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Native american prejudice and discrimination
Native american prejudice and discrimination
Prejudice and stereotypes about Native Americans in 1830
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The prejudice that Wes and his family feel toward Indians complicates his decision to arrest Frank. Wes is a man with racism at his core. His prejudice toward Indians is apparent throughout Montana 1948: “[Wes] believed Indians, with only a few exceptions, were ignorant, lazy, superstitious, and irresponsible” (22). He thought that Indians are low-level people. Wes also tries to decry Marie and her feelings. Wes says, “An examination by a doctor…. Maybe she doesn’t know what’s supposed to go on… you know how she likes to make up stories” (34-35). Wes tries to make Marie’s telling into stories and claims that she doesn’t know what is supposed to happen during a doctor’s visit because she is an Indian. His family knew this racism toward Indians,
just like David knew it. This made Wes’s decision to arrest Frank not understandable by Grandpa. His family’s racism toward Indians also complicates his decision, as well as turning his family against him. Wes’s father states, “‘Is this why I gave you that goddamn badge? So you can arrest your own brother? Some Indian thinks he put his hands where he shouldn’t and you’re pulling out your badge’” (112). Grandpa belittles the Indians’ claims and belittles Wes, saying that Wes is abusing his power and that he is using it incorrectly.
...se. he reassured her that he had got the confusion from Frank and would have him moved to jail the next morning. This situation was conflicting because Wes has to be afraid of his own brother in order to keep the interest of everyone else in mind. It was an Individual vs. Community paradigm. The family being the community and the individual being Frank.
In the book Bad Indians, Miranda talks about the many issues Indigenous People go through. Miranda talks about the struggles Indigenous people go through; however, she talks about them in the perspective of Native Americans. Many people learn about Indigenous People through classrooms and textbooks, in the perspective of White people. In Bad Indians, Miranda uses different literary devices to show her perspective of the way Indigenous People were treated, the issues that arose from missionization, as well as the violence that followed through such issues. Bad Indians is an excellent example that shows how different history is told in different perspectives.
In 1973 a thirty-three year-old Caucasian male named Allan Bakke applied to and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. In 1974 he filed another application and was once again rejected, even though his test scores were considerably higher than various minorities that were admitted under a special program. This special program specified that 16 out of 100 possible spaces for the students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other 84 slots were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. What happened to Bakke is known as reverse discrimination. Bakke felt his rejections to be violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, so he took the University of California Regents to the Superior Court of California. It was ruled that "the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment"1 The clause reads as follows:"...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."2 The court ruled that race could not be a factor in admissions. However, they did not force the admittance of Bakke because the court could not know if he would have been admitted if the special admissions program for minorities did not exist.
Author and Indian Activist, Vine Deloria makes compelling statements in chapters one and five of his Indiana Manifesto, “Custer Died for Your Sins.” Although published in 1969 this work lays important historic ground work for understanding the plight of the Indian in the United States. Written during the turbulent civil rights movement, Deloria makes interesting comparisons to the Black struggle for equal rights in the United States. He condemns the contemporary views toward Indians widely help by Whites and argues that Indians are wrongly seen through the historic lens of a pipe smoking, bow and arrow wielding savage. Deloria forcefully views the oppressors and conquerors of the Indian mainly as the United States federal government and Christian missionaries. The author’s overall thesis is that Whites view Indians the way they want to see them which is not based in reality. The resulting behavior of Whites towards Indians shows its affects in the false perception in law and culture.
According to Deloria, there are many misconceptions pertaining to the Indians. He amusingly tells of the common White practice of ...
Back in the early 1800’s, America was having a hard time accepting others. The Americans did not like having immigrants living in the same area, and they really hated when immigrants took their jobs. Many Americans discriminated against African Americans even if they were only ⅛ African American. Americans were not ready to share their country and some would refuse to give people the rights they deserved. This can be seen in the Plessy vs Ferguson and Yick Wo vs Hopkins. In Plessy vs Ferguson, Plessy was asked to go to the back of the train because he was ⅛ African American.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
It is hard to believe that after electing a minority president, the United States of America can still be seen as a vastly discriminatory society. A question was posed recently after a viewing of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream…” speech of whether his dream has become a reality. After consideration, a majority of the viewers said no. Although many steps have been taken to improve racial equality in America, there is still no way to legislate tolerance. Dr. King’s message of equality for all has been lost in a black and white struggle over the taken meaning of his context. Until our society can allow all people to live in peace we will never truly achieve King’s dream. Case in point, referring to President Obama as our "our First Black President" should not be considered a statement of pride over how far we have come. Placing this racial qualifier, even in a positive light, only serves to point out his minority status, not the fact that he is the President of the United States. According to Dr. King's dream, a man or woman, black or white, would be viewed as President without qualifying their differences from mainstream America.
Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. “ Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes on every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” In daily basis, every single person on this earth is facing different kind of discrimination. In general discrimination prevails in life particulars. We are living in a world that is based on qualifications. Being a normal human is no longer accepted. However, African Americans are one of the most populations in this world who faced discrimination in general: Racial discrimination in particular. Although African Americans faced racial discrimination due to slavery period hundred years ago, racial discrimination still prevails in African Americans life in the present, lead by huge psychological affects.
Discrimination in employment has been an issue that has plagued our society throughout history. At the turn of this century it was acceptable to advertise job openings and specifically state that people of a certain race, color, religion, gender, or national origin "need not apply". A lot has changed over the last 100 years. The proverbial "pendulum" has swung in the direction of federal protection of certain people, but the problem now is that it has swung too far.
As in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there was a great deal of injustice in the south in the early 1900s and before. Things only seemed to get worse when the depression. “We were always poor, but the Depression was definitely worse”(Johnson). The fiction in the book could very well be based on real facts of the way the blacks were treated in the past. Blacks of the time could not get a fair chance in real life or in the book. For that reason Tom Robinson could never have gotten a fair trial in Alabama in the 1930’s.
In the 1940s, African Americans were facing the problem of discrimination. They fought to receive the rights that all Americans were given through the United States Constitution. They were being treated unfairly in society. Their education, jobs, transportation, and more were inferior to a white citizen’s. With the end of slavery and the creation of the Fourteenth Amendment, African Americans were theoretically given their freedom like every other American. The way they were treated denied them these rights that they thought they would obtain. Through the efforts of white bigots and the biased government, African Americans were segregated from the free lives of the white civilian. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans faced discrimination
For example, in the local school, stereotypes such as the image of the ‘wild man’ are consolidated by claiming that there was cannibalism among the indigenous people of the northwest coast (Soper-Jones 2009, 20; Robinson 2010, 68f.). Moreover, native people are still considered to be second-class citizens, which is pointed out by Lisamarie’s aunt Trudy, when she has been harassed by some white guys in a car: “[Y]ou’re a mouthy Indian, and everyone thinks we’re born sluts. Those guys would have said you were asking for it and got off scot-free”
Why does racism continue to take place in the United States today? According to the sociology textbook Our Social World, minority groups are ones that differ from the dominant group, which is why they have less power, fewer privileges, and are discriminated against. The textbook also explains how there are numerous ways for dominant and minority groups to interact. Genocide is the killing of the minority group by the dominant group, while pluralism is the complete opposite whereas different ethnic or racial groups accept one another’s beliefs and values, and manage to respect each other. Multiple strategies to cope with prejudice, discrimination, and racism are used by minority groups to deal with their statuses: passing (blending in with dominant groups), acceptance, avoidance, and aggression. In America, racism against minority groups has improved, but is nowhere near ending. To determine people’s opinions on racism and why it exists, I
In 1957, the Little Rock High School Integration occurred, and was broadcast on live television. Louis Armstrong was in a hotel after a streak of performances at local performance centers. He watched the crown hurling insults at the children and the police blocking the entrance to the school. When a reporter came to ask him his opinion, he stated "The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to Hell." This is the first time he ever reportedly spoke out against the segregation in the