Race and Racism 3 - Native Americans

My race class this week pointed me towards stereotypes, false depictions, and misrepresentations throughout America regarding the Native American culture and history. Due to my education, I feel that I have developed an ability to analyse and criticize information laid before me. In the case of Native American representation, I believe we have a collective responsibility to teach and respect the history of the USA as it happened, rather than as we would want it to have happened. "As an author I try to correct the misconceptions and tell the truth about American Indians" - Marijo Moore. This statement encapsulates the psyche we should promote and support. We must appreciate that our levels of consciousness have risen and we no longer accept the history that was taught in schools; historians, philosophers and opinion leaders should hereby feel obliged to combat the archetypes wrongly instilled in our accumulative mindset. As Ralph and Natasha Friar claimed in ‘The Only Good Indian’: "Hollywood has continued to be a co-conspirator in committing cultural genocide by subverting the Native Americans' various ethnic identities". In my opinion, this claim cannot be wholly supported; rather, it is grounded on unique movie genres that portray Native Americans in a particular light, Western films, for example. (Your thoughts?) However, the overall presentation of Native Americans is unacceptable. We owe it not to the Native American people, but we owe it to ourselves to teach, and be taught, the accurate history of the United States.