“Leather and Naughahyde” by Marilyn Dumont
So, I'm having coffee with this treaty guy from up north and we're
laughing at how crazy ‘the mooniyaw’ are in the city and the con-
versation comes around to where I'm from, as it does in under-
ground languages, in the oblique way it does to find out someone's
status without actually asking, and knowing this, I say I'm Metis
like it’s an apology and he says, ‘mmh,’ like he forgives me, like
he’s got a big heart and mine's pumping diluted blood and his voice
has sounded well-fed up till this point, but now it goes thin like
he’s across the room taking another look and when he returns he’s
got ‘this look,’ that says he’s leather and I'm naughahyde.
Reprinted with permission from A Really Good Brown Girl (London: Brick, 1996, p. 58).
I relate to this so much; I also have the layer that I am #urban #metis and white in appearance with a #settler paternal heritage.
#Lateralviolence needs to stop. It was #colonialism that divided our people, not #Indigenous ourselves.
#marilyndumont #poetry #indigenouslit #canlit #identity