Research Guides: Out of the Margins: An Anti-Racism Reading Group: Beyond Stereotypes: Inspired Natives

Session Overview

Beyond Stereotypes: Inspired Natives

November 17, 2021 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm

The brilliant "Reservation Dogs" by Sterlin Harjo (Seminole and Muscogee) and Taika Waititi (Māori) demonstrates the importance of inspired Native (not native inspired) creators. This FX comedy series illuminates elements of the Indigenous experience with nuanced humor that resists, twists, and goes beyond traditional Hollywood Stereotypes of Native Americans. It's taken too long to arrive at this moment. In this session of Out of the Margins, we will explore the stereotypes we have internalized (as non-Native and Native participants); we will excavate where they came from through an analysis of mainstream media mis-representation; and we will map out ways we can not only stop stereotyping Indigenous people, but support inspired Natives' voices, creations, and self-representations.

Facilitated by: Dr. Mary Churchill (NAMS) and Dr. Erica Tom (NAMS)

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Selected Readings

Please follow the link(s) below to access the text(s) selected for this session. We look forward to hearing your thoughts during the facilitated conversation.

Reel Injun (Hollywood et Les Indiens) by Diamond, Neil
Publication Date: 2015
In this feature-length documentary, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes an entertaining and insightful look at the portrayal of North American Indigenous people throughout a century of cinema. Featuring hundreds of clips from old classics as well as recent releases, the film traces the evolution of the 'Hollywood Indian.'
Sucking the Quileute Dry (Op-Ed) by Angela Riley
Publication Date: 2010-02-08
The “Twilight” series’ makers owe it to the Quileute people to let them have a say in, and benefit financially from, outsiders’ use of their cultural property.
Native Appropriations by All My Relations Podcast
Publication Date: 2019-04-17
In this episode, All My Relations explores the topic of cultural appropriation—it’s become such a buzzword, but what is it, really? Adrienne and Matika care deeply about Native representation, and talk constantly about this subject. Here, you'll have the opportunity to listen into that conversation, as we reveal our feelings about the infamous white savior photographer Edward S. Curtis, Halloween, answer listener questions, and more. Appropriators beware.

Reservation Dogs - The Unknown Warrior (Clip)
One year after the death of their friend, four Native teens commit crimes to fund their efforts to leave their home in rural Oklahoma.

Supplementary Readings

Indians Illustrated by John M. Coward
ISBN: 0252098528
Publication Date: 2016-06-30
Charts a social and cultural history of Native American illustrations--romantic, violent, racist, peaceful, and otherwise--in the heyday of the American pictorial press.
Indians on Display by Norman K. Denzin
ISBN: 1611320909
Publication Date: 2013-05-15
Even as their nations and cultures were being destroyed by colonial expansion across the continent, American Indians became a form of entertainment, sometimes dangerous and violent, sometimes primitive and noble.
Selling the Indian by Carter Jones Meyer (Editor); Diana Royer (Editor)
ISBN: 9780816521487
Publication Date: 2001-08-01
A collection of essays consider the selling of American Indian culture and how it affects the Native community, showing how appropriation of American Indian cultures have been persistent practices of American society over the last century, constituting a form of cultural imperialism that could contribute to the destruction of American Indian culture and identity.
Playing Indian by Philip Joseph Deloria
Call Number: E98.P99 D45 1998
ISBN: 0300071116
Publication Date: 1998-04-20
This provocative book explores how white Americans have used their ideas about Native Americans to shape national identity in different eras—and how Indian people have reacted to these imitations of their native dress, language, and ritual.

"REEL" Indians by Backstory Podcast
Producer Kelly Jones and scholar Barbara Meek talk through “Hollywood Indian English” – a grammatical stereotype that often endures in today’s media.

"My Standard Response" by Karenne Wood
Publication Date: 2015
The poem "My Standard Response," makes a mockery out of present day Native American stereotypes including smoke signals, high cheek bones and the never-ending question of "How Indian are you?"
"Nature Poem" by Tommy Pico
Nature Poem follows Teebs―a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet―who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature.
"Passive Voice" by Laura Da’
A piece inspired by the poet's research into the use of language when describing mass atrocities and “how often they’re are marked by passive voice where nobody is held accountable, even through the grammar of how these events are memorialized."

Kill the Indians, Then Copy Them by David Treuer
Publication Date: 2012-09-30
Once, in college, an African-American student shook his head when I told him that I was Indian and he said he was jealous. Why? I asked. Because you lived life on your own terms and would rather have died than become a slave. That sentiment -- totally at odds with the reality in which many tribes were indeed enslaved and a few owned slaves themselves -- seemed a very wistful expression of what being an Indian meant.

Decolonization is not a metaphor by Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang
Publication Date: 2012-09-08
Our goal in this article is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization. Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools.

A Conversation With Native Americans on Race by Michèle Stephenson, Brian Young
Publication Date: 2017-08-15
What does it mean to be a Native American today? ln our latest installment of The Times’s Conversation on Race project, we set out to include as many perspectives on native identity as possible.
More than a Word by John Little
Publication Date: 2017
A documentary that analyzes the Washington football team and their use of the derogatory term R*dskins. Using interviews from both those in favor of changing the name and those against, More Than A Word presents a deeper analysis of the many issues surrounding the Washington team name. The documentary also examines the history of Native American cultural appropriation.
Native American Imagery Is Everywhere But Understanding Lags Behind by NewsHour Productions
Publication Date: 2019
Native imagery is embedded in the national subconscious, whether we're paying attention or not. This report covers a new exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, simply titled Americans ,and shows how all aspects of life have been touched by the history and symbols of native culture.

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Out of the Margins: An Anti-Racism Reading Group

Note from the Facilitator