Racialization Of Native Americans Essay

Many Indians in the early 19 century where looked as less or lower than the white man mainly because of the concepts of Indian in the early century stating" This concept of a separate Indian/white culture, or a "racial pluralism," was central to the films of American movie pioneer, David Wark (D. W.) Griffith. Angela Aleiss. Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies (Kindle Locations 161-162). Kindle Edition. " Author Angela Alesis in Making the White Man's Indian uses refences, clear writing style, and great author agenda in supporting her topic on how the early 19th century through today did not correctly model what an Indian represented.

Throughout world history, it is evident that Native Americans have struggled in society ever since the landing of Christopher Columbus in North America. Ever since the film industry began in the 1890s, Native Americans have been depicted in many negative ways by film makers. One particular way film makers degrade Native Americans by making their white characters convert into Indians or “go Native” and eventually they always become better than the original Indians in the film. This notion has been repeated in many films, three significant films were it is evident is in The Searchers, Little Big Man, and Dances with Wolves.

The slow yet brutal destruction of their population took place from 1492-1891. According to the legal definition by the UN, this act is considered genocide which was perpetrated by both European colonizers and the United States government. Tensions escalated and soon they were dehumanized to the point where massacres such as Wounded Knee, hundreds of innocent Native Americans were slaughtered by American soldiers. A significant precedent of the genocide was when White Americans began making Indians the “other”. By viewing them as uncivilized creatures, it is easy to separate oneself from a group so different.

People constantly try to gain direction and insight from their evaluations of other people. One such way they do so is through stereotypes. Stereotypes are cognitive constructs involving an individual’s half-truths and distorted realities knowledge, expectations, and beliefs about human groups. As such, racial stereotypes are constructed beliefs that all members of the same race share certain specific characteristics. In America, the media and Hollywood play an integral role in entrenching and dispelling these stereotypes. However, Hollywood and the media create characters according to stereotypes to attract an audience, from which the viewers can reflect on and laugh at the stereotypes recognizable within American society. This paper seeks to discuss the common stereotypes in American society and how the media and Hollywood promotes those stereotypes and their impacts.

Misrepresentation of Natives on screen throughout the 20th century has had an adverse effect on them. Whether it was positive or negative stereotypes, Natives felt the effect of Hollywood and began to lose their self-identity, their honour, and their pride. Reel Injun takes a look at how movies have defined an entire race and also documents the rebirth of the Native identity after decades of destructive Hollywood movies by interviewing notable Native actors, actresses, and activists. By doing so, director Neil Diamond hopes to silence Hollywood stereotypes and get Hollywood to properly represent the Native people.

Asian stereotypes are a product of prevailing myths propagated by various media, from books, plays, movies, television, to even historical propaganda. Generally speaking, the stereotyping of Asian women often swing to extreme types: the docile, subservient sexual object, or the dragon lady. Asian Americans only make up a small percentage of the United States population and live mostly on the west and east coasts of mainland United States and Hawaii. Consequently, the rest of the American population will most likely get their exposures to Asian Americans through television and movies. Popular media exposure to Asian Americans lacks one-on-one acquaintance with Asian Americans. It hinders the process

Many prominent historians argue a clash between culture and religious philosophy was the primary cause of conflict between European settlers in North America and Native Americans. However, a closer analysis of American history suggests otherwise. While a clash in cultures and religious differences did exist, the European domination of Native Americans was primarily fueled by European economic motivations, a desire for valuable natural resources and a craving to expand the American colonial system. Due to this, the conflict was inevitable.

For centuries, the English and European colonizers wanted a piece of the new world. Many of these colonists were very curious of what was at this new world and wanted to create opportunities for themselves by extracting resources through the labor of the indigenous people and imported slaves.

Since Europeans first settled in the Americas, relations between them and their native counterparts have been tenuous at best. To solve these problems, the settlers believed that the natives should adapt to European ways of life. They began the process known as assimilation and Americanization. While Americanization may have been born out of a desire to help minority groups, it was a misguided and unethical effort. They have mostly succeeded with superimposing the ideals of western civilization into the minds of the indigenous people, and by extension, have driven out the cultures which once so greatly flourished.

believied that they were alowed to occupy it by the grace of the "Great Spirit",

The 1987 film documentary Ethnic Notions directed by Marlon Riggs, identifies the evolution of African American cultural depictions through ethnic stereotypes and caricatures in American culture. I feel Ethnic Notions exposes the roots of false generalization from the beginning and presents a series of classifications for racial depictions that still are noticeable in today's society. These racial depictions identified with in this film begin in the mid 1800's and continue thought to the 1960's. I now after viewing Ethnic notions agree that there are generalizations and depictions that are exaggerated in American popular culture and entertainment.

The film Ethnic Notions examines the various caricatures of African Americans in popular culture and the consequences of these representations from the 1800s to the 1980s. The film showed how America went through a face of injustice for a period of time. The internet defines stereotype as qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation, to name a few. (Kemick) Throughout American history, African Americans have been victims of stereotypes in many ways. White majority use violence caricatures, stereotypes, dominance, subordination and the media as ways to overpower African Americans.

Throughout the films I have watched this semester, American Indians have been constructed and represented in many different ways. Throughout this semester, different films in different eras have led to stereotyping American Indians and poorly portraying the construction of Native life. At the beginning of this semester, films portrayed Indians as savages who couldn't kill a cowboy, but at the end of the semester, that stereotype changed into American Indians represented as helpless people who cannot be rescued from the alcoholism and distress found on reservations. The ways the Native Americans are portrayed in these films create an image that America views Indians in today's society. In the first films viewed in class, they created the life

The history and the establishment of various Indian tribes in America took the path of revolution by human civil rights institutions. The Indian American citizen had to form a movement whose main aim was demand for their rights from the Native Americans and the government by sorting for cultural independent protection, advocating of their human rights and restoration of economic rights. Independence of the human race do not always come as an easy task but is involves a sequence of efforts against the violation of rights by their native colonies.

Stereotyping may be historical, but the emotions it arouses are eminently present today. According to Jack G. Shaheen, “Stereotypes are especially confining images. They are standardized mental picture[s] . . . representing oversimplified opinion[s] . . . that [are] staggeringly tenacious in [their] hold over rational thinking,” (303). It is obvious today that the presence of the Native American Indians is historically significant. Attitudes of those in the nineteenth century, who viewed images of American Indians, were shaped through the means of media. In this piece I will discuss how society, specifically the media has stereotyped Native Americans.