Posted on 06/18/2009 6:15:58 PM PDT by Daffynition
RAPID CITY, S.D. - Custer rides again, although he's atop a plastic motorcycle and in a McDonald's Happy Meal box.
And that doesn't sit well with some in the Native American community.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876 along the Little Big Horn River by Native Americans he aimed to destroy.
But Hollywood brought him back to life as a character in the Ben Stiller comedy “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” which opened in theaters May 22. McDonald's included characters from the movie as toys in its kid-sized Happy Meals.
The fast food chain's decision to circulate the toy in Indian Country is akin to circulating a Hitler figure in Israel, according to Laurette Pourier, executive director for the Society for the Advancement of Native Interests-Today. “It's insensitive and disrespectful.”
“We are oral historians, and Custer's escapades are not far from our hearts,” said Paula Long Fox, a guidance counselor for the Rapid City School District. “Custer didn't kill Indians or Natives, he killed relatives.”
The majority of the U.S. Army's victims were friendly Native Americans who would not run, Long Fox said. The military campaigns against Native Americans were driven by the government's desire to acquire land without any consideration for Native Americans as human beings, she said.
“It was dehumanizing and not honest,” Long Fox said. “It really left hard feelings.”
Could be a Harley ya know ... did the piece have a notice saying Custer was riding an Indian?
I’m a native American. I was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Folks moved to Washington state when I was a baby. If you’re born here, you’re a native here ... don’t care what the department of the Interior says ...
An excellent movie. Its as good, or even better, than the first one.
Welcome to the United States of the Offended.
Instant collectible.
ping
ROFL and hahahahahahaha
OMG! HAHAHA!
Kinda hard to believe that these tissue-paper-skinned wretches are the descendants of the warriors who defeated Custer.
"I was browsing last week on Shorpy (www.shorpy.com) looking at vintage photographs of just about anything under the sun when I came across these two images of Custer cars. The Custer car was an early alternative fuel car and you can see from the pictures that it looked as if it came from Munchkin Land.
Custer Specialty Car Company began producing electric cars and wheelchairs in Dayton, Ohio, in 1920. The founder, L. Luzern Custer, was an invalid, hence the three-wheeled electric wheelchair production. Custer had actually developed an electric-powered prototype vehicle before the turn of the century. Both of these images would be of the Custer Park Car model and some were used as an amusement park ride in places such as LeSourdsville Lake, Ohio, for many years. Custer also produced other models in the 1930s. A child’s Cootie Car which was offered in toy catalogs, a miniature railroad car called a Cabbie, a mini-truck called a Carrier, and at least one two-passenger coupe. These cars were powered by four batteries and could run for about 10 miles before re-charging. They could run on any road or track surface available, which made them easy for carnivals to set up on an abandoned parking lot, and top speed was only about 8 mph. Gas models were also produced, though a majority of production was electric.
The company produced the Custer “Statoscope” for the Navy during World War II, doing their part for the war effort. The Custer Company was still in existence in the Dayton area well into the early 1960s with their last electric offering, the two-passenger buckboard model, introduced in 1958. You can view other Custer Park Cars in action at http://www.americanaamusementpark.com/custer.htm and further information is available from Curt Dalton’s 1996 article in the Dayton Business Journal http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/1996/11/04/editorial2.html
And check out other photos of vintage cars at Shorpy when you have a few minutes to browse. It’s a great website to visit."
"Gen. George Armstrong Custer descends in to an existential crisis, contemplating whether he would like fries with his Quarter Pounder. He was surprised by McDonald’s aggressive trans fat marketing and unsure whether he should use his military training to resolve the issue. His indecisiveness would prove costly."
You know what?
Everybody needs to grow the h*ll up!
I’m part Seminole, and I’m sick of the “Native Americans object to...”, “Native Americans are angered by..”
Like it or not Custer is part of History, you know that stuff that they keep changing to fit whatever special interest group wants changed.
Get a d*mn life and quit complaining.
Rant over.
ZAP!
damn they killed his oft misunderstood arse
grow up Injuns fer chrissakes
No matter how you slice it, for some folks, the events of history have had definite and lasting consequences.
Failure to recognize that may have our descendents living in a putrid, third world socialist squalor.
What we do today will shape their future as surely as the events of 100+ years ago have helped shape the present.
And the indians killed what?
White invaders and enemies; never relatives?
I suppose that makes sense.
This continuing whining is tedious. The glorification of savages, or rather modern wannabe savages, in their little clown outfits and fictional myths about a glorious past, steadfastly grasping their victim status and delusions about their golden age, studiously avoiding the modern world and its burdens, like real work.
I am so depressed and feeling guilty I must now go do penance and read more about their history, their major intellectual leaps, their literature, their treatises on medicine, celestial mechanics, philosophy, mathematics and their contribution to the industrial revolution and the atomic age.
Wait, they never even got to the wheel or even an alphabet... never mind.
So they feel entitled to dictate what toys are acceptable.
*yawn*
But in all fairness, to complete my view of indians generally, I should add that I have probably met hundreds of indians whom I respect and admire, perhaps even look up to, but, alas, they joined the modern world excelling like many non-indians, quietly going about their existence without hysteria or resentment, and became invisible. Just like other Americans.
Please note that, rather than the appropriate Olive Drab, the toy motorcycle in question is WWII German Panzer Gray in color.
Clearly there are subtle Hitler/Nazi references being made here as well. Better call in the ADL.
ping
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