carrying around sacred pipes, stop doing
their own sweat lodges and stop appropriating our spiritual practices.
Rather, these New Agers see Indians as romanticized gurus who exist only
to meet their consumerist needs.  Consequently, they do not understand our
struggles for survival and thus they can have no genuine understanding of
Indian spiritual practices.
  While New Agers may think that they are escaping white racism by
becoming "Indian," they are in fact continuing the same genocidal
practices of their forebears.  The one thing that has maintained the
survival of Indian people through 500 years of colonialism has been the
spiritual bonds that keep us together.  When the colonizers saw the
strength of our spirituality, they tried to destroy Indian religion by
making them illegal.  They forced Indian children into white missionary
schools and cut their tongues if they spoke their Native languages.
Sundances were made illegal, and Indian participation in the Ghost Dance
precipitated the Wounded Knee massacre.  The colonizers recognized that it
was our spirituality that maintained our spirit of resistance and sense of
community.  Even today, Indians do not have religious freedom.  In a
recent ruling the Supreme Court has determined that American Indians do
not have the right to sue under the American Indian Religious Freedom
Act.  They have also determined that if Indian religious freedom conflicts
with any "compelling" United States interest, the government always
supersedes Indian peoples' freedom of religion.
  Many white New Agers continue this practice of destroying Indian
spirituality.  They trivialize Native American practices so that these
practices lose their spiritual force, and they have the white privilege
and power to make themselves heard at the expense of Native Americans.
Our voices are silenced, and consequently the younger generation of
Indians who are trying to find their way back to the Old Ways becomes
hopelessly lost in this morass of consumerist spirituality.
  These practices also promote the subordination of Indian women to
white women.  We are told that we are greedy if we do not choose to share
our spirituality.  Apparently, it is our burden to service white women's
needs rather than to spend time organizing within our own communities.
Their perceived need for warm and fuzzy mysticism takes precedence over
our need to survive.
  The New Age movement completely trivializes the oppression we as
Indian women face: Indian women are suddenly no longer the women who are
forcibly sterilized and tested with unsafe drugs such as Depo Provera; we
are no longer the women who have a life expectancy of 47 years; and we are
no longer the women who generally live below the poverty level and face a
75 percent unemployment rate.  No, we're too busy being cool and
spiritual.
  This trivialization of our oppression is compounded by the fact that
nowadays anyone can be Indian if s/he wants to.  All that is required is
that one be Indian in a former life, or take part in a sweat lodge, or be
monitored by a "medicine woman," or read a how-to book.
  Since, according to this theory, anyone can now be "Indian," then the
term Indians no longer refers specifically to those people who have
survived five hundred years of colonization and genocide.  This furthers
the goals of white supremacists to abrogate treaty rights and to take away
what little we have left.  When everyone becomes "Indian," then it is easy
to lose sight of the specificity of oppression faced by those who are
REALLY Indian in THIS life.  It is no wonder we have such a difficult time
finding non-Indians to support our struggles when the New Age movement has
completely disguised our oppression.
  The most disturbing aspect about these racist practices is that they
are promoted in the name of feminism.  Sometimes it seems that I can't
open a feminist periodical without seeing ads promoting white "feminist"
practises with little medicine wheel designs.  I can't seem to go to a
feminist conference without the woman who begins the conference with a
ceremony being the only Indian presenter.  Participants then feel so
"spiritual" after this opening that they fail to notice the absence of
Indian women in the rest of the conference or Native American issues in
the discussions.  And I certainly can't go to a feminist bookstore without
seeing books by Lynn Andrews and other people who exploit Indian
spirituality all over the place.  It seems that, while feminism is
supposed to signify the empowerment of all women, it obviously does not
include Indian women.
  If white feminists are going to act in solidarity with their Indian
sisters, they must take a stand against Indian spiritual abuse.  Feminist
book and record stores should stop selling these products, and feminist
periodicals should stop advertising these products.  Women who call
themselves feminists should denounce exploitative practices wherever they
see them.
  Many have claimed that Indians are not respecting "freedom of speech"
when they demand that whites stop promoting and selling books that exploit
Indian spirituality.  But promotion of this material is destroying freedom
of speech for Native Americans by ensuring that our voices will never be
heard.  Feminists have already made choices about what they will promote
(I haven't seen many books by right-wing, fundamentalist women sold in
feminist bookstores, since feminists recognize that these books are
oppressive to women.)  The issue is not censorship; the issue is racism.
Feminists must make a choice either to respect Indian political and
spiritual autonomy, or to promote materials that are fundamentally racist
under the guise of "freedom of speech."
  Respecting the integrity of Native people and their spirituality does
not mean that there can never be cross-cultural sharing.  However, such a
sharing should take place in a way that is respectful to Indian people.
The way to be respectful is for non-Indians to become involved in our
political struggles and to develop an on-going relation with Indian
COMMUNITIES based on trust and mutual respect.  When this happens, Indian
people may invite a non-Indian to take part in a ceremony, but it will be
on Indian terms.
  I hesitate to say this much about cross-cultural sharing however,
because many white people take this to mean that they can join in our
struggles solely for the purpose of being invited to ceremonies.  If this
does not occur, they feel that Indians have somehow unfairly withheld
spiritual teachings from them.  We are expected to pay the price in
spiritual exploitation in order to gain allies in our political struggles.
  When non-Indians say they will help us, but only on their terms, that
is not help - that is blackmail.  We are not obligated to teach anyone
about our spirituality.  It is our choice if we want to share with people
who we think will be respectful.  It is white people who owe it to us to
fight for our survival, since they are living on the land for which our
people were murdered (and are still being murdered).
  It is also important for non-Indians to build relationships with
Indian communities, rather than with specific individuals.  Many
non-Indians express their confusion about knowing who is and who is not a
legitimate spiritual teacher.  The only way for non-Indians to know who
legitimate teachers are is to develop ongoing relationships with Indian
COMMUNITIES. When they know the community, they will learn who the
community respects as its spiritual leaders.  This is a process that takes
time.
  Unfortunately, many white feminists do not want to take this time in
their quest for instant spirituality.  Profit-making often gets in the way
of true sisterhood.  However, white feminists should know that as long as
they take part in Indian spiritual abuse, either by being consumers of it
or by refusing to take a stand on it, Indian women will consider white
"feminists" to be nothing more than agents in the genocide of their
people.
    Our spirituality is not for sale!!