Benefit of the Doubt

Over the last few weeks, I've been taking a class on Native American history. The gist of some of the early readings has been that European portrayals of Native Americans have always told us a lot more about Europeans than they have about American Indians. 

At times when Europeans longed to escape the corruption and chaos of their own civilization, they portrayed Native Americans as "Noble Savages" whose rugged simplicity was to be admired. At times when Europeans and Native Americans were at war, Europeans portrayed Native Americans as ignoble, brutal, and uncivilized. Of course, neither portrayal was fully accurate and neither was how the Native Americans defined themselves. One theme I notice in the readings is that one of the greatest tasks of the historian is simply to allow Native Americans--and anyone else who might be under the historian's scrutiny--to define themselves to him on their own terms.

As human beings, we tend to project both our ideals and our shortcomings, our greatest hopes and worst fears, onto others. Allowing people to define themselves to us rather than superimposing our interpretation onto them is hard work. Even people who have the most intimate relationships with one another regularly misinterpret each other's actions and have to ask, "What did you mean by that?"

In the past, I have allowed both hope and fear to mislead me with regard to other people's words, actions, and motives. I have lost friendships by refusing to trust people. From now on, I want to allow people to tell me who they are. And when they do, I want to believe what they tell me.