Done in a broadcast magazine style, each episode presents stories that focus on people or issues. There have been segments on healers, teachers, voting organizers, artists and journalists, along with well-known guests like former National Congress of American Indians President Tex Hall and current NCAI head, Joe Garcia; Ernest Stevens Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association; Kevin Gover and Dave Anderson, both U.S. assistant secretaries of Indian Affairs; New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson, now a presidential candidate; and Keith Harper, one of the lead attorneys on the Cobell v. Kempthorne trust lawsuit.
Johnson said he hopes that the show speaks to Indian and non-Indian people, breaks down stereotypes and erodes prejudices. He recalled how comedian George Carlin once claimed that he could end war if he could introduce everyone to everyone else in the world, creating the idea that “hey, I can't kill him. I know him.”
3 comments:
Writerfella here --
George Carlin indeed may have introduced that phrase in a comedic sense, but what he failed to acknowledge is that there is a larger principle active among EuroMan and his descendants: familiarity breeds contempt. Once they get to know you, and you then are not one of them, all bets are off. And one of the things that irritates EuroMan and his descendants is, he cannot say to 'disruptive and destructive' Native Americans that which he says to all others with whom he is displeased: GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM! We're from here, close to a quarter millions of years longer than they. And they hate that! writerfella even made it his signature line in his episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY, "Chief In The Night". Stripped of his patented and favorite by-word, Archie Bunker almost was helpless when he faced off with a Native man who came to visit the Bunker home to rescue a Native necklace that had been sold to Gloria at an art show by mistake.
writerfella has been at the business of bursting stereotypes quite a bit longer than has this website. That does not mean that he has had a more significant result from his efforts, but rather that he knows that EuroMan is all but intractable when it comes to matters that in which EuroMan prefers to believe. Else, his info placed here would have had a better reception than that which it has received. EuroMan almost never gives up on the ideas learned at his own parents' knees...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I assume you're talking about a script for All in the Family that wasn't produced. I've seen all the episodes and there wasn't one about an Indian titled "Chief in the Night."
Writerfella here --
Of course, like many of writerfella's efforts, the teleplay was purchased but not performed. The series underwent a sea change in directions and presentation, and the story became an 'overbuy'. Still, the $18,500 went into writerfella's bank account and even gets mentioned in his resume`. Oddly, a check wanders in every three years or so to maintain ownership of the story by the original production company, as that is the limit set by the Writers Guild before the rights must be returned to the author. As the Incredible Shrinking Man said at film's end, 'To God there is no zero, I still exist...'.
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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