Native American Stereotypes Analysis

“Indians are like the weather.” With his opening words Vine Deloria Jr. sets up the basis for the rest of his witty yet substantial manifesto, Custer Died for Your Sins. The book, which describes the struggles and misrepresentation of the American Indian people in 1960s American culture, is written in a style that changes from ironic and humorous satire to serious notions, then back again. Through energetic dialogue that engages the reader in a clever and articulate presentation, Deloria advocates the dismissal of old stereotypes and shows a viewpoint that allows the general public to gain a deeper understanding of what it is to be an American Indian.

A reader of The Last of the Mohicans is able to notice the manifested racism in the book which is perpetuated through the cultural divide and racial stereotypes. Racism from Cooper’s book depicts itself in being one of the contemporary themes in the novel which offers derogatory and stereotypical concerns to people of various races. In a more stringent analysis, the racial stereotypic statements from the book drive racial and cultural tolerance along with the societal inequalities which are set forth by Cooper. The author does not only use the stereotypes to further the racial barriers but also support and build the plot of the book promoting the idea that people from different racial and cultural upbringing can be divided on racial

Native Americans as a whole have been typecast as drunks ever since the coming of the white man’s “fire water.” TS Naimi, MD et al. reports that alcohol is responsible for 11.7% of all American Indian and Alaska Native deaths, compared to 3.3% for the U.S. general population (939). This disturbing discrepancy reinforces the age old notion of the “drunk Indian.” Generalizations aside, is there some truth to this stereotype? Are Indians more likely than other races to be drunks? Of all the races, “Native Americans have the highest prevalence (12.1%) of heavy drinking…A larger percentage of Native Americans (29.6%) also are binge drinkers” (Chartier and Caetano 153). Although some research has been done on genetic causes, little is

Native American people have a unique struggle in society. This stems from cultural epidemics like drug addiction, alcoholism, obesity, and rampant suicide, but also systemic racism and a sort of cultural lag. This is not meant to be a critique of culture, simply an observation of the condition of the families I have helped serve over the course of this internship. To be “Native” has become a slew of stereotypical representations. Stereotypes do not represent reality, but they do affect how individuals view themselves, and limit their ability to become anything but what they are expected to be. This is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. If Native American children grow up in a closed network, such as a reservation or a boundary, they are presented

Amitabh Bachchan, he is considered as the most prejudiced actor of famous personality of the Indian industry. He is very famous among them.

Another issue is how Native Americans internalize the stereotypes that are forced upon them. In a study conducted by Fryberg, Markus, Oyserman, and Stone (2008), they found three common stereotypes of Native Americans in mass media: Spiritual people who are in tune with nature, warriors, or people with stereotypically bad outcomes, such as alcoholism. It is important to note that not all of these stereotypes are negative, and in fact a few of them are positive. What Fryberg et al. (2008) found, however, was that regardless if the stereotype was seen as positive or negative, all three of those variations caused harm in the form of “students’ feelings of personal and community worth, and achievement-related possible selves” (p. 216). It did

The last of the Mohicans is an adventure novel about Native American interactions with English, French, and frontier settlers during the French and the Indian war in 1757. The background of the novel is based on the French, and the British army who are fighting against each other and both have Indian allies to assist them. Nature, as itself, is introduced to the reader as a character among all the other characters which the author explains in good detail. Of all the characters in the novel, Hawkeye and Magua play an important role, Hawkeye as the hero who saves the day and Magua, as the villain whose appearance brings fear and terror to the reader. The story changes its pattern as soon as Magua appears on the scene and executes his evil ambition and plans.

Many races are unjustly victimized, but Native American cultures are more misunderstood and degraded than any other race. College and high school mascots sometimes depict images of Native Americans and have names loosely based on Native American descent, but these are often not based on actual Native American history, so instead of honoring Native Americans, they are being ridiculed. According to the article Warriors Survive Attack, by Cathy Murillo (2009) some “members of the Carpentaria community defended Native American mascot icons as honoring Chumash tradition and the spirit of American Indian Warriors in U.S. history and others claimed that the images were racist stereotypes” (Murillo, 2009). If people do not attempt to understand

Until fairly recently the popular culture of American literature and film did not attempt to study the true representations of Indians in North America. Instead they chose to concentrate on the romanticized/savage version of Native people: which is an idealistic view of a Native with long, beautiful flowing hair riding on a horse obsessed with chanting and praying to the savageness of a rowdy, wild Native causing unnecessary mayhem to the white people. This portrayal of Native people in mass media had led to the stereotyping of Natives, which in turn had ricocheted into real life. Not only do non-natives succumb to these ideals, but Natives do as well.

Sebastian LeBeau on The Great Sioux Nation Website says that, “The two stereotypes most often portrayed of Native Americans are the heroic noble savage or the ignominious drunken Indian.” LeBeau tells us that, “The noble savage stereotype is generally seen as a male who is resplendent in full regalia, and proudly sitting astride his war pony and gazing fiercely out across the rolling plain” (The Great Sioux Website). It was one of the ways Europeans looked at Native Americans before coming to the New World and has apparently stayed with us. After Columbus discoveries, Europeans idealized the

Women of other categories like Asians, Latinas and Native Americans face similar stereotypes to Black women. The two Black women stereotypes that Asians, Latinas and Native Americans can be compared to are the Mammy and Jezebel stereotypes. These stereotypes are either a threat to masculinity or an ideal way to be feminine in the male thought.

The Europeans quickly agreed on a very simple (and self serving) set of assumptions about the native peoples they encountered in the New World: there were "good Indians" and "bad Indians." The good were simple, free, and innocent; the bad were degraded, brutal, and untrustworthy. All individuals, all tribes, at all times could be understoodand all were inferior in the light of Western, Christian civilization. Children are harmed when they are bombarded with stereotypical images because they internatlize these negative perceptions and will hold the images throughout their lives. When a child sees or meets a Native American, their first impressions are the ones they were shown from the books and pictures they saw.

Filmmakers showed what they felt had already been conventional to their beliefs about Native Americans. In the film The Last of the Mohicans (1920) these two contrasting roles of Native Americans dominate most of the plot. The fiend is Magua, and the “noble” savage is Uncas. These two roles that are shown of Native Americans have some historical ground, but what makes one side good and the other bad? Is it because that is how society wants to see them? And does the director’s representation of the two sides gain them acceptance in American culture? In the history of America, Native American tribes often became associated with similar tribes with similar beliefs. This is true of the two tribes in The Last of the Mohicans. The Huron, who according to the historical events of Fort William Henry are the Iroquois and the Mohicans are historically associated with the Delaware. The Huron in the various versions of The Last of the Mohicans, come to represent the Iroquois who were allied with the French, and were seen as evil in the eyes of the British. The Mohicans, historically come to represent the noble Delaware, who were allied to the British. These tribes get grouped together, the “Huron [became] condensed into the same entity as Maquas, Mingoes and Mohawks and contrasted with the superior virtue of the Delawares and Mohicans” (Clark 122). These tribes were constantly intermixed

James Fenimore Cooper's, The Last of the Mohicans is a novel about the racial divide between the Native American people and English colonists. Cooper suggests that interracial mingling is both desirable and dangerous for the characters of the novel. Cooper uses historical events, such as the unique friendship between Chingachgook, Uncas, and Hawkeye, the love affair of Cora and Uncas and the changing idea of family to demonstrate the idea that interracial relationships played a key role in unifying people from two very different societies.

The issue of race is an important idea in The Last of the Mohicans and can be shown through the characters' view of a person and obedience and goodness and intelligence and how they act. Each character has a different perspective and how it affects them. It can affect how people are treated and whether they are seen as intelligent or not. Also, there could be inter-Indian racism with the Mohicans towards the Huron’s or vice a verse which we will see affecting everyone else as time goes on.