A party was announced at a house as previously described. There was an acid-rock garage band playing Doors and Jefferson Airplane covers on a makeshift stage. The band stopped for a bare-chested character all war-painted up in the best Jerry Reuben or Abby Hoffmann fashion. As he started his pitch Juanita, a.k.a. Etta (very drunk), was so pissed the music stopped that she slammed into the placebo warrior and knocked him over shouting, “You ain’t no Injun! I’m a mother fuckin’ Injun! You got no right to wear the war-paint you wanna-be… you white boy!” It was tragic because it was the truth meeting infantile posturing. Truth and politics; i.e., infantile posturing, don’t mix and when they do try to it is always a betrayal of one sort or another.None of the activists knew what to do. It wouldn’t be right to shut up a real oppressed minority or red-blooded drunken Indian. They stood there in a circle around her and tried to talk her down but she wouldn’t have any of it. I left as the police were pulling up and that was about as much as I wanted of Berkeley politics.
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