Choctaw Days at NMAI

Choctaw Days in the nation’s capitaln

By Lisa ReedThousands of people from around the world will soon have the opportunity to absorb the sights, sounds and culture of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Choctaw Nation are working together to provide a memorable experience for visitors and those who live in the Washington, D.C. area. The Choctaw Days event will be held June 22-25 during NMAI’s height of the tourist season when an average of 1,500 visitors come to the museum every day.

“We are honored to be the first American Indian tribe from Oklahoma to have a festival of this kind at the National Museum of the American Indian,” said Chief Gregory E. Pyle. “I remember when the museum opened on the National Mall almost seven years ago and I have visited NMAI numerous times since. It is a remarkable place, showcasing hundreds of tribes from South, Central and North America.

“We have assembled several of our best artists, dancers, singers and cultural experts. We know that we will have a different audience than we are accustomed to and want to ensure that they all understand just how special our tribe is,” he said.Comment:  For more on the NMAI, see Oneida Nation Gives Another $1 Million to NMAI and NMAI Plans "Complete Reinstallation."

Vampire reservations in Priest

A new movie compares vampires to Indians:

Priest--Movie Review-Unrealized Potential

By Eric NathThe society in Priest is basically a theocracy run by a Christian/Catholic type church system in which the government and social system is ruled by church leaders. But this is for good reason, as the church gained prominence as a protector of humanity against monsters by founding a religious order of priests who are, what seem to be, divinely endowed to fight vampire-like creatures.

The beginning of the movie, using animation which was not congruent with the tone of the film, explains that throughout history mankind had fought vampire like creatures, and over time, the vampires had forced humanity to hole themselves up in fortified cities. Humanity was on the brink of extinction until the order of vampire killing priests was established. This order lead a war against the vampires almost wiping all of the vampires out. The surviving vampires were pushed from their land, and these tribes were moved to reservations. In this movie the vampires were more monster-like than what we have come to expect from recent vampire-themed films and television.I haven't seen the movie or the comic book it was based on, so I can't say much about it. But several people on Facebook debated it for us:Ashley:

The movie Priest was extremely offensive. It was also derivative and predictable, but the comparison of vampires to Natives shocked me. I was sad.

Anthony:

It is quite similar to Avatar in that it is nothing more than an action packed movie. It doesn't try to do anything else but entertain. It is very simply guns, blades, and steel set amidst a far flung cyberpunk future ala Mad Max with vampires tossed in among the mix. Parallels can also be drawn between the Priests and Star Wars Jedi.

I enjoyed the movie. It is what it is and nothing more or less.

Patrick:

The whole movie is actually based off of a Korean comic book. ... PLUS, the comic was loosely based off of a PC game called Blood.

The Comic= Excellent and Dark. The Movie= Over-budgeted Crap. The Game= Looks good....

Ashley:

If the comic also compared vile blood-sucking subhumans to Native Americans, then it SUCKS and so do the people who like it.

The media (especially TV and film, and including the local and national news) perpetuate prejudice by portraying minorities in belittling ways. The "It's only art!" defense is sickening.

SO if a movie is SUPPOSED to be fun, it's OK to compare Natives to vampires? What a lame non-defense. By the way, the movie wasn't even fun. It will be a forgotten 3D flop. As it SHOULD be.Okay if humans suffer too?Anthony:

Remember that the "humans" in Priest were all clumped into horrible post-apocalyptic neo-conservative god-fearing industrial wasteland cities. The "humans" were just as restricted as the vampire tribes were. In essence, they had created their own reservations. In fact, the movie very specifically states several times "to go against the church is to go against god"...and to leave the city was to go against the church. The "humans" didn't have any more freedom than these so-called reservations provided (perhaps even less). We can't draw an honest parallel between this and real life where white men deliberately sought to commit genocide, enslaved the ones who survived, and then populated the natives' lands.

Ashley:

Well, what did the humans do in the movie? Wage war against the vampires, win, put the remaining vamps into reservations, and try to populate the land that the vamps had once ruled. That's pretty blatant. They also referred to tribes of vampires, and one familiar (human-turned-vampire) said something like, "Their ancestors once ruled these lands!" The parallels are obvious. Anthony, you didn't even make a point.

Patrick:

That doesn't even sound like any part of the comic...the comic follows a complex web of heroes and anti-heroes in a battle between religion, fallen angels, and the darkest parts of humanity. Part of the comic takes place in the "old west," but most of the tribes referred to in those volumes were human heretics.

Anthony:

This movie does not place white men or "civilization" on any kind of pedestal. In fact, everyone (regardless of ethnicity) is basically fucked in this sci-vision of the future. On the one hand you've got these vampires who have been labeled into "tribes" who now live on "reservations." I completely admit this was a terrible choice of wording by the screenplay writers. They could have easily sidestepped all of this moral ambiguity by simply calling them something like "Clans" instead. On the other hand, you've got the "humans" are not at all elevated above the vamps (or the "tribes"). Like I described before, they manufactured their own "reservations" by living within the walls of a techno-theocracy. Humans are no better than the vampires.

Look, I do admit they made a poor choice of words but I really don't think it matters in this context. It would certainly matter a great deal if "civilization" were painted as superior, but its not.

Also, I don't for a minute think that this movie tried to by anything more than an action-blast yer face off-summer flick. Its far from philosophical. Besides, if it's just going to fade away into obscurity then why give a crap to begin with?

Ashley:

Because the ones who are grouped by tribes and live on reservations are INHUMAN MONSTERS. It is simple.

You can try to spin it any way you want, but their wording belies their state of mind: better group the dangerous savages into reservations! Before they massacre the white settler family!Comment:  Early in American history, when the tribes had numbers and weapons similar to the settlers, the two sides were roughly equal. So I'm not sure the "white men not on a pedestal" argument is valid. And I'm not sure forcing other people to live on a reservation is equivalent to choosing to live in a fort for protection. The key question is whether you have a choice, not how well your choice turns out.

Also note that the tribe/reservation language seems to have been imposed by the filmmakers. It apparently wasn't in the comics. Why the change? Because the filmmakers evidently associate deadly creatures with savage Indians. I don't see any way around that.

For more on the subject, see No Indians in On Stranger Tides and The Best Indian Movies.

Woman blocked for wearing moccasins

Native woman denied entry to club can proceed with human-rights complaint, tribunal rules

By Sunny DhillonAn aboriginal woman who says she was denied entry to a popular Vancouver club because of her ancestry and her moccasins can move forward with her human-rights complaint, a B.C. tribunal has ruled.

In March, 2009, Colleen Mitchell White tried to enter the Roxy, a landmark nightspot in the city’s Granville entertainment district. She was turned back because she was carrying a golf club. Ms. Mitchell White returned without the golf club a short time later, but says a Roxy doorman then told her, “We don’t serve people in moccasins.”

Ms. Mitchell White says she responded by telling the doorman her shoes were good enough for her ancestors, who walked and hunted in them. She claims the doorman told her to hunt outside because there weren’t any buffalo inside the Roxy.

The doorman removed Ms. Mitchell White from the premises, and she told the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that he punched her in the jaw, before calling her a prostitute.Comment:  The nightclub denies the punch and prostitute comment, but admits the moccasin and buffalo comments.

I don't know if the offenses are serious enough for a human-rights complaint. But they are for a moralistic blog complaint.

It's hard to believe a nightclub would have an official moccasin policy. Or that it would object if patrons wore moccasins. Do people have to wear hard shoes rather than soft shoes? As long as they're not barefoot, does anyone really care?

The buffalo comment and the alleged prostitute comment sound like racism, obviously. With those in mind, the moccasin comment sounds suspiciously racist also. But the anti-moccasin policy shouldn't be hard to test. Have a white woman similar to this Native woman go to the club wearing slippers similar to moccasins. If she gets thrown out too, maybe the club isn't discriminating.

For more on racism against Indians, see Asian Indians Slurred as American Indians and Aboriginals to Be "Weaned from Government Teat."

Leno jokes about Israel's occupation

Jay Leno told this joke on The Tonight Show Thursday:Earlier today, President Obama gave a speech outlining his vision for peace in the Middle East. He suggested that Israel go back to the pre-1967 borders. And, of course, Native Americans jumped right on this. They said, 'Why stop there? Let's go back to the pre-1492 borders right here in America? Oh, let's push it all all back.Comment:  This joke raises a valid point. "Why stop there," indeed? The main answer is that there was no governing body of international law in 1492. This kind of law may not have come into existence until the 19th or 20th century. But it was firmly in place in 1967.

If there had been a governing body of international law, the Indians could've made their case before some kind of adjudicator. Sure, the adjucator probably would've ruled against the Indians because of racial bias. But at least the Indians would've been on the record with their objections. A later adjudicator could've overturned the earlier decision on legal grounds.

Something like this has happened in the last couple centuries. The tribes have signed treaties protecting their rights. They've gone to American courts and even to UN forums demanding the US uphold their rights. They rarely win--but that's because of the US's superior political and economic power. It's not because of the merits of their cases.

In purely legal terms, untainted by outside considerations, the Indians often present an incontestable case. Namely, that the treaties are still valid. If the US obeys its own laws and Constitution, it must uphold them. Whether it actually does or not is another issue.

For more on the subject, see No Right of Return for Palestinians, Indians? and Educating Stephen About Israel's Occupation.

Tavare on Hollywood Indians

Actor Jay Tavare wrote a brief history of Natives in Hollywood on the Huffington Post. His first point is unarguable, though some have tried (and failed) to argue against it:

Hollywood IndiansIt's undeniable that films influence the way the world views history and other cultures. I have heard many of my Elders say that Hollywood's portrayals of American Indians are responsible for the shallow perception most folks have of their people.But a few parts of his essay stirred up some controversy:Hollywood also had Iron Eyes Cody. His ancestry became the center of some controversy when it became known that he was actually Italian by birth. But he did not just work as an Indian in Hollywood in the 1950s and '60s; he truly lived his life as an Indian. He can be credited as the most famous Indian in the world during that time.And:Some debate...if a Native from Canada can play an American Indian why can't an Indian from South of the border get the same shot? Makes you wonder, why do we insist on drawing lines between who is or is not allowed to play a role according to boundaries on a map? Add to this the irony that these boundaries are for the most part established by European settlers or modern day governments, and the dispute becomes even more complex.And:At some point, when the fight begins to be political and not creative, maybe we have to step back from interfering with the artists--the writers, directors and actors--and allow them to make their art according to their vision. After all, it's called acting for a reason. Actors are supposed to become other people in their roles.

Fans respond

These statements led to a discussion on the NativeCelebs page in Facebook with someone named Deejay Ndn:I think the fact that American (and Canadian) Aboriginals feel so strongly about who plays them in film is important and not something to brush aside and just "accept" because it's just "acting." Aboriginal people have had their traditions...and ceremonies made illegal up until the '70s. Also, with residential schools, we had entire languages and cultures lost in one generation. Having aboriginal people play aboriginal parts, I think is extremely important. It gives us a chance to finally show the world an authentic view of what we look like, if nothing else. Doesn't matter how old you are, you're always going to think of the "spaghetti western" Indian when asked how natives are portrayed in Hollywood. We deserve a chance to play our own roles. Also, the difference between American Indians and Mexican Indians is that or natives south of the border HAVE THEIR OWN COUNTRY! It's run by Mexicans for the interest of the Mexican people. I think that producers and directors have an obligation to make their story as authentic for the screen as possible or face criticism from the aboriginal community (which they don't seem to mind).I agree, Deejay Ndn. And I disagree with that part of Jay's column. When people like Johnny Depp play Indians, it conveys the idea that 1) there are no real Native actors; 2) Indians have vanished; and 3) being Indian is a matter of putting on the right clothes and makeup. In other words, "It's responsible for the shallow perception most folks have of their people."

As I've said before, would you have Denzel Washington play JFK or Oprah Winfrey play Sacagawea? Then why is it okay to trot out the "actors can play anyone" rationalization for Indians?And another thing...Iron Eyes Cody is the biggest slap in the Aboriginal actors' face. Doesn't matter that he "lived traditionally." He was Italian. And as written in this article, this Italian man was the "most famous Indian of that time." Just a real shame.

The article was well written for sure, but I feel like he was trying to say Aboriginal actors don't have it so bad and that they shouldn't whine so much when non native people steal Aboriginal roles. Maybe I should read it again.

Nope. Still offensive.

What's so offensive about this article is the fact that the author is basically saying we shouldn't whine about who gets to play Indian roles. That and Iron Eyes Cody is the most famous Indian of his time. That's really offensive. It's like saying Chuck Norris is the most famous Chinese person of his time.Questioning Tavare's motives

Tavare calls himself Apache and Mexican, I think. Or a man of mixed blood, as he says at the end of this article. But some have questioned his Native heritage. One could read his statements as self-serving--justifying his casting in Native roles.

As someone else wrote:DeeJay NDN...I'm totally on board with everything you are saying about the article. It is my opinion that the writer's comment "Iron Eyes Cody is the most famous Indian of his time" was made in an attempt to put a veil over the truth of the matter...that Iron Eyes wasn't Indian, and that because "he lived his life as an Indian" and played an Indian in film and television it somehow makes it okay that he took on the identity of being and Indian full time, which was a gross misrepresentation of the truth. That's unacceptable. I also feel that the underlying intent of this article was the writer's attempt to set himself up with a "safety net" so when his true identity is finally revealed and it is clear that he is simply a modern day Iron Eyes Cody, he'll use the defense, that he practices Indian ways and culture and plays Indians in film and television; that, that makes it okay that he too has falsely taken on the identity of an Indian full time.I responded to the nationality question as follows:

I for one don't make distinctions between American, Canadian, and Mexican Indians. As I've said before, the ideal is for someone from a particular tribe to play a character from that tribe. So ideally an Apache should play the Apache Tonto.

Second choice is someone who has the blood, knows the culture, and has lived as part of it. If it's not someone from a particular tribe, a Canadian or Mexican Indian is as good as an American Indian. These artificial national borderlines shouldn't matter to Indians.

A distant third choice is someone who's Latino or mixed-race who knows little or nothing about his heritage. I'd put Robert Beltran (Chakotay) in that category; he declared he was part Indian only after getting the role. Same with Johnny Depp or Taylor Lautner.

An unacceptable fourth choice is a white guy like Iron Eyes Cody. No way should that happen no matter how much he lived like an Indian. You'd think we were beyond that, but white actors played Inuit characters in the 2010 movie The Last Airbender, so the problem continues.

Comment:  For more on the subject, see Diamond on Hollywood Indians and Native Diversity 2010 Video.

Below:  Jay Tavare.

Gover summarizes Native stereotypes

Kevin Gover, NMAI director, gives a good overview of Indian mascots and stereotypes. He starts with how most Americans learn about Indians.

Native Mascots and Other Misguided Beliefs

By Kevin GoverOnly a very small percentage of the population has devoted extensive study to Native history, art, and culture, so their understandings are formed based on the limited information they have received from two sources: the formal education system in the United States and the popular media culture in the United States.

My own experience contending with the information I was given while growing up in Oklahoma is instructive. Native history and culture was only rarely touched upon while I was in elementary school and junior high school. Though I had, of course, more than the usual interest in these subjects, I can recall only the occasional reference to American Indians, almost always accompanied by a photo of Indian people standing on a rocky hillside dressed in feathers and buckskin. I learned nothing about the history of Native people prior to contact with Europeans, save the few pages in my Oklahoma history book dedicated to the Spiro Mounds, a Caddoan-Mississippian archaeological site in eastern Oklahoma. It was as though what pre-existed Columbus’s arrival in America was uninteresting and unimportant.

Like most young people of my generation, I absorbed an odd set of information about Native history after contact with Europeans. In grade school I learned that “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He sailed, and sailed, and sailed, and sailed to find this land for me and you.” I learned of the friendly Indian Squanto who taught the Pilgrims to grow corn; of the Indian “princess” Pocahontas who saved Captain John Smith from death at the hands of her evil father; of Sacajawea, the intrepid “squaw” who guided Lewis and Clark through the Rocky Mountains; of the massacre of the gallant General Custer by savage Sioux at Little Big Horn.

Things improved somewhat in junior high school, where we did learn that all of Oklahoma had once been designated Indian Territory and of the removal of the “Five Civilized Tribes” from their homes in the southeast. But we moved quickly on to more important matters such as the land rushes, the discovery of oil, the establishment of Oklahoma Territory and the entry of Oklahoma as the forty-sixth state. I don’t recall being told that all of this involved the abrogation of treaty promises that Oklahoma would belong to Indians forever.

Meanwhile, at the movies and on television, westerns were thriving. Even while knowing these stories were fictional, they wore on me. The Indians were semi-naked, mono-syllabic, and fierce (quite unlike the many Indians I knew as family and friends). The white people were smart, ethical (the heroes, anyway), and only reluctant users of violence. The racial message was consistent and powerful: Indians were stupid and violent, though noble in their savagery, and white people were civilized, principled, and heroic.Then he sums up the messages received:Taken together, the messages my generation received from our formal education and the popular culture were clear. Indians were interesting only in terms of their engagement with non-Indians. A good Indian was one who assisted white people in establishing civilization in the American wilderness. Native women were especially likely to see the virtues of white civilizers and assist them in their efforts. Native men, being violent and dim, resisted civilization ferociously but futilely. (Note that they were not portrayed as resisting the taking of their property and the ruin of their way of life; they were resisting “civilization” itself.) Above all perhaps, contemporary Indians were not relevant. Indians were figures of the past. It would be entirely fair for a non-Indian student in, say, Ohio to conclude that Indians simply ceased to exist. This is a powerful set of ideas being delivered over and over. They made growing up as an Indian child harder than it had to be.Gover notes the flaws found even in recent movies:Even the movies in which Indians are heroes too often engage in the old stereotypes. The large blue Indians of “Avatar” and the Indian werewolves of the popular “Twilight” series may be heroes, but note the spectacular violence of which they are capable. Note as well the addition of new stereotypes that evolved in the late twentieth century: Indians as pristine environmentalists and, even better, magic Indians.And how mascots send a similar message:Native mascots are primary offenders in perpetuating these stereotypes. Consider why a franchise or university might choose a Native image to represent its team or teams. We are told that they are meant to honor Native American qualities such as bravery, strength (physical, not mental), endurance, and pride. Certainly Native people had and have those qualities in varying degrees, though I do not believe that they had or have them in greater quantity than other peoples. And why is it that Native people are not chosen to represent positive human qualities such as intelligence, piety, generosity, and love of family? I suppose the answer is that we are far less interesting to mascot makers when revealed to be ordinary human beings, with all the virtues and failures of other human beings.Comment:  Let's reiterate the key points here. First, the source of Native stereotypes, which I've stated hundreds of times:[T]heir understandings are formed based on the limited information they have received from two sources: the formal education system in the United States and the popular media culture in the United States.And the implicit message of every chief, warrior, and mascot representing a old-fashioned Indian:Indians [are] stupid and violent, though noble in their savagery, and white people [are] civilized, principled, and heroic.Exactly.

For more of Gover's positions, see Gover on Indians and Jews and Movies Teach "Racist Assumptions."

Below:  "Me lik'um this essay. It heap good medicine."

"Geronimo" = codename for step "G"?

A blogger has tried to deny that the US gave Osama bin Laden the codename "Geronimo." He writes:

Fox News:  Osama's Code Name Not Geronimo

By R. Cort KirkwoodIt looks like the Indians upset about the military's using the code-word Geronimo during the operation to kill Osama bin Laden can settle down and smoke the peace pipe.

According to Fox News, the name of the famous Chiracahua Apache was not the code name for Osama. The news emerges in a long, dramatic story that details the raid. The mission to kill the world's most wanted man, Fox reports, nearly failed.

But more importantly for Indians, the memory of Geronimo was not besmirched.The "Fox News account actually is an Associated Press account posted on the Fox News site. In any case, here's the key paragraph:

Sources:  Navy SEALs Knew Bin Laden Mission Was One-Shot DealBack at the White House Situation Room, word was relayed that bin Laden had been found, signaled by the code word "Geronimo." That was not bin Laden's code name, but rather a representation of the letter "G." Each step of the mission was labeled alphabetically, and "Geronimo" meant that the raiders had reached step "G," the killing or capture of bin Laden, two officials said.And Kirkwood's response:In other words, the Indians upset about code name Geronimo went scalp-hunting for no reason.Wow, that "scalp-hunting" crack wasn't too racist or offensive. Let's ignore it for now and dissect Kirkwood's claim.

Why Kirkwood is wrong

We have quotes from President Obama, CIA director Leon Panetta, and two others referring to "Geronimo" as a particular person, bin Laden. Why should we believe two unnamed officials over Obama and the others? Kirkwood doesn't say.

Who are these unnamed officials and what's their agenda? If they were responding to the "Geronimo" controversy, they probably wanted to portray the mission in the best possible light. They may have exaggerated or misstated the facts to protect the president.

This claim doesn't square with the other theories floated by the White House: that the name referred to the mission (not the target or step "G"). Or that the name was chosen at random. Is there any reason to think the officials aren't floating another false questionable theory?

The officials claimed "Geronimo" was a representation of the letter "G." But it's not clear if they also claimed "Geronimo" wasn't bin Laden's codename. That may be an interpretation by the Associated Press, not a claim by the officials. Maybe "Geronimo" represented the letter "G" and the target bin Laden. There's no reason it couldn't be both.

Naming the step "Geronimo" has the same problems as naming the mission "Geronimo." It's still an intentional choice, not some sort of unfortunate coincidence. It still associates Geronimo with modern history's most reviled terrorist. If the "step G" claim isn't a fabrication, most people won't hear about it or get it. All they'll remember is bin Laden = "Geronimo."

A commenter adds:Very strange explanation since the phonetic code for "G" is "golf," not "Geronimo." Not sure I'm buying that spin.Indeed.

Kirkwood's racist language

Speaking of agendas, Kirkwood is probably another conservative using the language of savagery to smear Indians. Check out the verbiage in his blog:

"Drums Along The Potowmack"

"In using Geronimo's name, Indians claimed, the White House went way off the PC reservation."

"Thus did the war dance begin."

"Such was the war cry...."

"Time For A Peace Treaty"

"Geronimo was not, contrary to smoke signals clouding up the Internet, the name for Osama."

"Depp, whose appearance suggests a man one arrow short of a full quiver...."

And the aforementioned:

"[T]he Indians upset about code name Geronimo went scalp-hunting for no reason."

Wow again. Every reference of Kirkwood's paints Indians as warlike. They beat their tom-toms, go off the reservation, do a war dance and war cry, send up smoke signals to rally others to war, and finally go hunting scalps. And they need a peace treaty to pacify them. Could it be any clearer that Kirkwood thinks Indians are savages?

For more on the subject, see Advocates Criticize Codename at Hearing and Apaches Demand Apology for Codename.

Standing Bear's increasing exposure

Last year I covered the fifth annual Chief Standing Bear Breakfast. This year's breakfast occurred Friday. An article describes it and some of the exposure Standing Bear has received in recent years.

Lakota author:  Remember your ancestors, your past

By Kevin AbourezkMarshall, a Lakota author, told more than 500 people at the sixth annual Chief Standing Bear Breakfast on Friday that it's important for all people to remember the sacrifices of their ancestors, including Ponca Chief Standing Bear. In 1879, Standing Bear made history after being declared a person before the law during a trial in which the U.S. government tried to prosecute him for leaving his tribe's Oklahoma reservation.

The story of Standing Bear has inspired an opera, a trilogy of plays by New York writer Christopher Cartmill and an award-winning book, "I Am a Man," by Lincoln author Joe Starita. Next year, the University of Nebraska Press plans to publish a children's book about Standing Bear written by Lakota author Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, said Judi Morgan gaiashkibos, executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs.

On Friday, Christine Lesiak of NET said her documentary, "Standing Bear's Footsteps," will air locally and will run nationally next year on PBS. She shared portions of it Friday, including interviews with Starita and gaiashkibos' daughter, Katie Morgan, an attorney in Washington.

"Ultimately, there will be people outside of Nebraska who will know who Standing Bear is," Lesiak said.Comment:  I described how popular Standing Bear has become in Ma-chu-nah-zha: I Am a Person. Obviously the trend is continuing. If Americans haven't heard of Standing Bear yet, they will eventually.

For more on Standing Bear, see Nebraskans to Read Standing Bear Book and Standing Bear Place Mats.

Below:  "Ponca Chief Standing Bear was part of a landmark case that helped determine the rights of Natives. Standing Bear later was the first Native admitted to the Nebraska Hall of Fame."

Photos portray "Concrete Indians"

Photographer Nadya Kwandibens Looks at Skins in the City with ‘Concrete Indians’

By Lisa Charleyboy“Does being a Native person in the city affect your identity?” This is the question photographer Nadya Kwandibens (Ojibwe) seeks to explore in her photo series “Concrete Indians.” Kwandibens’ photographs (produced under the banner of her company Red Works Studios) have been commanding a lot of attention on Turtle Island lately, and the ‘Concrete Indians’ series has proven particularly resonant.

It all started in May 2008; Kwandibens was pondering the usual stereotyped images of Native peoples shown in mainstream media and she wanted to challenge those portrayals. “As an artist, I can promote a more positive image of all the diverse nations and all the different cultures that are us,” she says. “When I first thought of this series, I had goose bumps, because it made me feel so good—I was like ‘I have to share it.’ I am just going to throw this idea out there and see what happens. So I sent out a mass email about it and within 10 minutes I got three replies back.”

That’s when she knew she was onto something. Her concept was simple and open-ended: “Portraits of the urban Indian experience.”Comment:  Creative people can't do enough of these stereotyping-busting projects. Not until every American has gotten the message, at least.

For more on the subject, see Curtis Photos vs. Smiling Indians, Modern Indians Are Less Native?, and Photos Challenge Native Stereotypes.

Below:  "Jacob Pratt walks the city streets wearing a jacket, tie and roach in a photo from Nadya Kwandibens' 'Concrete Indians' series."

Milestone and "Black Avengers"

A recent discussion with Ron about minority comic books. It's based on my All-White Avengers Isn't "Contrived"? posting:The utter failure of Milestone didn't teach anyone anything?Do books with minority characters fail at the same rate as other books? Even when they have the same top writers and artists and are given the same marketing push? I don't know, but those are the type of questions we'd have to answer.I don't know, but an entire line of comics geared specifically towards minorities, failed completely. It was quite the media sensation. I'm sure you remember it. Either they didn't push it like they should have or maybe minorities just aren't into comics as much? Who knows.

As for "the black Avengers," I think it's a crap idea. Does that mean no blacks can/will join the Avengers "the white" Avengers anymore?

And then what? The Asian Avengers? The Latin Avengers? The Native Avengers? The Muslim Avengers? Where does it end?

Just diversify the current lineup--and maintain that diversity--and be done with it. That'd be my solution.My theory is that the Milestone comics weren't that good. I read some of them and they were borderline.

Diversity is the best solution in theory. But judging by the latest Avengers lineup, it isn't happening in reality. In a country that's 36% minority, the team is all white.

I don't think anyone is proposing a Black Avengers as a long-term or permanent solution. But as a short-term alternative--perhaps a limited series--I don't have a problem with it. As you may recall, I've proposed doing a Native X-Men story. This would be roughly the same idea.

Global teams of heroesI wouldn't mind an all black team of heroes at all. Just the name.

I had an idea years ago--each nation in the UN had a superhero representative and they all belonged to a global group--a "Justice League Earth", for lack of a better name. Different heroes would be selected for different missions depending on the threat level. Diverse, no?

Has something like that been done before? I think Marvel is objecting to the black concept first and the "Black Avengers" name a distant second.

If they cared about the Avengers name and not the so-called diversity "agenda," they could use a failed title like the Defenders or Champions for a black superhero team.

DC had its Global Guardians, New Guardians, and Justice League International. Now Batman is creating a Batman Inc. with Batmen (Batmans?) from around the world. These things are roughly the same idea but with a manageable number of characters.

The closest Marvel has come to an international team is its Contest of Champions mini-series. Unless you count all the X-Men characters as one global group of heroes.

"The 99" is an ongoing series about Muslim superheroes. I believe they come from around the world--from the US to Europe to Africa to China--because Muslims live everywhere. The religion is the same but everything else--race, culture, etc.--varies. That's also a similar idea.

For more on the subject, see Comics Diversity Is an "Agenda"? and Top 10 Racist Comic-Book Characters.

Below:  The Falcon, an occasional member of the Avengers.

No Indians in On Stranger Tides

The latest Pirates of the Caribbean movies features a search for the Fountain of Youth. Here's the legend of the Fountain:The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus, the Alexander romance, and the stories of Prester John. Stories of a similar waters were also evidently prominent among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration, who spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.

The legend became particularly prominent in the 16th century, when it became attached to the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, first Governor of Puerto Rico. According to an apocryphal story that features a combination of New World and Eurasian elements, Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he traveled to what is now Florida in 1513. Since then, the fountain has been frequently associated with Florida.And here's what the movie gives us:

Movie review:  New 'Pirates' has fewer minutes, more Johnny Depp charm

By Chris HewittIn that same vein, where are we? Part of the movie is set in London and part of it is in Spain, but the Fountain of Youth stuff takes everyone to a leafy-green place that looks a lot like "Lost," which looks a lot like "Jurassic Park," which is to say, it's Hawaii. That's fine, I guess, but even within Hawaiiland, we can't tell how one place is connected to another place, so something as simple as a missionary moving from the fountain to a grove of trees where a mermaid is tied up (see, I told you there are too many characters) is a confusing muddle of where-was-he and where-is-he-now.Comment:  So On Stranger Tides takes place in a fantasy land even though the main elements--Blackbeard and the Fountain--are associated with the Caribbean. The movie scrubs the Caribbean out of existence.

Someone who's seen On Stranger Tides assures me it doesn't include Indians. In a sense this is good, since the Pirates movies have only stereotyped Indians. We don't need more cannibals trying to kill and eat the Europeans.

But in another sense it's bad. It removes the Indians and their cultures and histories from our sight. It furthers the notion that the Americas were uninhabited, ready for the Europeans to colonize.

Even worse, the only inhabitants of this pseudo-Caribbean are mermaids. So the fantasy land isn't inhabited by real people, but by fictional creatures. That makes it doubly problematical.

Fairy-tale lands don't have real issues. It doesn't matter if you invade them and destroy their inhabitants. Who's gonna shed a tear for dragons, elves, trolls, mermaids...or Indians?

For more on Pirates of the Caribbean, see Johnny Depp's Track Record and Pelegostos in Pirates.

Redbone told to wear buckskin

Soul singer Martha Redbone relates an incredible anecdote about Native stereotyping:

In the Studio with Folky Soul Singer Martha RedboneRedbone was—and still is—an anomaly, to say the least. On her mother’s side, she is Cherokee/Shawnee/Choctaw from Appalachia; her late father was an African-American from North Carolina. (Her performing name, Redbone, is a sometimes derogatory slang term for a person of a red-and-black racial mixture.) Her musical DNA has always been complex and genre-defying. She’s mostly a soul singer, but she’s also influenced by the folk and Native music of her youth, which was spent in Kentucky coal-mining country. Despite her obvious talent, her loyalty to her roots sometimes made her a hard sell to the mainstream music industry. “We were talking to this one guy, a big time producer,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘Why do you want to put Native American stuff into your music?’ That’s what he called it, ‘Native American stuff.’ He said, ‘Native Americans aren’t even alive anymore. Nobody cares about them.’” Redbone made her case that the “Native American stuff” was part of the package, and the producer came back at her with a bizarre condition: “So he said, ‘Well, if you insist, then when we take the meeting at Columbia Records, I want you to go in wearing buckskin and a feather. You won’t say anything and you’ll smoke a peace pipe.’”

She said, Thanks, but no thanks.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Review of For the Generations and Women of the Four Winds Concert.

Teenage Tulalip filmmaker wins award

Teenage Tulalip Director Wins Best Emerging Filmmaker award

By Richard Walker“History is Unwritten,” a short film by Tulalip filmmaker Aaron Jones, is striking in its beauty and elegant simplicity. It is narrated in Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language that was largely unwritten until the 1960s. The late Vi Hilbert, the Skagit educator who helped preserve the language, once called Lushootseed “the most beautiful language in the world.” The film was shot in a cedar forest, for centuries the source of materials for items that testify to the lifeways of the people: artwork, baskets, canoes, clothing, longhouses.

Jones himself composed the film’s score, a beautiful, unwritten piece he says he “winged” at the family piano. “It’s something I wanted to express, a mood I wanted to set for the film,” he says. He submitted “History is Unwritten” to the “History is ___” Film Competition hosted by the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Still, he wasn’t prepared to hear his name called at the museum awards gala May 7. “History is Unwritten” earned Jones the Best Emerging Filmmaker award.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.

Below:  "A still from the film 'History is Unwritten' by Tulalip filmmaker Aaron Jones."

Atalanta the Mohawk superwoman

Badass Women of the Pulp Era

By Jess Nevins1904: The most popular pulp science fiction writer in Europe in the first decade of the 20th century was the German Robert Kraft (1869-1916). One of his popular characters was Atalanta, who appeared in the pulp Atalanta #1-60 (1904-1905, reprinted in France in 1912 and 1913) and the novel Atalanta: Die Geheimnisse Des Sklavensees (1911). Atalanta is the last member of a tribe of the Mohawk people who had flourished in America centuries before Asians crossed the Bering Strait land bridge and settled the American continent. However, Atalanta initially does not know this. As a baby she was found on the shores of a large "slave lake" in South America, and she grew up in an orphanage ignorant of her background.

As an adult she goes in search of her birthright, aided by Graf Felsmark, a German millionaire adventurer who Atalanta eventually marries. Atalanta returns to the slave lake and frees the slaves. She carries out a prolonged duel with her arch-enemy, the vicious South American Professor Dodd, a brilliant inventor who plans to use his advanced weaponry to hold the world hostage. She discovers a Lost City of Maya in the jungles of Mexico. She even visits Lemuria in her plane but ends up fighting against the rulers of Lemuria, a group of evil, albino, big-headed dwarf geniuses, and their ogrish servants. Atalanta is physically and mentally superior to ordinary humans and is capable of a number of incredible athletic feats.Comment:  Let's see how stereotypical this character is:

Atalanta's name is Greek. She looks like Aphrodite or another goddess immortalized in ancient artwork.

She's the last of a vanishing breed. If we're to believe the writeup, her tribe existed before the Paleo-Indians arrived in North America. Which makes them some sort of lost race rather than Indians.

A Mohawk found on the shores of a South American lake is theoretically possible, but it's so unlikely it might as well be impossible.

She marries a white man to make her decent and "civilized." I wouldn't be surprised if she converts to Christianity too.

She discovers a lost city of Maya and the lost civilization of Lemuria, which puts her firmly in a fantasy land with pirates and fairies (Peter Pan) or dinosaurs and ape-men (The Lost World).

Not bad for a mere two-paragraph description. No doubt the Atalanta magazines and books have hundreds of mistakes and stereotypes.

Pulp fiction and traveling shows are how people learned about Indians before the advent of movies. The entertainment media was misinforming people then and it's misinforming people now.

For more on the subject, see Burroughs the Conservative Racist and Rima the "White Native Girl.

The Pact concludes 7 Generations

The final chapter of the 7 Generations graphic novels I reported on earlier:

Winnipeg graphic novelist brings Aboriginal history to new audience"The Pact" concludes the graphic-novel series "7 Generations." It follows one Aboriginal family from the early 19th century to the present day and tells a story of redemption as residential school survivor James and his son, Edwin, reconcile their past and begin a new journey.

As the pain and loss of James's residential school experiences follow him into adulthood, his life spirals out of control. Haunted by guilt, he is unable to maintain a relationship with Lauren and their son Edwin. Edwin, mired in his own pain, tries to navigate past the desolation of his fatherless childhood. As James tries to heal himself he begins to realize that, somehow, he may save his son's life--as well as his own. When father and son finally meet, can they heal their shattered relationship, and themselves, or will it be too late?A brief interview with Cree writer David Alexander Robertson:What is 7 Generations about?

At its heart, 7 Generations is about a young First Nations man named Edwin and his struggle to find hope and meaning. The series looks at how the history of his ancestors, going back seven generations, has affected him today. It explores how history, our yesterday, can dictate our today and our tomorrow, and how understanding our history but not allowing it to define us can help us on a journey of healing. Edwin's struggle is to understand and accept history's role in his life but to take control of his life at the same time.

Why did you chose graphic novels as a medium to tell these stories?

The graphic novel is an incredible educational tool. It allows me to reach a broad range of people; sophisticated readers, readers that are typically hard to reach, those who are reading at a lower skill level, and both males and females. It is engaging and effective. In the end, graphic novels/comic books are cool. Who wouldn't want Super Man, for example, to teach them math? :o)Comment:  For more on the subject, see Comic Books Featuring Indians.

So Long Been Dreaming

A blurb about an interesting book I just heard of:

So Long Been Dreaming
Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy

Edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder MehanSo Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian, and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of colour.

Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre "speaks so much about the experience of being alienated, but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves." It's an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology.

The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the "third world." It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centred in the worlds of the "developing" nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into.Comment:  For more on Native science fiction and fantasy, see THE WEST WAS LOST Reviewed, The Cave at Sundance, and Developing Native Steampunk.

Gary Farmer wins lifetime award

Gary Farmer Receives Lifetime Achievement Award at the Native American Film + Video Festival



Comment:  For more on the subject, see Gary Farmer Gives Up Acting and Gary Farmer's Musical Career.

Native women = second ugliest?

An article in Psychology Today has received a lot of scorn this week. It purports to prove that black women are "objectively" the ugliest (least attractive). I mention it because Native women came in as the second ugliest.

Here's the article and its key finding:

Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?  Why black women, but not black men?

Published on May 15, 2011 by Satoshi Kanazawa in The Scientific Fundamentalist


A critique that puts this study in context:

Racist Psychology Today article claims black women are objectively less attractive than other womenSo Psychology Today published an article yesterday titled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” Wow. It disappeared from the website after massive, overwhelming outcry about it being obvious racist pseudo-science bullshit. The fact the article ever went up at all is appalling, though, and unfortunately must be called out.

The author, Satoshi Kanazawa, is known for racist junk science. He works in the field of evolutionary psychology, which sadly is full of folks passing of their deduction as objective fact to prove their racist and sexist views. He’s obsessed with attractiveness and linking race and intelligence in work that’s been repeatedly debunked. He’s also said he wished Ann Coulter was president on 9/11 so we could have nuked the entire Middle East. Yeah, wonderful guy.And more criticism, including a comment about the study's role in racial politics:

Voices:  The Satoshi Kanazawa StudyPerhaps at another point in my life, I would laugh this off as the musings of someone too stupid to realize how racist he is. But we live in an environment where the President of the United States is repeatedly forced to produce his birth certificate to prove that he was born in this country and where one of the leading candidates on the Republican side repeatedly characterizes the President’s attitude as “Kenyan anti-colonialist” and produces dog whistles like “food stamp president looking to make the entire country like Detroit”. This is not an isolated event by an insulated individual. This is a nasty undercurrent that simmers below the surface all the time and that has been bubbling up more and more frequently.

Nicole Belle, Crooks and LiarsComment:  I'm not sure how Kanazawa made his calculations. It sounds like he took them from mostly white Americans who grew up in a culture where fair-skinned blonds are the standard of beauty. You know, the people featured in most movies, TV shows, and magazines. I can't imagine how that's not a completely biased pool of subjects.

Note that the results are about what we'd guess with zero data. Asian women, considered the most "exotic" minority, are ranked close to whites in beauty. Native women--at least, alluring Indian "princesses" like Audrey Hepburn, Cher, and Disney's Pocahontas--are third. And black women--widely criticized in our society as fat, loud, and sassy--are a distant fourth.

This is basically a ranking of America's racial prejudices, not of women's "objective" beauty or anything else. It's ridiculous.

For more on Native beauty, see Male Warriors and Female Princesses and Native Girls Judged on "Poise," Makeup.

Below:  An Indian princess working hard to surpass those sexy Japanese geishas and China dolls.

Whooping "Indians" at 2011 Stanford Powwow

Adrienne Keene writes about her second visit to the Stanford Powwow in her Native Appropriations blog:

Playing Indian at Stanford Powwow, Year 2

She first visited it last year, which led to this posting.

Again she notes the wannabes in hipster headdresses, including one whohad multi-colored feathers in her hair and warpaint on her face, and right before I snapped the picture, was war whooping (hand over mouth, other hand in the air) to her friend across the way (who was also wearing feathers and paint).And again she reminds us why this is a problem:In the grand scheme of powwows, Stanford powwow tends to have a lower ratio of wannabes "liberally interpreting" Indianess (i.e. creating an image of what they think an Indian is based off things they read on the internet and supplies they can find at a craft shop) than some powwows I've been to, but it still makes me angry.

I still don't know why people think it's OK to don feathers and warpaint and come to a Native community cultural event. I still maintain that it would be exactly the same as donning blackface and wandering into a Black community event. These people are dressing up as a race other than their own, based off of egregious and racist stereotypes from Hollywood and other forms of pop culture. All they have to do is look out in the powwow dance circle to see that they look nothing like "real" Indians. But the American narrative of "playing Indian" is so ingrained, people don't seem to see it as taboo, the way blackface remains today.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Whites "Play Indian" in Swamplandia!, Indians "Win" Oppression Olympics, and Racist Cupcakes vs. Chiefs.

BlogThis!

Asian Indians slurred as American Indians

Here's a telling story. How do you insult people of Asian Indian descent? If you're a racist idiot, by comparing them to "savage" American Indians:

Cardiologists Accuse Hospital of Discrimination

By Emily RamshawThe e-mails and memos written by administrators and doctors at Citizens Medical Center here about three of their colleagues of Indian descent are, at best, derogatory. An operating room chief wrote of trying to force “the Indians off the reservation.” Others wrote about their “Indian troubles,” or labeled the hospital’s two rival cardiology practices as “the Cowboys” and “the Indians.”

At worst, they could be considered racist: “I feel a sense of disgust but am more concerned with what this means to the future of the hospital as more of our Middle-Eastern-born physicians demand leadership roles and demand influence,” David P. Brown, chief executive of Citizens Medical, wrote in a 2007 memo to himself. He continued, “It will change the entire complexion of the hospital and create a level of fear among our employees.” Comment:  This insults two ethnic groups by isolating and comparing them. It suggests that all Asian Indians are the same and they're all like American Indians, who are also all the same. So it's not only racist, it's doubly racist.

And consider how juvenile it is. Comparing Indians to Indians is something you'd expect to hear on a playground, not in a professionally-run hospital. What's next: doing a "ching chong" imitation for Asians or a rap song in Ebonics for blacks?

For more on the subject, see Conservatives Use "Language of Savagery," Grinding Indians into the Ground, and Turbaned Indian Offensive, Chief Wahoo Okay?

Below:  "Drs. Harish Chandna, from left, Ajay Gaalla, Dakshesh Kumar Parikh, cardiologists, in the waiting room of their office in Victoria." (Caleb Bryant Miller for The Texas Tribune)