Individual Seminar Prep: Native American History
Part 1: History
1. Sift through the Edmodo seminar on the Zinn chapters and pick three seminar questions that you think are particularly thought-provoking. Write them down. Ask them during seminar.
Part 2: Modern Day (The media and Native American Identity)
1. In what ways do the media shape Native American identities today? Cite examples from Reel Injun, Alexie’s stories and/or the Dartmouth student essays that show the stereotypes and their effect on Native American’s personal identities and Western culture’s perception of Native Americans.
1. Sift through the Edmodo seminar on the Zinn chapters and pick three seminar questions that you think are particularly thought-provoking. Write them down. Ask them during seminar.
- Is it morally just to ignore certain dark facts about idolized figures in our education system (like Jackson or Columbus) in order to "protect" our children from the harsh aspects of life? Why or why not?
- Do you think that the settlers were so brutal with the Indians not because they couldn't live alongside them, but because they were jealous of their prospering society?
- What would the different justice philosophers think of the settler’s treatment of the Natives? Would any of them approve of this treatment to the Indians?
- Would we’ve still destroyed the Native American society if our belief system was not based on monetary happiness (i.e., our lust for money and power)?
- Don’t trust just one source of information, always dig deeper and get more than one perspective. Ex, our idolization of Jackson and Columbus. “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors and navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity, but an ideological choice. It serves--unwittingly--to justify what was done” (Ch 1, pg 9).
- We are scared of what we don’t understand. Ex, our treatment of Indians as “savages” simply because we didn’t understand their unique culture, “In the villages of the Iroquois, land was owned in common and worked in common. Hunting was done together, and the catch was divided among the members of the village. Houses were considered common property and were shared by several families. The concept of private ownership of land and homes was foreign to the Iroquois. A French Jesuit priest who encountered them in the 1650s wrote: "No poor houses are needed among them, because they are neither mendicants nor paupers.. . . Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to possess hardly anything except in common." Women were important and respected in Iroquois society. Families were matrilineal” (Ch1, pg 20).
- It is in human nature to always want to be on top. Like in the story with the scorpion and the fox, where the scorpion ends up stinging the fox, resulting in their death. The scorpion simply states that it “was in his nature.” Human nature is that of the desire for power and dominance, even when it isn’t necessary. Ex, the indian chief speaking to John Smith, “What will you take by force what you may have quietly by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food?” (Ch 1, pg 13)
Part 2: Modern Day (The media and Native American Identity)
1. In what ways do the media shape Native American identities today? Cite examples from Reel Injun, Alexie’s stories and/or the Dartmouth student essays that show the stereotypes and their effect on Native American’s personal identities and Western culture’s perception of Native Americans.
- As shown in Reel Injun, when the great depression hit in the 30s, the media shifted to stereotype Indians as savages and being nothing more and animals. This can be seen in the movie example Stagecoach were the savage indians were chasing after an innocent white family with only one goal...kill. This, at the time, lead society to think of Indians as “shifty” characters that will try to double-cross and cheat you. In Bennet's story, “I felt overly cautious when my white friends were “causing trouble.” Because I was the only Indian, I was often singled out as the troublemaker” (Bennett 141). When the character in “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” when the guy was driving around an upper class white neighborhood and the police officer pulled him over and told him, “You’re making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood” (Alexie 183).
- Media has also taken to portraying all Indians as being drunks, such as when Bennetts coach told his sports teammates to not let him “hang out in the fraternity basements, because his people have a big problem with alcoholism. I want to you watch out for him” (Bennett 147). Now even if there may be some truth in a stereotype, this constant reminding often leads people to believe that that’s what they really are, a drunk.
- Studying the history of Native Americans and the United States has allowed me to better understand why certain laws in modern times are in place, like Affirmative Action. At first, I didn’t understand why we would give some people preference for colleges or jobs even if they might not be qualified, but now I understand that the point of this law is to make-up for the past US Federal Government’s treatment of Native Americans, like when they were deemed to be “untamable and hostile” and that the government should, “send troops against them in the winter, the sooner the better, and whip them into subjection. THey richly merit punishment for their incessant warfare, and their numerous murders of white settlers and their families, or when men wherever found unarmed” (Cameron page 2, paragraph 1). So now it makes sense that “Affirmative action is used as a means to end systemic discrimination and the perpetuation of undesirable living standards of Native Americans” (Affirmative action brief page 1, paragraph 2).
- Robert Bennett talks about how, “Success in the white world has always been easy for me. My accomplishments never surprised me because they were enjoyable and relatively effortless” (p.136). It was easy for him to make friends and to get good grades. However, Marianne Chamberlain talks about how during her graduation, will her parents, “understand how hard it was to make it through? Will they see the pain that I have endured and the rears that I have shed just to walk up to that podium to receive a single sheet of paper?” (p.154). Both when to the same school, yet Marianne got rapped and ostricided, while Bennett was popular and glided through with ease. Do we treat certain minorities differently based on gender? Or do we treat everyone the same and some just handle situations better than others?
- Marianne Chamberlain speaks of how, “There is a web, intricate and beautiful, that weaves itself around everyone and through everything. It is through this web that knowledge, strength, and humility are earned. Though the lessons contained therein may seem isolated and unkind, it is through these testat that we come to realize who we are and why we are here” (p.154). How is this web similar to Alexie’s concept of skeletons, how is it different?
- When Alexie talks about skeletons in “A Drug Called Tradition,” he talks about how, “What you have to do is keep moving, keep walking, in step with your skeletons. They ain’t ever going to leave you, so you don’t have to worry about that. Your past ain’t going to fall behind, and your future won’t get too far ahead. Sometimes, though, your skeletons will talk to you, tell you to sit down and take a rest, breathe a little, Maybe they’ll make you promises, tell you all the things you want to hear” (p.22). How has J.D. Cameron’s letter to the president interact with skeletons, how did he handle his skeletons? Also, Alexie believes that Native Americans need to learn from their past skeletons, but what lessons can the United States learn form their skeletons; how do these lessons apply to Affirmative Action?