The Most Racist Thing I've Seen Today

[Recovering]

(02-26-2012 01:39 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  Not that Indians weren't, in many cases, ruthless savages...

First of all, "Indians" refers to a vast assortment of people groups, many of whom had little in common with each other. Second, it's pretty difficult to know much with certainty about our native forbears. What written records we have from the time were often composed by people who feared the natives or wanted to justify further expansion. Then, of course, you have conquerors who wanted to make themselves look "better" to the folks back home. Plus, we have some evidence now that western diseases may have preceded the westerners themselves, meaning that groups that appeared nomadic and possession-less may have been actually dealing with massive population losses.

[lucrezaborgia]

(02-26-2012 08:54 PM)Recovering Wrote:  Plus, we have some evidence now that western diseases may have preceded the westerners themselves, meaning that groups that appeared nomadic and possession-less may have been actually dealing with massive population losses.

Colonization also displaced Indigenous people even further which made situations chaotic and unstable for tribes in uncolonized areas.

[elfdream]

Its amusing to be a rez born card carrying Native American and to be reading all this. I might have more to say about this tomorrow when I can get to a computer and off this Nook.

[Recovering]

(02-26-2012 10:29 PM)elfdream Wrote:  Its amusing to be a rez born card carrying Native American and to be reading all this. I might have more to say about this tomorrow when I can get to a computer and off this Nook.

I would be really interested in hearing what you have to say.

[Apathetic or whatever]

Well, I know I was always a heretic for never thinking John Wayne was all that great of an actor. I had never read about his background though. Wow, he was an idiot. Some of the stuff he said about African Americans was despicable as well.
It looks like he was a member of the John Birch Society as well. So, he was all kinds of slime.

You should question your FB friend as to why he is quoting an article from Playboy. Does he have lots of back issues laying around?

[Tiarali]

(02-27-2012 01:38 AM)Apathetic or whatever Wrote:  You should question your FB friend as to why he is quoting an article from Playboy. Does he have lots of back issues laying around?

Bahahaha!

[elfdream]

First off I'm only going to speak mostly of the Cherokees because those are 'my' people.

The Cherokees had a representative government. The people from the various towns would ELECT representatives for the Great Council which was held once a year. Google The Iroquois Confederacy. The Cherokees were not part of this but operated along very similar lines. This was before the Europeans showed up. In other words there was a civilization already here. Our own founding fathers borrowed a lot from them so if people claim that nothing good came of the Native traditions show them this.

Women in Cherokee society owned the property and the rights to the children. They belonged to her clan and her sons were taught by her brothers and other male relatives. The clans were matriarchal and Cherokee women never had any kind of idea that they should 'submit' to the men in their lives but at the same time they did not 'rule' over them either which to me always was at odds with the idea that one or the other 'must' be the ruler in the home. The men had certain powers and the women had certain powers and it worked for them. White men seemed to find something attractive about them because they kept marrying them! Oh..and women served on their councils as well. No big deal.

Cherokees were also the ones who were most easily converted to Christianity mainly because they were already monotheists and Christianity seemed to be a continuation of many things they already believed. They even had a go between/mediator between this world and the spirit world...but he was a Wolf. Wolves were sacred...you never killed a wolf. They even had what appears to be a concept of a Trinity.

They were highly intelligent and had their own written language. In other words these people were civilized.

And I think John Wayne was overrated...

Anything else anyone would like to know?

[lucrezaborgia]

(02-27-2012 07:57 AM)elfdream Wrote:  The Cherokees had a representative government. The people from the various towns would ELECT representatives for the Great Council which was held once a year. Google The Iroquois Confederacy. The Cherokees were not part of this but operated along very similar lines. This was before the Europeans showed up. In other words there was a civilization already here. Our own founding fathers borrowed a lot from them so if people claim that nothing good came of the Native traditions show them this.

(snip)

Cherokees were also the ones who were most easily converted to Christianity mainly because they were already monotheists and Christianity seemed to be a continuation of many things they already believed. They even had a go between/mediator between this world and the spirit world...but he was a Wolf. Wolves were sacred...you never killed a wolf. They even had what appears to be a concept of a Trinity.

They were highly intelligent and had their own written language. In other words these people were civilized.

I'm currently taking a class on the Iroquois nation and last semester I took a class on Native Americans in film. From what I learned in the film class, the Cherokee were extremely 'civilized' according to US Government standards back in the day. They were one of the most integrated tribes and had extremely good relations with American settlers. The only reason they were removed from their lands was greed.

Most of our ideas of Native Americans being savages are from the late 1800's when they were increasingly marginalized. Over and over the US broke treaties or signed new treaties under fraudulent pretenses. Then they put tribes onto smaller and smaller plots of land that were of extremely poor quality and therefore unable to sustain large numbers of people, even with farming. Was it any real surprise that the tribes decided to say 'fuck you' to the government and wage war? Propaganda was used fairly well against Native Americans in the 19th century and it helped fuel the support for wholesale slaughter.

[dramaturge]

(02-26-2012 01:31 PM)MKxcomm Wrote:  Bummer. I guess John Wayne was an asshole then.

Here's the thing: Wayne was an actor and a human. He played a lot of strong, noble cowboys (yes, I know there were inherent flaws in the character development of some of the roles and storylines, but that goes along with the rest of what I'm going to say), but he was a man who played those roles. He was not those men. That said, Wayne (and his roles) was very much a product of his time. The man was born in 1907. Think about the environment and philosophical context of his youth and life. That's always the problem I have with either carrying a banner around with statements from that time period to justify racism or using those statements to overly demonize people from that time. Yes, he's wrong and narrow-minded and racist. But overly demonizing him for it is akin to demonizing Teddy Roosevelt for having an interest in eugenics--it was seen as credible science at the time. Social context is important. And when people quote this type of thing as a justification of shitty attitudes about other people, they betray an ignorance of everything surrounding that. It wasn't a noble thing or a correct thing for Wayne to say because he was influenced by an entire social philosophy that was desperately ignoble and really heinous. I won't say that justifies his statement, but I don't know that I'd call the man an asshole for it. When my 94 year old grandmother slips and uses the term "colored," I give her a pass too. After all, she spent her formative years in a segregated world and never has quite escaped the clutches of that social philosophy, esp now that's she's kind of an old coot. haha.

Now. the Facebook poster is an ignoramus, and I'd be willing to call him an asshole for it. There's no excuse for that kind of ignorance today. He lives in a very small circle of thought, I'd guess, and that's shameful. It's too easy to expose yourself to the truth these days to still think things like that. Even my dad, who has in that last couple of years decided Glenn Beck is super cool, is very aware of the tremendous wrongs done to native tribes by the American government (and inhabitants, yes, but I think the government betrayals and actions were far worse and far more meaningfully so). So yeah, while I'm willing to excuse Wayne as a old coot man of his time, I'm not willing to excuse anyone these days.

[artsim]

http://rt.com/news/stone-age-america-arc...gists-445/

A current theory now seems to be that Native Americans were Europeans from a much earlier migration. Traditional theory was that they were Asian immigrants. Apparently we are all immigrants.