Episode 62

The air in the small, crowded room hummed with a nervous energy, a mix of anticipation and the familiar ache of being misunderstood. We were gathered, a small but determined group, to discuss the pervasive, insidious nature of prejudice. It wasn’t just about the overt acts of hatred, though those were searingly real, but about the quiet, everyday ways in which Indigenous people are diminished, overlooked, and cast aside in their own lands.

“It’s like we’re ghosts,” murmured Lena, a woman whose laughter usually filled any space she occupied, but today her voice was heavy with weariness. “People look through you, or they see an image, a caricature, but not a person.”

I nodded, my heart aching in sympathy. I had experienced it myself, the dismissive glances, the hushed whispers, the assumptions made based on nothing more than the color of my skin. And I had heard the stories, the raw, unfiltered accounts from those who had faced outright hostility, like the incident Amy had recounted in Episode 26, the dry cleaners in Tooele, Utah. The memory of those exact words, “We don’t want Your kind around here. You’re nothing but a filthy savage the only good savage is a **** savage,” still had the power to make her flinch, even years later. It was a wound that refused to close, a stark reminder of the deep-seated hatred that festered beneath a veneer of civility.