Oh, of course they are permitted to, Stilly, just as blacks, Native Americans, women, and everyone else is permitted to in a free society...and has the absolute right to. But there is a point when healthy self-assertion goes beyond the legitimate search for identity and equality into something decidedly nasty. I've seen it before and I'm seeing it now again. I have seen several groups of people whom I fervently supported move slowly from legitimate self-expression into obnoxious self-absorption. And they did it because they were so wrapped up in themselves that they started to feel morally superior to everyone who wasn't like them.

I saw it in the Native American political movement and it made me very, very sad, because I believed so much in what that culture stood for. It was awful seeing it taken over by fanatical, arrogant cranks with a chip on their shoulder who thought the ground was blessed just by them walking on it. They had reached the point where if you weren't Native...well, you were inferior. Nasty.

It was a violation of the very ideals they claimed to stand for...and they did not represent the majority of Native people...but boy did they get air time!!!