That’s one of the results of a report on American perspectives on native peoples. You know, if we’re going to be upset that some people don’t understand that the earth is older than 6000 years, we ought to be even more outraged at this level of ignorance — an ignorance that dehumanizes.
The study found that largest barrier to public sympathy for Native rights was “the invisibility and erasure of Native Americans in all aspects of modern U.S. society.” Representation of contemporary Native Americans was found to be almost completely absent from K-12 education, pop culture, news media, and politics. Two-thirds of respondents said they don’t know a single Native person. Only 13 percent of state history curriculum standards about Native Americans cover events after the year 1900. For the average U.S. citizen, the main exposure to contemporary Native Americans is through media and pop culture. Unfortunately, contemporary Native Americans are almost completely absent from mainstream news media and pop culture, and “where narratives about Native Americans do exist, they are primarily deficit based and guided by misperceptions, assumptions and stereotypes,” says the report.
Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee), co-project leader of Reclaiming Native Truth, said that in the focus groups, “the only references [to Native Americans] that we continuously heard as people were struggling to make a connection were Dances with Wolves and Parks and Recreation. So these stereotypes and caricatures are really forming perceptions of Native people.”
The sheer invisibility of Native people leads to some very warped perspectives about contemporary Native life. Forty percent of respondents did not think that Native people still exist. While 59 percent agree that “the United States is guilty of committing genocide against Native Americans,” only 36 percent agree that Native Americans experience significant discrimination today — meaning nearly two-thirds of the public perceive Native Americans as experiencing little to no oppression or structural racism.
I guess that might go a ways to explaining another phenomenon, that so many Indian women disappear, presumed murdered, every year, and the data is ignored and neglected.
Spend time in Indian Country and you’ll hear this story over and over: A niece, a daughter or a cousin who was taken quickly and violently from this world.
As many as 300 indigenous women go missing or are killed under suspicious circumstances every year in Canada and the U.S., but the exact number is unknown because the Federal Bureau of Investigation isn’t really tracking the numbers.
If they didn’t exist in the first place, they can’t disappear, right?
Creationist non-native Americans will presumably tell you that all Americans are colonisers who arrived in the continent after the Genesis worldwide flood almost destroyed the human race (and that there is no such thing as ‘native’ Americans or Australians (just ones who have darker skin and apparently colonised sooner than the rest). (But I’m not trying to sidetrack the discussion away from that report.)
Oddly enough, my main point of contact with Native Americans are…their casinos.
They are scattered all over the west coast and seem to be pretty popular.
They are several on Interstate 5 in Northern California and Southern Oregon.
They make a nice diversion, lunch or dinner stops, and places to rest on long drives.
I don’t gamble because I don’t understand the games very well or the new electronic gaming machines but it is fun to watch for a while.
According the the U.S. Census, there are 6.6 million native people in the U.S., which is 2% of the total population. Considering how much of that 2% is concentrated on remote reservations, it’s not surprising that native peoples as people are invisible. I’m sure the most common experience non-native people have of natives is going to a casino, which isn’t representative of native culture either.
Shocking and sad that so many Native American women disappeared and are presumably murdered…
And for really deep poverty in the US look to some of the reservations such as Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
In my area several groups of Native Americans are petitioning for tribal re-recognition which has important legal ramifications (e.g., U.S. government has treaty with tribe, rules the tribe no longer exists so treaty obligations no longer apply).
Two thoughts. First, I drive through the American southwest several times per year, and have worked some political campaigns up in PZ’s neck of the woods — one reason that Native Americans are invisible IN THE UNITED STATES is that they have been shunted off to the most depressing remote and unproductive lands we can possibly find to abuse them on. All you would notice is the dust and the casinos. In the lifetime of some of our parents Oklahoma (the last state of the lower 48 to join the Union) was known as The Indian Nation. And then the Texas oilmen found oil there. Bye bye Cherokee, hello speculators and the second wave of sooners. That one last bit of turf we left to them was stolen back again, because it suddenly became valuable, and heaven forfend we let them make any profits.
Secondly, I live in central Mexico, in a city with the highest Aztec and Chichimec populations in the country. You will see people in native garb, including the occasional betel nut anklets and chest plates and polite loincloths and head dresses every damn day. The U.S. history of intentional genocide on behalf of acquiring more farmland for English settlers is very different from the rest of the hemisphere where the indigenous are ubiquitous, in every town and city and village. Whereas in Denver, where I live for about 4 months a year, I know only two women who grew up on reservations (one Apache, one Navajo). Why our indigenous don’t live in all of our towns and cities is the greatest tragedy. We may pretend that it’s about preserving language and culture. But that’s codswallop — Mexico has over 35 languages, spoken daily, every indigenous knows 3, signs are printed in two or three, and their culture and food and music and clothes are alive and kicking across every square kilometer of the country.
We hide ours n El Norte because we don’t want to see them.
I was working at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery when the Shoshone/Bannock tribe came to fish for Chinook. I have never seen such rank prejudice and outright hatred of a group of people in my life! I’d prefer to stay on the reservation, too. I imagine that if I lived closer to the Wind River Reservation here I’d see more of it. I tend not to have a problem with people living their lives, but I guess that’s just me.
@ 6 anbheal
the rest of the hemisphere where the indigenous are ubiquitous, in every town and city and village.
Ever been to Canada? It does not seem that we are as oblivious as the USA but a First Nations presence is not obvious in many parts of Canada.
When I lived in Arizona, my elementary school class was about half Euro-American, 1/4 Hispanic, and 1/4 Native American (Havasu, Hopi, Navajo). When I moved back east when I was in sixth grade, my classmates could not believe I went to school with Indians. They were very disappointed when they asked about housing (expecting Tepees) and clothing (expecting buckskin and breachclouts). Apparently trailers and houses didn’t meet their expectations. Nor did Converse All-star Sneakers, blue jeans, and either t-shirts or button down cotton, twill or flannel. I was astounded at their ignorance. Then I read the history book used by the district. And understood the ignorance.
22 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives live on reservations or other trust lands. 60 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives live in metropolitan areas. Source.
60 percent of 6.6 million is 3,960,000 people in cities, on par with the entirety of the state of Oregon. Only 1,452,000 people live on those “invisible reservations.” Another 1,188,000 are spread out in rural areas, smaller cities, etc. The fact is, a lot of settlers look at Indians and Alaska Natives living all around them and still declare them invisible.
jrkrideau #8
Which parts are those?
I imagine that, when poorly educated non-native Americans expect Indians to look like historical stereotypes and/or not exist any more, then the existing Indians (a tiny minority in areas where most Americans live) get easily mistaken for white or Mexican or Asian, and the invisibility perpetuates itself.