For the media, striking a balance between those two facts is central to “getting the story right.”
Alcoholism's prevalence among Indians not only has caused enormous physical and emotional problems. It also has led to stereotyping, including in movies as recent and popular as “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Apocalypto.” These powerful films depict Indians in a violent or stereotypical way, suggesting that all Indians are afflicted with drug and alcohol problems.
12 comments:
Writerfella here --
As a longtime beer drinker and likely abuser of same, writerfella long has realized that there is a consciousness for Native Americans that constantly is omnipresent, is reinforced, and historically is inescapable: in the wars fought against culturally-determined and eventually technologically superior invaders, the Native Americans lost. They were defeated, devastated by diseases brought by the invaders, stripped of their lands and lifestyes and cultures and futures, and reduced to mere shadows of existences that once they knew. This has created a new racial memory which then runs into conflict with the older racial memories, written on their very DNA that said who they were, what they were, and how they so became. This conflict only can result in a dichotomy and an ineleuctable source of depression both of which are insoluble. That modern Native American people therefore are susceptible to an almost common human failing from such depression should be obvious. writerfella has mentioned the older racial memories heretofore and has been accused by the owner of this website of manufacturing concepts out of 'thin air'. Thin air almost is all that remains for Native Americans from their original physical ownership and stewardship of two whole planetary continents. writerfella iterates that one who is not Native American themselves NEVER can walk a mile in writerfella's mocassins without being writerfella himself. EuroMan always has possessed convenient blindnesses to his own actions and intentions and, five hundred years later, nothing of that ever has been changed...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
The question is how much blood or DNA a person has to have to be an Indian. Half? A quarter? An eighth? Or...?
You have enough. I don't. Neither do various Pequots, Chickasaws, and Chickahominies, apparently.
Whether you can articulate or not, you have a dividing line in mind. So what is it? How much intermarrying do Indians have to do to eliminate their "racial memories"?
In other words, who qualifies as an Indian in your mind? Wilma Mankiller? Robbie Robertson? Ben Nighthorse Campbell? Arigon Starr? Burt Reynolds? Tiger Woods? Cher? Who?
P.S. Your take on Indians and alcohol sounds reasonable to me.
Writerfella here --
Finally, Rob, you have asked the right questions NOT made on conclusions based on your own racial speculations. Native American identity is being lost, slowly but surely, by intermarriage and racial intermixing. writerfella is fortunate to still have 15/16ths of such an identity still a part of his consciousness. The rest of Native people possibly do not have that much left. It is being lost if only because of the dilution and diminution that is ongoing, and there is no way of preventing same. It is not a matter of 'blood quanta' set by law nor is it a matter of heredity set by human interactions. It simply is inexorability, in that Native gentic memory and racial consciousness is being assimilated, much as the Natives themselves. Soon, it will vanish and mankind will have lost that particular speciality. EuroMan finally will have won and likely will feel all the more victorious therefore. Perhaps, through what only now is being recognized as epigenetics, Native existence and Native consciousness will reoccur, but who would be in any position to recognize it at such a time? EuroMan will have won, IF he still exists at such a time...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I've asked similar questions before. I'm still waiting for the answers.
Writerfella here --
What you do not recognize is, you have those answers. You simply have chosen to ignore them..
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Nice try to dodge, but I'll just keep asking the questions until you answer them. I live to expose the truths hidden in clouds of verbiage such as yours.
Feel free not to answer, since reason and logic seem to pain you. If you want to let me win every debate from now until kingdom come, it's fine with me.
Readers can judge for themselves whether you've addressed the issues or not. Needless to say, we're still waiting for the first person to say you have.
Writerfella here --
But writerfella already has stated in this blog that he NEVER answers questions that the asker already has answers that he wishes to hear repeated. Lawyers and liars (hmph - similar pronunciation?) in writerfella's experience HATE writerfella simply because he NEVER answers in the way they wish that he would. Luckily, writerfella's record in such an arena is clear...
All Best
Rus Bates
'writerfella'
Translation of "writerfella already has stated in this blog that he NEVER answers questions that the asker already has answers that he wishes to hear repeated": Writerfella never answers questions that would show the flaws in his positions or otherwise embarrass him. In other words, you don't answer questions, period, if the answers aren't in your favor.
You say you've already told us who qualifies as an Indian in your mind? And whether that includes Wilma Mankiller, Robbie Robertson, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Arigon Starr, Burt Reynolds, Tiger Woods, or Cher? No, you haven't, Russ. I have $100 that says you can't cite a single passage anywhere in this blog's archives that answers these questions clearly and completely.
Put up or shut up, or I'll have to conclude that you're lying. As will our readers, of course. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's no way in hell I'll let anyone lie about what they have or haven't said in this blog. That most definitely includes you.
Writerfella here --
Besides bad syntax and word choices, the previous post simply repeats the 'same-old, same-old' (which is Korean in origin, ca. 1957 - who'da thunk?) from the poster. One only has to compare it with foregoing posts from the same individual. writerfella ALWAYS has indicated if he is repeating himself but Rob does not, lest he remind anyone that there is little that is new under his own sun. Or so he says...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here -- POSTSCRIPTUM: and OMIGOSHES! writerfella crossed the line drawn in the dust by the neighborhood bully Rob with his black 'n white Keds! And then writerfella stepped on a crack! Did he break his mother's back? He'd better go inside and check. Anyway, it's almost time for HOWDY DOODY and WILD BILL HICKOK and SKY KING and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN!
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM II: and, boy, watch how FAST this thread disappears into the oblivia of the 'archives'!!
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
"Bad syntax" is a funny charge coming from someone who writes ten sentences when one will suffice, is apparently unfamiliar with paragraphs, doesn't spell-check his work, thinks the passive tense is sound, and invents words such as "oblivia." Not to mention your self-important use of the third person, which others have noted. You've written things here that any writing instructor would correct with a red pen.
I said that when you were too afraid to answer my questions, I'd simply repeat them. And so I've done. Unlike you, I say what I mean and mean what I say.
Readers will note that you could easily prove me wrong by quoting your previous "answers" if they existed. That you won't do so is compelling evidence that you can't.
You're lucky that this thread will disappear into the archives and thus save you from further embarrassment. You're unlucky because I'll keep asking the same questions until you answer or give up and go.
Post a Comment