Since I had to relocate the blog because I misspelled "yoke" as "yolk," I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the nature of language out here. My girlfriend tells me I develop an accent while I'm in South Dakota. Maybe. I'll admit that over the summer it probably affects my word choice just as much as it affects my skin tone.
One important factor in my changing patterns is that there's a lot more talking that goes on out here than there is reading. Many, if not most, weekdays find my father and a few other old ranchers perched in the local truck stop, their backs toward the wall, watching people come in, shootin shit, and drinking coffee. My mother calls it "truck stop news," which in her mind means its not very trustworthy: more tall tales than hard facts, more social rumors than interest in tracing down their origins, more here-say than a judge could shake a stick at.
In its own way, this sort of lunchtime banter defines how these ranchers, at least, come across their news. Things are changing, admittedly. One rancher today started off a new tangent saying, "I got an ee-mail the other day..."; and even before the internet, there were always newspapers, too. But there is an irreducible oral quality to the culture I know out here. It affects the way people think and it certainly affects their ability to spell. Not to excuse my own mistake, of course! But I wanted to put the mistake in context, at least, and explain that it's been many years since I've seen the word "yoke" spelled out, and that was probably in a bible, not in a ranch magazine.
While I'm discussing language, I thought I'd also discuss racism a little. I know, you're thinking "yippee, just what I wanted." It wouldn't really do to call it "implicit" here; it's often times fairly near the surface. It most commonly appears in peoples' word choice. Perhaps most offensively, there is a term out here for a Native American that I'm hesitant to repeat, but, since language really is important, I'll say it: prairie-nigger. I have some neighbors that use it all the time, one who was a close friend in high school. I remember, a number of years ago, chuckling the first time I heard it, actually. In its own completely terrible way, it's clever, it's catchy. It takes up an entirely different story of inequality and oppression and adopts it wholesale into this local situation. And because it find expression in fly-over country, no one pays any attention to it. The racism it suggests infects the way we think; if one finds beer bottles on the road or in the ditch, the first thing said is usually, "those indians were out drinkin again."
Another remarkable instance I encountered today was a story about a multi-generational gathering of Native Americans on the 4th of July to shoot fireworks. There's some important background to it, though; on dry years, we chase off anyone shooting fireworks, cursing those city people who think they can just come out and risk starting a fire on someone else's property. It was on one of these years, and after the gentleman telling the story asked the Indians to leave, they started a fire, which he quickly put out. As the story was recounted, "The buck--the chief--of the group said, 'We're outta here, you don't have to tell us twice.'" Again, the usage of "buck" here is clever, catchy; it satirizes native beliefs about communion with nature while less satirically and more, well, terribly, identifying them with that nature in a way invariably offensive.
I feel bad even writing these stories, these realities of my world out here. But I hope my intention is clear: I think South Dakotans can do better. Ranchers are capable of sympathizing with Indians. Stories circulate about how the family rancher is going the way of the Indian, the next group of people being socially (if less physically) forced from the land. This is a narrative that can be positively appropriated. But the preceding shows that there is plenty that is yet to be excised.
The process will undoubtedly be complicated, too. There are legitimate concerns of private property rights raised by ranchers. It certainly does not work to displace these inhabitants to give it to some other "earlier" inhabitants. As much as private property rights are recognized and emphasized, it is equally important for the locals to recognize and emphasize the religious liberties of the Native peoples. These are all too often dismissed out of hand as a power-play. When issues of land rights around Bear Butte (a Native religious site; more on that some other time) arise, the White response is invariably, "Those Natives only go up there to get media attention" or "How many Natives have ever climbed the Butte?" How many Christians make it to church on Sundays?! How many Christians show up at church because it makes them look good?! Those demographic facts have nothing to do with the basic rights that lie behind them.
Language is an amazing thing, its use and misuse complicated social phenomena. By letting certain speech patterns die or find open derision (as in this post), I hope that I, as someone who hopes to be a member of this community, can help bring the changes needed. Ugg.
No comments:
Post a Comment