This morning, I found a photo slide show of a homeless suburb in Kansas City, literally underground. It's not accompanied with any broader report, at that page - just photos - but I think it's a keynote worth remarking of. It's since been dispersed by local authorities - and I simply hope that the local shelters would be able to take up those who have been displaced with that.
After the squiggly glyph: Addressing the concept of being indigenous, in this modern world.
(This article's first draft was written in a comment to a recent Open thread for night owls)
After the item of news from Kansas City, what I wish to remark of is this: Considering that a homeless population may, in some sense, have qualities of being indigenous to the city, I wonder in a broader sense, such that may be keynotedhomelessness, globally, but to take a sidebar, briefly - I wonder: What is the meaning of the concept of being indigenous, in today's modern world?
The concept of being indigenous is a concept that I myself first heard addressed in a direct manner, by William McDonough, in his speech, Cradle-to-Cradle Design, for Stanford's Center for Social Innovation, in all of the social entrepreneurialism knowledge capital on the modern web. If it's a concept I've ever been remotely familiar with otherwise, I'm afraid it would sound as if I was pandering, if I denote that I once attended a Native American History class in City College, taught by a real Native American Woman. Furthermore, in having recently moved across a broad part of the country, I mean the US, I had the opportunity to see a number of reservations, and I tried to be mindful of all the heritage and modern life of the same.
How does one define the concept, Indigenous, when the concept must be addressed into a modern setting, for its modern significance? Is the same kind of "there to stay" point of view that McDonough represents, in that speech? Are there not more facets to an indigenous identity? (I think, if one may define a concept as such, but not make a static product of the definition, then maybe it can serve to avoid further instances of the pitfalls of radicalization.)
So, then, I wonder, in my thinking: What about "Us mutts", we who are of varied and distant ethnic heritage, in these generations so far removed from any of the multiple indigenous origins of our families? Can we begin to renew a concept of being indigenous in such a way that it might in any way include "Us"? without taking the Brave New World angle, of the narrator in Huxley's famous old novel? without pandering? without being radicalized, and without radicalizing the discussion? Can we be indigenous, can we all be indigenous, in this modern world? can we not?
Endnote:
With the question, "Can we not?" I do not wish to radicalize the discussion, at that, either. Perhaps I should reevaluate my own "Dramatic style," in writing. If anything, I would wish to denote that the discussion may have at least two sides, and maybe more than two "sides."