Term paper cites Blue Corn Comics

The right to exist; An issue of discrimination towards Native AmericansThe key problem to this stereotypical outlook in today's society can be traced back to the education system. Children are taught at an early age that Native Americans are a race that runs around in buckskins and feathers and come home to their teepees at night. This is done by teaching them myths about the Natives with songs like Ten Little Indians (which was a song used to teach settler children how to count by counting the dead bodies of the slaughtered Native Americans). Children are then taught to "Sit Indian style" and to act out Thanksgiving plays based on myths and lies. Such groups as the Boy/Girl Scouts, Indian Guides, and Indian Princesses reinforce racist behavior with so called "authentic dances" to Hollywood war drums and then finish the day with building teepee villages.

The example of what these seemingly harmless jokes and games teach our young people can be described simply in a quote of an 8th grader when writing about his school mascot. -- "We simply chose an Indian as the emblem. We could have just as easily chosen any uncivilized animal." -1997

So what harm does having an Indian mascot or teaching your children Ten Little Indians do? As mentioned before it dehumanizes the Native Americans, encouraging racism and creating a hostile environment in school and in the workplace. Many Native American children are forced to go to a school that depicts them as inhuman myths, where they often are plagued with bullying, derogatory remarks, and low self-esteem. My own personal experiences can speak for the Native American children who are often physically and verbally abused by both peers and teachers.And:The media is another large reason why so much prejudice is still in existence. Hollywood in itself has been a driving force behind the misconceptions of American Indians. The most common depiction of Indian women are as sex objects and Indian men as fierce and bloody warriors.

The movie Pocahontas has history completely wrong. Pocahontas was only a child when John Smith came to America and she never saved his life. The Road to El Dorado is even worse. Not only is the heroine of the movie a Native American prostitute but the priest of the culture is depicted as evil. The Spaniards slaughtered thousands of people when the came to the Americas, yet the movie depicts the Spaniards as fun loving heroes. The movie is subtly saying that the Native American culture is evil and the dominant Spanish culture of the time is good.

It could be compared to a movie made on the Jewish Holocaust, where the war camps are holiday vacation resorts and the Nazi's are fun loving heroes who happen to have a Jewish prostitute following them around while an evil Rabbi is trying to make a major power grab.

Since most people get their information from the movies, coupled with the fact that history books either sugar coat the events, skip over them, or make flat out lies, people spend the rest of their lives believing the lies as truths.Comment:  Would a student have written a paper like this when I was in school? Not likely.

Glad to know youngsters are benefiting from the accumulated facts and evidence on my website. They're the ones who will change the world.