resistance to genocide. I learned about current resistance: A.I.M. and Alcatraz and the Wounded Knee occupation. I learned about people like Anna Mae Pictou Aquash and Leonard Peltier. Eventually, I met the Innu people of my own heritage, who have been currently engaged in a battle against the destruction of their land and way of life as they try to stop the building of a huge hydroelectric project, the Saint Marguerite 3 dam. These real people and real struggles began to cut through the stereotypes fostered by our culture, and help me to understand about Native American realities today.

In this way I began to see the vast differences between what was being promoted as "Native American spirituality" and what was actually true for Native peoples' lives. These differences are not something that can be corrected with more accurate recordings of ceremonies or better teachers. Rather, they are about content and underlying values. There are about power and history of colonialism.

It is important to look at the bigger context for these questions. We get used to thinking of ethics as an individual matter, where good intentions are uppermost, and right or wrong is something each of us choose. These are important, but there is another way of thinking about ethics which I find helpful here. That is social ethics – looking at the structures of society and their impact on people. The context here is structural racism.

Structural racism is a system of oppression in which the structures of society are operated and controlled by White people. Racism combines prejudice against people of color with political, economic, and social power over their lives. Racism is in the air we breathe. It is not so much about individual guilt or innocence, as it is an atmosphere of injustice with which we all have to reckon in some way.

We live in a colonialist society. It was built upon European theft of land, it was built by conquering and destroying nations of people already here, and it continues its assault on Native lands and culture. This isn't something we chose, but something we inherited, and thus have to reckon with.

It is in this context that Native Americans identify the use of Native symbols and ceremonies as cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is a form of racism. Cultural appropriation is a weapon in the process of colonization. Cultural appropriation is when a dominating or colonizing people take over the cultural and religious ceremonies and articles of a people experiencing domination or colonization. When Euro-Americans take Native American symbols and ceremonies and use them for our own purposes, we are participating in the process of colonization and destruction of Native culture.

Janet McCloud, Tulalip elder and fishing rights activist tells us, "First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game …Now they want our religions as well. All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they're medicine people. And they'll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks. It's not only wrong, it's obscene. Indians don't sell their spirituality to