How does it feel to be treated as a cultural artifact–or to be turned into a sports team’s mascot? Find out by reading Debbie Reese‘s fascinating contribution to the Writers Against Racism series. Here’s a glimpse:
In the United States, children are taught by well-meaning adults to love Indians, but that ‘love’ is for ‘the white man’s Indian’ — something that is a fiction created by people who are not themselves Indian. This imagery was and IS deeply entrenched in the American mind. It gets recycled year after year in children’s books. It includes love of:
1) the savage Indian who was conquered by courageous settlers,
2) the brave Indian who courageously fought but, in the end, lost to settlers,
3) the noble Indian who cared for the earth but no longer exists because his people were defeated by the settlers.
4) the beautiful Indian princess or heroine whose actions helped the settlers.
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I’m so glad you and she posted this. Prejudice against Native Americans is still pretty virulent in my experience, living in Wisconsin and Arizona. And people from Illinois – they won’t even discuss “Chief Illiniwek” – it makes them too mad. (You would think they would be embarrassed to be mad!)
Even George Washington, who was coming to see the light about slaves (he: well, okay, but, not till after I’m dead, okay?) hated Native Americans with a passion, and helped promulgate some of the stereotypes we, as a country, still hold.
Here in Arizona, there is an epidemic of diabetes among the N.A.s, but no money for them, and no one much cares. Unemployment rates are outrageous. Non-N.A.s regard them as “stealing” because of small fish allotments or casino money (a great deal of which they donate back to the state). The fact that 90% of N.A.s died during our westward quest and the way in which they died doesn’t seem to phase many people even when you inform them about it.
My first husband, part Cherokee, grew up in the most wretched poverty imaginable, from which both parents were dead by the time he was seven. He himself died from diabetes and alcoholism, the latter seeming perfectly reasonable to me (albeit unfortunate and unpleasant and ultimately lethal) considering what he had endured as a child.
Yes, I could go on and on! But anyway, thank you for the post!
I’m so sorry to hear about your first husband, Rhapsody; it’s very painful to watch someone you love self-destruct. My older brother’s an alcoholic, and he had a child with a First Nations woman in Manitoba…I’m not in touch with my brother, but often wonder about my nephew, growing up mixed-race on a reservation. I only hear negative things about conditions on reservations, but I’m hoping my knowledge is just incomplete…I really appreciated the recent PBS series, We Shall Remain–a good reminder that First Nations people DID survive, and do thrive when given an opportunity and the support all communities deserve…
When I saw the Disney movie Pocahontas, I couldn’t figure out why Pocahontas would pick John Smith, over Kocoum. He was much cuter. I keep on screaming his name and other things at the screen
Zetta, did you hear about the controversy this year with Patricia Wrede’s new YA book Thirteenth Child. Its a sci fi about the settling of the U.S. Though it is steeped in some fact, like I believe Lewis and Clark are mentioned, if not then other famous explorers. However there are no Native American in this novel.
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=26059
When I came upon this article I felt so bad because I had just finished the book and didn’t noticed this awful exculsion.
There was a big discussion on the Child_Lit listserv and I followed along a little…I want to say that people of color need to be better allies to Native Americans, but I know that wearing a button doesn’t count for much. I’m writing an Indian character into the sequel to Wish and *really* want to get it right–both the actual history, and the complexity of blacks’ relationships with Native Americans.
Zetta, do you feel you need to let a few Native Americans read the parts with a Native American character, for authenticity?
Definitely–not only Native Americans, but scholars and authors who’ve gotten it right in their books…
Thanks, Zetta! Pointing you and your readers to my post about Wrede’s book:
http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2009/06/patricia-wredes-thinking-as-she-wrote.html
Debbie
Thanks for the link, Debbie–and what a brilliant strategy, using her own words; hard to believe she put all that OUT THERE and NO ONE called her on it…