Privacy rights -- and a way on how to handle those who push too far

(Fairly widely posted)

Personal privacy in this country and in many others is perennially under attack -- especially in recent times.  That is a now a massive and systemic and cultural issue.  

Long time ago in my firefighting days, I often worked on fires with young Navajo and Hopi guys, sometimes a few Apaches as well.  I got some good advice on privacy protection from a Hopi buddy, whose "American" name was Dalton Taylor, some years older than my 16 and 17 years. More on that in a moment.

I have always held my personal privacy -- and privacy rights in general -- as a super high priority. And I consistently respect that of all others.  On the whole, I am pretty free and open.  But there are certain matters about which I say little or nothing: some conventional stuff relating to family, and some matters concerning friends and students -- those still living and those who have passed, some experiential things which most might even find commendable, promises of secrecy of various kinds.  Nothing nefarious as seen by almost all people of all inclinations, but personal stuff of various genres that I simply don't care to discuss and which I don't.  

Occasionally, I've made reference to what I call "The Wild West Ethic."  I grew up with that -- and it boils down to "Don't ask personal questions of anyone."  That includes personal names and the locations where someone is from -- and a number of other things.  Much of that remains deeply embedded and practiced in the West -- the West of mountains and plains.  In other parts of the country, with many individual exceptions, it's different -- people often pry.  Sometimes blatantly, shamelessly.  Sometimes it's well meant, sometimes not.

The same privacy ethic is deeply rooted and prevalent in Native settings.  I grew up with that, too.  Usually someone in those circles will identify himself of herself by name (at least one of his or her names) and tribal background. And sometimes one's clan is given. The geographical location in the 'States or Canada isn't really all that important in Native America.

Visiting once on a by-then fairly subdued forest fire, Dalton, other Hopis, and some Navajos, and myself were shooting the breeze.  Dalton was talking about anthropologists, the pushy type.  "When they come around with their tape recorders and ask too damn much," he said, "especially about the sacred things, we quietly ask they not to do that.  But if they keep doing it, keep asking, we either stop talking -- or just give them a lot of harmless bull.  And they take all of that back to wherever they come from."

Very appreciative chuckles from the other Hopis and the Navajos and me.

And I've always remembered that from Dalton very well indeed -- when some people have pushed too far.

Hunter Bear

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
 the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
 ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm