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Re: Tribal matters

Posted by KenB on October 30, 2000, at 3:55:28

In reply to Tribal matters, posted by KenB on October 29, 2000, at 1:08:00

In some recent thread on this board, a person explained that, after a few posts, replies as often respond to a collective idea as to the individual who started the message. Maybe that is a risk of tribal life.

> >You have a facility for writing with subtlety tinged with innocence, which can be effective, and positive or negative, I suppose, depending on how you want to put it to use and who your audience is.

My friends have cited countless nuances in my character and in my prose, but I don’t recall anyone suggesting a "tinge of innocence." The idea in my mind is that the audience included the person who asked if this were a tribe. Perhaps I erred in using the “add name of previous poster” feature offered at this site.

> I simply have my own opinion, cannot see how it impacts at all on the different definitions of tribe used by others, since I don't refer to those.

In this context, it seems to impact others because the discussion is posted in a forum available for public consumption. The question of whether this, or any internet discussion group is a "tribe" impacted me, in part, because of my exposure to other groups who claim tribal status. It seems I have listened to a very similar discussion among “Rainbow people,” who were questioning themselves over the propriety of claiming tribal status.

The poster with the armadillo handle can answer for their own intent, but mine was not to insinuate a faux pas on the level of adopting tribal names or images as sports mascots. That nationwide discussion, though, has expanded public willingness to more broadly consider the meaning of tribal references when publicly using images that refer to tribal culture. It seems worth my while to spend a few moments reflecting on, and comparing DNA relationships with electronic text relationships.

For what it's worth, Governor Jesse Ventura, leader of a state populated by numerous tribes, would likely go to the mat to defend the original use of the term “tribe” in this page. But the governor did not seem to understand how his statements about tribal sovereignty affected others when he publicly asked in Washington, D.C. whether the Mils Lac Chippewa wanted to be their own nation or part of the United States. Members of tribes in Minnesota, members of religious groups, and several Minneapolis columnists felt otherwise. The governor's “what are they” comment generated much more public reaction than the ethnic Irish joke he told on a late night talk show. Ventura refused to meet face to face with the people he was talking about to discuss the matter because he refuses to meet with "special interest groups." The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with Gov. Ventura's position, though, and recognized the tribes' sovereignty in the instance that inspired his comment.

> > God forbid that we are only allowed to use a word in it's strictest most legalistic form. In that case, I am sure the word refugee, as you use it, could have exactly your points made about it.

The appearance of the term tribe indicated to me an interest in tribal psychology.

It seems true that a wet, hungry, shivering refugee seeking a patch of high ground in flooded Bangladesh might say we don't know the first thing about what it is to be a refugee. My experience has included more discussion about "what is a tribe" with tribal members than about "what is a refugee" with recently displaced refugees. My experience informs my response. My interest here was more to consider the impact, in terms of biological psychology, of being a displaced person, whether from Bangladesh, Turtle Island or Silicon Valley. Hence, my suggestion that:


> >The difference in “tribe” in the familial sense, and “tribe” in the sense of a band of refugees held together by a common need, might have implications for biological psychology. The familial tribe enjoys a more intact cognitive map. Disruptions of physical and social cognitive maps might cause the same patterns of hyperalertness, over-sensitivity, profound despair and attention deficits often associated with child abuse and neglect.


> > > I am ready to drop this.
> Shar

By all means, do. My sensitivity to the question of "what is a tribe" is likely to endure much longer, perhaps because of my life experience, and perhaps because that experience has left me with a warm regard for the closeness and connectivity that inhabits tribal communities. Reading on the Internet about those communities, or seeing the faces and words of ”card-carrying” tribal friends and their wider community of allies on the Internet is like getting a greeting card from Grandmother, but it is hardly like a visit to Grandmothers' house. My hope was to relate that difference. If that offers little meaning for some people, no offense is meant, and none is taken, but perhaps the discussion of tribal psychology is relevant to others who read these pages.

Kendall


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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20001011/msgs/1853.html