{"id":239,"date":"2021-02-17T19:25:36","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T00:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/?p=239"},"modified":"2021-02-18T15:27:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T20:27:16","slug":"self-worth-in-queer-two-spirit-indigenous-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/2021\/02\/17\/self-worth-in-queer-two-spirit-indigenous-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Worth in Queer & Two-Spirit Indigenous Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walt Whitman views himself as the poet of America; in \u201cSong of Myself,\u201d he uses his poetic voice to embody different minorities and tell their stories. Whitman asserts his right to existence without explanation or compromise in the line: \u201cI exist as I am, that is enough\/ If no other in the world be aware I sit content\/ And if each and all be aware I sit content\u201d (Whitman 413-415). In this\u00a0<\/span>quot<\/span>e, Whitman claims his very being as worthy; this worthiness is independent\u00a0<\/span>of standard<\/span>s of societal acceptability. The sentiment that individual worthiness\u00a0<\/span>should be\u00a0<\/span>something that one does not have to prove,\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>something that others can<\/span>not<\/span>\u00a0take away, is echoed in a sentence from\u00a0<\/span>Qwo<\/span>-Li Driskill\u2019s Introduction to<\/span>\u00a0Sovereign\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Erotics<\/span><\/i>: \u201c<\/span>Sovereign\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Erotics<\/span><\/i> is for those who- like so many of us- had no role models, no one to tell us that we were valuable human beings just as we were\u201d (Driskill 1). Driskill claims in <\/span>their<\/span>\u00a0book, published over 150 years after \u201cSong of Myself,\u201d that queer and two-spirit Native Americans\u00a0<\/span>have not had the freedom<\/span>\u00a0to internalize the ideas Whitman embraces in his poem. This forces us to call into question Whitman\u2019s authority as the true American voice, and as someone who can speak for minority groups such as queer Indigenous people. Th<\/span>e<\/span>\u00a0distinction<\/span>\u00a0between the two quotes<\/span>\u00a0also brings to attention the nuances that come along with race and self-acceptance in queer communities.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The differences in the pronouns<\/span>\u00a0used in each quote reveals<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>further\u00a0<\/span>differences between Whitman\u2019s version of queer self-worth and Driskill\u2019s version. Whitman states, <\/span>in regard to<\/span>\u00a0his self-worth, \u201cif no other in the world be aware I sit content\u201d (Whitman 414). Whitman addresses his audience from a first-person perspective, continuously declaring his individual worth;\u00a0<\/span>he\u00a0<\/span>does not need others to be accepting of him and draws his feelings of value from a place inside of himself. In contrast, Driskill uses the pronouns “us” and “we” in the quote. Driskill directly states that the intended audience for <\/span>their<\/span>\u00a0book a<\/span>re people\u00a0<\/span>who have shared the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>lived experience<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>of being\u00a0<\/span>Native\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>queer; this address to the audience about shared worthiness is purposeful. <\/span>Driskill claims that providing others with a source of self-worth is not only important, but the reason that they contributed to the book. Whitman does not need anyone to recognize his worth, but Driskill asserts the necessity of providing a community of role models as a source of worth for others.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walt Whitman views himself as the poet of America; in \u201cSong of Myself,\u201d he uses his poetic voice to embody different minorities and tell their stories. Whitman asserts his right to existence without explanation or compromise in the line: \u201cI exist as I am, that is enough\/ If no other in the world be aware … Continue reading Self-Worth in Queer & Two-Spirit Indigenous Communities<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4649,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}