Reading Response 10/06

Anzaldua writes about the fact that "White America" has suppressed the indigenous by taking what comprises the natives and sort of re-branding it and taking credit for it. She talks about the whites stealing music and art work and calling it something new when the reality of it is that it is deeply rooted in the people who originally created it. She mentions that, "White America has only attended the body of the earth in order to exploit it"(186), and to be honest I think she's completely right. (In most aspects) She makes a very valid point which is, "..people, have cut themselves off from their spiritual roots."(186) If you've ever studied the Aztecs, Incas or any other indigenous people, you can see similarities between beliefs, music and art.Now everything is very uniform and it would appear that only finite principals really separate humans now.

In, "Fast Speaking Woman", by Anne Waldman, we see the same idea of self identification. Waldman makes this quite clear in the way in which she structures her poem. By having almost every sentence being , "I'm", the idea of people (women in specific) knowing who they are is really forced upon the read. Like I said, I agree with the idea that foreign conquest somewhat ruined humanity. The oppression that was forced upon natives caused people to lose sight of who they really are and what they truly believe in, and Waldman seems to be trying to make a case against that in a way. But, at the same time she sees both sides of the situation and we know this because she mentions Maria Sabina saying, "From the moment the foreigners arrived, the saint children lost their purity". (180) 

All this being said I agree with Waldman when she is talking about poets and says, "...but sometimes, because they're available as 'antennae of the race', they can receive or tap into energy sources someone else might be deaf or impervious to".(181) Poets are some of the only people who are in sync with themselves because they're here to observe not to follow. Poets see things other people can't see, which is why when reading poetry, everyone will have different opinions on the piece at hand, but that's the beauty of poetry. Poets force everyone to be themselves. No one is ever wrong about poetry because it's how you interpret it. The idea of thinking for yourself is what I feel most people today lack. Social media has this grasp on society today and in a sense is the new "foreigner", tainting the minds of the people. Everyone is too busy following the latest "trends" on twitter, tumblr and facebook that they forget to live life, and in a way, possibly have the opportunity to discover the next big thing, or "trend".