Pretending

  This is just my view of things. None of this is intended to upset anyone, it's simply a conversation with myself. If I were in another room whispering you would most likely have your ear to the wall trying to hear what I was saying. But I'll save you from all of that and just post it publicly. Yes, Facebook and blogger are public platforms, even when you believe you are placing restrictions upon them. Anyone that really wants to view or read any of that can, if they have the technical ability. My guess is that AI will be able to do that in the very near future, if it doesn't already. But anyway, I'm just sharing the way I think about things. 

  What I'm thinking about this morning is cosplay. Have you heard about that? Now it's been around since the 1930's as an amusement. Thing is, it gained in popularity in the 1980's and is now a "mainstream" normal type thing to be involved with. Well, for a good number of folks it is anyway. I quit wearing costumes and pretending when I was about 12 or so. I only did it that long for the candy. But I'm thinking this whole cosplay thing is just getting out of hand. Now we are all concerned with our heritage and what costumes we should wear to celebrate that. Look, all I'm saying is you aren't what your ancestors where. If your great grandfather was a cowboy but you were born and raised in New York City, you aren't a cowboy. 

 Cosplay, costumed play, is all about pretending. For me so is a lot of this heritage stuff that I'm always seeing these days. For me it is an attempt, using a modern phrase, to appropriate the past. The hope is for some sort of gain, some preference, some entitlement today for what took place many years ago. My ancestry is largely German and Swedish. I'm neither of those. I'm am American, born and raised in small town America of blue collar workers with a conservative world view. Yes, I am a product of my environment, not the environment of my ancestors. It doesn't matter if my ancestors were Kings or criminals that has nothing to do with me. Would have been great if they had that "generational" wealth I hear others complaining about, well the ones that didn't get that anyway. 

  I knew a man once that made his living pretending to be an Indian. He did have some native American heritage, along with Hispanic and white. He was quite an intelligent man and leveraged all of that in making a name for himself. He was a survivor and a well respected man. Well, he never made it to the national level, there being no internet during his time, no chance to go viral. I knew him well and I can tell you for a fact he was no more an Indian than I am. True, he studied a great deal about that, he did have some first hand resources to teach him about Indian life and cultures, but believe me, he was no Indian. He just played one. He was convincing I'll give him that. He wasn't asking for anything though, he was just making a living. 

  Of course this was in a time before all this "political activism" and "celebrating our heritage" became popular. People still expected to have to work to earn a living. They even knew they had to pay back a loan when they borrowed money. He was well aware of any social and professional limitations that effected him. He was, in reality, what we now call an African American. He just reinvented himself as Red Thundercloud. Indians were far more accepted than African Americans in the 1950's through the 1970's. It was a very smart move . He wasn't demanding anything from anyone, he wasn't complaining about the white man stealing his land or any of that, he just took the white mans money and laughed all the way to the bank. If you google his name Wikipedia has quite a long article on him. In my experience with him, I believe most of that to be factual.

  I got off course just a bit with my story but included that as a reference point. That was a part of my environment, my experience growing up. It is a part of my heritage in a broader sense. Heritage is the culture of a particular society. There are many societies, down to what we may call, the other side of the tracks. My culture was just a bit different from the culture on the other side of those proverbial tracks even though I shared many cultural things with the town as a whole. Although I am descended from German stock I have no heritage regarding that culture. I am also descended from Swedish stock but I'm no Viking! None of that is my heritage. I have no desire or need to pretend otherwise. I can read about that, admire it, even maybe become fixated to the point where I want to "play" the part but it still won't be my heritage. It's all just stories to me. It's an amusement. 

                                                                                      

Red Thundercloud. In front of my childhood home. My heritage, my cultural influences.