Most Cherokees tend to be Baptists these days. They have their own writing system, were one of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” and Davy Crocket was opposed to moving them. Yeah, they fought on the side of the Confederacy. I guess they’ll be tearing down Sequoiah’s statue next. I used to be very into Indians. Wanted to be one as a kid. Read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee almost to the end. Dee Brown’s a pretty thorough historian, I think. My view these days is, I no longer believe we should give back Chicago to the red man. There were some unmistakable acts of deliberate genocide against them, and no remedy. The Delaware don’t get to start a chain of casinos. Life is sad. What can you do. As Spinoza says, “where there’s no solution, there’s no problem.” But if you see a member of the Crow nation lolling around in a drunken stupor in Minneapolis, and he asks you for a quarter, don’t throw it in the mud. His hat is right there on his crossed legs. And don’t feel bad for the Navajo. They’re doing OK. Chiricauhua Apache were scary f@#$ers who gave as good as they got. Wish I could learn how to fight like that. Too bad about that guy Ira Hayes.
Funny thing about “racist” depictions of ethnic groups.
My mother, born the day the Hindenburg blew up, thought Indians were brave and honorable thanks to those “racist” images on movies and kids serials. She knew they could be fierce warriors and brutal, but also trustworthy. To her it was an honor to be an Indian.
Then they tell us all this representation is just mean-spirited racism, but that wasn’t what she got out of it.
These days so many paranoid liberal people don’t want any representation at all. Look at the Aunt Jemima, etc. some black folk are afraid they’ll lose any depiction at all and basically be non-entities, unworthy of representing anything good.