May 10, 2009

Indigenous Holocaust video

"Not Ready to Make Nice":  Indigenous Music Video and Lessons of History

by Michelle RahejaMissy Whiteman’s music video “Indigenous Holocaust” (2008), featuring the work of hip hop artist Wahwahtay Benais and the Dixie Chicks (“Not Ready to Make Nice”), exemplifies how Indigenous media creates “virtual reservations.” These spaces open up imaginative sites where Indigenous people can contest, reconfigure, and revisit media representations. The clip opens with a blurry, ghostly figure that gradually focuses to reveal Benais, an Anishinabe musician. This shot reverses the dominant trope of the “vanishing Indian.” Benais emerges out of the shadows to narrate the story of Indigenous genocide and survival at federal boarding school in the U.S. and residential schools in Canada, a traumatic history that shapes contemporary Native American existence.

Benais utilizes the idioms of hip hop to Indigenous ends—his bling is an oversized handmade beaded and fringed medallion that features a black bear paw and his name against a white background and he’s accompanied by young men and women jogging in First Nations United t-shirts rather than in skimpy outfits. The lyrics of the song narrate the history of forcibly removing Native American children from the homes from the 18th through the 20th centuries and the kinds of physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual violence they endured (what Benais and Whiteman, an Arapaho/Kickapoo filmmaker and visual artist, refer to as an “Indigenous holocaust”). Contemporary, vibrant images of Benais are juxtaposed with archival photographs of children at schools such as Hampton and Carlisle, demonstrating how events that took place a hundred or more years ago still affect Native communities.


Comment:  Call me an old fogey, but I can't understand half of what this rapper is saying. If others agree, that suggests this video isn't likely to reach many people besides its core audience.

For more on the subject, see Native Videos and Cartoons.
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4 comments:

  1. Maria2:34 PM

    lol the video's fine. you're an old fogey.

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  2. Rob5:38 AM

    So you can understand every word of it? That's nice. Why don't you provide the lyrics for us so we can all enjoy it? ;-)

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  3. Simone Rene6:07 AM

    Lyrics are here -http://mahpe.lacoctelera.net/post/2009/01/26/indigenous-holocaust-feat-dixie-chicks

    The question is what is the intent of those who are involved in the video and what marketing are they doing to have it reach a wider range of viewers.

    I suspect that it, like much of what is produced today, will go through incarnations that will change the presentation as it goes along..one way or another it will reach the ears and eyes of those it is suppose to reach but more importantly it may open doors for more to come.

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  4. Anonymous3:44 PM

    To the many who may question the words and intent of the referent “Indigenous holocaust “ I say, listen with ears long unused, and you may hear ancestral voices whispering to ears that have long become obscured. Where , one may inquire, are such words of original ways of knowing?.
    Are they heard within altered forms of indigenous life, or among altered forms of indigenous governance, are they heard within the walls of a subjugating alien government, are they heard at the pulpits of self-proclaimed and appointed speakers who have sprung as ephemeral shadows as spirits of a true past? Are they within an altered history and within a world of illusion? NO. One shall not hear such true voices there. They are in ones blood, ones heart and carry ones spirit in spite of the subjugation by unholy entities. Such “Voices” chose the messenger, the messenger does not chose them. Listen again, a little closer , to wahwahtay benais, perhaps you may hear such ancestral voices
    “Awoniha’ Dagwadoa’ Wahya, AniYunwiyagi”.[I have said this, I am called wolfe of the original people].

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