Politically Incorrect: On Owning

Owning things is what white people's lives are about. From the first you are told, "This is mine, this is yours;" "Don't touch that, it doesn't belong to you." You are told to keep away from things because of ownership, not because of respect. In the old days we never had locks on our doors. There was no stealing, but if someone was hungry, they could go in your house and get food. Why didn't people take things? Because of respect.

You build fences around your yards and pay money for people to measure the ground to tell you if your neighbor's fence is one inch too close to your house. You give nothing away unless you can get something in return. Everything is economic. No wonder white people need such big houses. They aren't to live in, they are to store things in.

We believed everything was a gift, and that a good man or woman shared those gifts. Good people thought that they should give, not that they should get. We didn't measure people by rich or poor. We didn't know how. When times were good everyone was rich. When times were bad everyone was poor. We measured people by how they shared.

Things are important when we need them. If we don't need them, they're not important. Our ancestors believed that you owned something only so long as you needed it. Then you passed it to someone else.

In our way, everything had its use, then it went back into the earth. We had wooden bowls and cups, or things made of clay. We rode horses or walked. We made things out of the things of the earth. Then when we no longer needed them, we would burn them or leave them, and they would go back into the earth. Now we can't. Now things don't go back into the earth.