Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity

Chapter 6 considers divisions within races and other communities and contends that all races must fight against white supremacy. The introduction to this chapter describes an example of community divisions they witnessed during a meeting with elders from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These elders spoke proudly about being “full-blooded”—a label that comes from the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, which declared that the US government could take land from a tribe if it didn’t fulfill the blood requirement. Being full-blooded meant protection for one’s people, culture, language, and land, but the authors suggest that the pride some Indigenous Americans take in it is grounded in white supremacy. The authors contend that everyone must tackle white supremacy, but this collective struggle does not mean everyone is the same or will understand each other’s experiences or perspectives.

In the first of the 11 interviews, Mareo discusses the Black community’s colorism. He also discusses division as rooted in efforts by enslavers to divide enslaved people so they couldn’t rebel (a footnote details Willie Lynch’s speech on the matter, “The Making of a Slave”). Mareo is Tulsa’s Black Lives Matter president, and he addresses the high numbers of Black inmates, his own experiences in prison, racism by police, the importance of activism, and violence within the Black community.