Wasichu Quotes

“Now some entrepreneurs from Connecticut, and the East generally, want to turn our reservation into a garbage dump. The wasichu have already given us smallpox, measles, and whiskey, and now they want to bury us in their waste.”
― Mary Brave Bird, Ohitika Woman

“I am sick and tired of all the bullshit that has been dumped on us by the wasichu for more than five hundred years after we were “discovered” by a fellow who was merely eight thousand miles off course and who thought he had landed in India. I am tired of being dominated by an alien and hostile culture. I am tired of the pressure to adapt to the white men’s idea of beauty, which prods me to have an ivory skin, to be as thin as a rail but have big breasts, to spend money on all kinds of crap to have “glorious silky hair,” to be manicured by a “nail artist,” and to shave the hair nature made grow under my armpits. I am sick and tired of being asked to conform to standards that are not our own. I am sick and tired of being forced to live within a society dominated by money, or in the case of us native peoples, by the total lack of it. I am sick and tired of seeing our men driven by despair, boredom, and lack of anything meaningful to do to find oblivion in alcohol, to commit suicide, or to end up in prison. I am sick and tired of seeing Indian people being driven by prevailing conditions into violence against each other. I am sick and tired of seeing the steady erosion of our land base, because without our land we will cease to be. I am goddam sick and tired of being put down on account of my sex and my race. I am sick and tired of the newspapers read by Indians running ads that say: “Strong, willing girl sought as live-in baby sitter and all-around maid. Must be sober and accommodating. Call collect.” What’s the matter? Could they be running out of our black sisters to do the shitwork for them? And I am also sick and tired of ads reading: “Loving couple eager to adopt cute, healthy baby boy.”
― Mary Brave Bird, Ohitika Woman