as small as a world and as large as alone, seetobe: neeta-inari: feministwerewolf: ...

1:28am July 16, 2014

seetobe:

neeta-inari:

feministwerewolf:

hadaes:

this is very important and needs more reblogs

Hey look, a white person holding up the uncredited words of an anishinaabe woman who was pointing the blame squarely AT white people. fml. White people need to either start crediting alanis obomsawin or stop using this quote altogether

Bold bc I’ve never seen anyone pass this on with proper attribution.

Thank you feministwerewolf for including her name, this quote has been taken and diced up by so many people without attributing it to Alanis Obomsawin by Greenpeace activists, and the Internet mainly seems to attribute it to ‘native american proverb’ (most often generally according to my search if you just put in the words without her name, a few claim a specific nation, but none of them are hers, the few I seen seem to trace it to one site claiming it’s Cree in origin). This is what erasure is doing and why keeping names with words is so important.
For further reference for anyone else interested, the full quote, according to quote investigator (which I’ve just found and looks good) is available within a collection of essays called “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” (1972), specifically a chapter called “Conversations with North American Indians”

Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money. — Alanis Obomsawin

neeta-inari:

feministwerewolf:

hadaes:

this is very important and needs more reblogs

Hey look, a white person holding up the uncredited words of an anishinaabe woman who was pointing the blame squarely AT white people. fml. White people need to either start crediting alanis obomsawin or stop using this quote altogether

Bold bc I’ve never seen anyone pass this on with proper attribution.

Thank you feministwerewolf for including her name, this quote has been taken and diced up by so many people without attributing it to Alanis Obomsawin by Greenpeace activists, and the Internet mainly seems to attribute it to ‘native american proverb’ (most often generally according to my search if you just put in the words without her name, a few claim a specific nation, but none of them are hers, the few I seen seem to trace it to one site claiming it’s Cree in origin). This is what erasure is doing and why keeping names with words is so important.

For further reference for anyone else interested, the full quote, according to quote investigator (which I’ve just found and looks good) is available within a collection of essays called “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” (1972), specifically a chapter called “Conversations with North American Indians”

Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money. — Alanis Obomsawin