If I Was An American-Indian…

I would carry around a recording of a hawk’s cry, and play it every time I entered a room.

I would litter, and when people looked at me funny, say, “Problem?”

"Our drinks are made with the finest liquor, and then infected with smallpox!"

I would open a casino advertising an “authentic Indian experience.”  Then I would make the games extra hard to win.  If someone did win, I would not give them their money, and I would release angry dogs to chase them out of the casino.  Also, sometimes in the night, the staff would break into people’s rooms, give them 60 seconds to gather their belongings and then, at gunpoint, march them for several miles into the desert and relocate them to a windowless pump-house.  I would tell them this new room was as good as the old one, and that this was for their own protection.

I would start a softball team and make our mascot an inbred hillbilly.

I would quote 80’s heavy-metal power ballads as though they were native wisdom (“As Great Bear has said, ‘Every rose has its thorn; and every cowboy sings a sad, sad song’”), and watch people pretend to be philosophically moved.

I would hold moonlight, fire-side ceremonies for caucasians with lots of chanting.  Then I would declare that the Great Spirit has revealed to me the caucasian person’s Native Name.  Then I would tell them that their tribal name is something like “Picks His Nose In Car” or “Enjoys The Smell Of Her Own Flatulence.”

I would carry around copies of Disney’s Pocahontas and ask people if they’d seen it because it is so good.

The actor in this iconic advertisement? Italian. True story.

I would dedicate myself to my schooling and then apply to every scholarship I could so I could get in to an Ivy League school, probably Yale.  I would tell people I was only half Indian, maybe a quarter.  I’d completely cut off ties to my tribe and home.  I’d try to get in to a secret society, like Skull & Bones.  I’d start going to a mainstream Christian church.  I’d get a law degree, and run for congress.  I’d do nothing controversial and learn clever sound-bites.  Then, after a short but charming time in congress, I’d run for president on a bland, non-threatening platform.   Then, when I’d won the election and had been sworn in, I’d show up to my inaugural speech in full traditional tribal dress and say, “Well, well, well… look who’s in charge of the big army now…”

I would hate the shit out of white people.