America has always had humans living here. Just that statement usually puts typical Americans on the defensive. They would rather set store in European genocidal maniacs, that they have no connection to, or far flung improvable anthropological theories. Society clings to those grade school coloring pages rather than acknowledge the existence of the other Nations that are held within their American borders. I sometimes wonder about the real reason behind wanting to hold onto the fake American Indian mascots, caricatures, and tokens. I mean why deal with a human in front of you when a stuffed stereotype is easier to assert authority over, right?
When people are confronted by the fact that two large multi-National continents were full of non-immigrant POC (people of color) they have been taught to respond by saying, "not really, Asians came across an ice bridge." Or "Columbus "discovered" America." I never will understand how those two statements make more sense than eons of history left unwanted by society. I wish they knew more about the land they love and the people who inhabit it alongside them.
I think greed fuels this societal need to be more entitled or more deserving. Greed for what belongs to someone else, whether it be another's child, land, or just greed for greed's sake. Greed requires domination to see the end result of getting what it desires.
Domination is a powerful force to fight. Domination is what bullies want to feel when they crush the self esteem from our young people. Domination with the free permission to say what you want to those you want to conquer is a bully-dream. A bully won't just stop with saying what they want. They also want to do what they want.
They rape, they murder, and they fight to keep doing it. Nothing is better than a victim that already appears submissive. The higher numbers of non-Indian attacker rapes, the higher numbers of Native youth suicides and instances where Native youth harm themselves, and lowest life expectancy doesn't lie, even if greed-corrupt major league sports "polls" do!
It's not just the NFL, MLB, or other sports organizations that bathe in blood money, a phrase @EONMassoc (Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry-FB group) used to describe Mascotry profits. Hollywood has raked in the blood money too. Money made from pulling useless stereotypes off the script shelves instead of creating fully developed characters that more accurately represent American Indians. Hollywood just wants to keep redoing what's been done in the 1950's.
I'm curious what tired and lame excuse they can give for using racism in thier movies and making lots of money from it. I totally expect them to find a way to continue to not use Native American actors, writers, and artists. I expect them to celebrate how great their stereotypes have evolved in a country that loves to believe racism is gone just because MLK is. Mark my words Hollywood will continue it's #NativeBlackout and revamped stereotypes!
Meanwhile I will continue to enjoy Indian Country originals, #Project562, and my own creations. The truth is my children like my stories better anyway. My daughter would rather read my latest chapter than watch The Lone Ranger, because we are #NotYourTonto. We have never been.
Hollywood, you don't know who or what we are and let me give you a peek into what I mean. The Lone Ranger was meant to appeal to families that love Western lore and stories. People, like me, that read most Zane Grey books growing up. People, like me, that had Cherokee-Creek uncles who loved reading LOUIS L'AMOUR propped up in their favorite leather recliner wearing one of the several flannel shirts they owned with pearl buttons. People, like me, who had a Cherokee dad that grew up baling hay, watching his mom can fresh grown vegetables, and went on to drive big combine tractors over his wheat fields wearing a John Deer green hat. People, like me, whose husband reads Ralph Compton. Someone, like me, who saw Kenny Chesney at Billy Bobs in Fort Worth before he was famous and went to as many rodeos as pow-wows.
What you don't get is my son can sing beautifully the words to many a Tim McGraw or Alan Jackson song just as lovely as he can play his Native flute. We are the irony that is Indian Country. An irony you can neither handle or come to terms with. The same irony that made Will Rogers a cowboy, but a Cherokee. I am the person that grew up with three pictures hanging in the hallway of my house just past the window with pretty curtains from Dillards. The pictures were one oil painting of Sequoyah holding a quill, a print of Jesus waiting outside of a door, and the last picture was of our Cherokee-Creek family. I was the girl wearing a Sunday dress my mother bought for me off the rack at the mall and whose hair was in braids held by matching beaded hairties.
I have no problem reconciling my pow-wow pictures sitting next to my Disneyland pictures. I have no problem having A Tribe Called Red, Digging Roots, and Walela along with The Black-Eyed Peas, Journey, and George Straight on my iPhone playlist. I have no problem playing KINECT with my daughter and fixing Indian Tacos for lunch on a Saturday. I have no problem standing up and covering my heart while the band plays The Star-Spangled Banner which most chicken-feather-headress wearing mascot fans didn't know was written during the War of 1812. A war that two of my ancestors fought in. Yes, I wish they had shot Andrew Jackson in the Battle of Horshoe Bend. I love my debit card because I don't have to see that Cherokee baby-killer face on a twenty dollar bill.
I can handle having a modern day American Indian view of United States history, but Hollywood can't - you're 2000 and late. Hollywood, you can be comfortable having white directors and white make-up artists shackling our likeness up to token actors that get shot up John Wayne style until only the crazy freak-show Indian was left alive, but I can't. So which one of you "bright" studio producers can tell me if John Wayne's teeth are fake or real - wood or steel? (from Smoke Signals)
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