My small contribution to Native American Heritage Month on Halloween costumes.
A lovely young women came up to me last week.
"Hey, I wanted to see you before Halloween, my daughter went trick or treating as an Indian and I wanted to talk to you about that."
"Well I don't like to speak for Native Americans, I'm just a good old Pennsylvania 'white Indian', but since I'm all you got; I do have friends who don't like that sort of thing."
"Oh, I meant to say 'Native American'."
"No, that's not the problem."
"But she wanted to be Sacagawea."
"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. You should lead with that. Sacagawea is a person not a people."
"I'm not sure I understand the difference."
"Would you let her go halloweening as a Jew?"
"Ah"
"How about as an Afro-american?"
"Aha, I got it."
It's strange how people don't see that. Probably has something to do with the "cowboys and Indians" thing. Sort of a false equivalence there. Contrary to some country songs, nobody was ever born a cowboy.
So I'll get 'em one person at a time if I have to.