In both Richard Wagamese’s novel, Indian Horse, and memoir What We Share, the central characters are in constant conflict with society, facing many forms of discrimination from the world around them. However, all of these behaviors can be traced back to the societal values instilled by European settlers, who created and perpetuated the stereotypes that have allowed the discrimination in these works to exist. When closely examined, these early values reveal insights into the history and progression of racist ideologies within a society, as well as their impacts on those affected. By examining both the sources of Indigenous racism and the effects it has on the victims, a conclusion can be drawn as to how to best combat this ongoing issue. Ever …show more content…
This was done through laws such as the Indian Act, which withheld many freedoms from Indigenous peoples and also led to brutal residential schools across Canada. What is concerning is how the Canadian government attempted to justify these acts through preconceived stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, acting as their benevolent European civilizers. The result of this mistreatment can be seen in both of the aforementioned texts, centuries later, through the lens of their main characters. In Indian Horse, the titular “Saul Indian Horse” is a victim of the Indigenous residential schools, the program that has taken the lives of his family. However, Saul finds his passion for hockey at the residential schools and embarks on a journey to become a professional hockey player. The book makes it quite clear that even though Saul is an extremely talented hockey player, he is still discriminated against for his Indigenous identity. The reason is that in the mid-20th century, the game of hockey was viewed as a eurocentric sport by the majority of Canadians. An example of this is when other junior …show more content…
In Indian Horse, after a near-death experience from an alcohol-induced seizure, Saul has an epiphany and goes on to confront his traumas from where they began, returning to St. Jeromes and God’s Lake, the ancestral land that his family used to live on. Saul then goes on to cry, and let all of his bottled feelings out, in an incredibly emotional scene. The ending of the book is bittersweet, with Saul reconnecting with friends that he had lost due to his alcoholism, slowly rebuilding his life one block at a time. The young Wagamese also has a similar realization upon meeting an Ojibwe elder named Jack Kakakaway who guides the young and troubled Wagamese through understanding his feelings. As Wagamese recalls, “I think he [Jack] saw a lot of himself in me. He recognized the angst, the feeling of being lost that was masked as protest. Jack understood my heart and spirit far better than I did” (“What We Share” 2). As a result of Jack’s teachings, Wagamese learned an important lesson about how many things connect people as humans. He had moved away from his resentful mindset, finally at peace with himself. There is an important theme that connects both of these stories, and that is the theme of resilience. In an article by psychologist George Bonanno, he explains that “Resilience is a naturally occurring tool which most people have always had in their psychological
Thomas King uses an oral story-telling style of writing mingled with western narrative in his article “You’re Not the Indian I Had in Mind” to explain that Indians are not on the brink of extinction. Through this article in the Racism, Colonialism, and Indigeneity in Canada textbook, King also brings some focus to the topic of what it means to be “Indian” through the eyes of an actual Aboriginal versus how Aboriginals are viewed by other races of people. With his unique style of writing, King is able to bring the reader into the situations he describes because he writes about it like a story he is telling.
In The White Man’s Indian, Robert Berkhoffer analyzes how Native Americans have maintained a negative stereotype because of Whites. As a matter of fact, this book examines the evolution of Native Americans throughout American history by explaining the origin of the Indian stereotype, the change from religious justification to scientific racism to a modern anthropological viewpoint of Native Americans, the White portrayal of Native Americans through art, and the policies enacted to keep Native Americans as Whites perceive them to be. In the hope that Native Americans will be able to overcome how Whites have portrayed them, Berkhoffer is presenting
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
The novel “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese demonstrates the many conflicts that indigenous people encounter on a daily basis. This includes things such as, the dangers they face and how they feel the need to flee to nature, where they feel the most safe. Another major issue they face is being stripped of their culture, and forcibly made to believe their culture is wrong and they are less of a human for being brought up that way, it makes them feel unworthy. Finally, when one is being criticised for a hobby they enjoy due to their indigenous upbringing, they make himself lose interest and stop the hobby as it makes them different and provokes torment. People who are trying
“Don’t you read the papers? I’m the Rampaging Redskin.” (Wagamese, 165) This quote indicates how the the Residential School system is starting to effect Saul’s mentality that he is inferior than the non-Indigenous population. In addition, the non-Indigenous population portray offensive racial slurs against the Aboriginal population. “Thirteen’s good for an Indian.” (Wagamese, 89) This quote states how society degraded Indians and consider them to be useless. Discrimination towards the Natives in Canada becomes the leading issue that Saul results into his tragic lifestyle. “We don’t eat with Indians.” (Wagamese, 133) This quote is a representation of the discrimination Saul is forced to endure and demonstrates the lack of education of non-Indigenous people. Consequently, the prevalence of racism in Indian Horse sets as a perfect example of the discrimination many Canadians are experiencing in today’s society.
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.
Author and Indian Activist, Vine Deloria makes compelling statements in chapters 1 and 5 of his Indiana Manifesto, “Custer Died For Your Sins.” Although published in 1969 this work lays important historical ground work for understanding the plight of the Indian. Written during the turbulent civil rights movement, Deloria makes many comparisons to the Black plight in the United States. He condemns the contemporary views toward Indians widely help by Whites. He argues that Indians are wrongly seen through the historical lens of a pipe smoking, bow and arrow wielding savage. Deloria views the oppressors and conquerors of the Indian mainly in the form of 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 behavior of whites towards Indians reflects this false perception in law, culture and public awareness.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
In our current generation, the year 2016, one may think racism would be diminished but it has yet to be acknowledged. Most people would have thought discrimination ended with the time of slavery, but it continues to exist in indirect ways. When people think Native Americans, they think about how they were the true Americans and how they aided Columbus’s settlement into the Early Americas. Native Americans experience discrimination to this day, yet nothing has been said about the Indian’s existence and rights. In Kimberly Roppolo’s essay, “Symbolism, Racism, History, and Reality: The Real Problem with Indian Mascots,” constructs the reason and gives us an idea on why this type of racism still exists and why people continue to unknowingly discriminate
Over the past two centuries, First Nations people have been oppressed by the Canadian society and continue to live under racism. The struggles, injustices, prejudice, and discrimination has played a significant role in the construction and impact of how they are treated and viewed in the modern society. Saul Indian Horse from Richard Wagamese's "Indian Horse" and Chanie Wenjack from Gord Downie's "The Stranger" are the perfect examples of how the belief that First Nations were inferior to the Europeans impacted the Aboriginal generations. However, both of the characters can be compared and contrasted by the following ways. As they both go through the breakdown of family bonds and the traumatic sufferings of residential schools, but they differ
The history of Native American and European colonial relations is wrought with conflict driven by cultural isolation. The isolation from the European view constituted an affirmation of their own beliefs and an association of “othering” of the native inhabitants. This detachment produced a hostile treatment of Native Americans that eventually led to a period of violent displacement and other deliberate genocidal acts. The act of "othering" is prominent in the works of Christopher Columbus and John Smith. This paper aims to explore how instances of "othering," as seen in commercial, religious, and personal accounts, have contributed to the dehumanization of Native Americans.
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”
By using this storytelling technique, Peele shows how racism functions as a systemic and institutional phenomenon that upholds systems of inequality in addition to acting on a personal or individual basis. Central to colonialist ideology is the belief that certain races are inferior to others, which is an idea used to justify the exploitation and subjugation of colonized peoples. This idea is also used to promote a sense of benevolence in
Saul is a disturbed Ojibway Indian who uses hockey to transcend away from his emotions inflicted by the cultural genocide but is repeatedly blocked by an obstacle. This obstacle is racism and the prejudice that Indians are inferior to white. This is the main conflict that I believe our main character Saul Indian faces. “Saul Indian” is a god gifted aboriginal who plays hockey when hockey was seen as a white man's game. This paints a setting of colonial times of early Canada when the inequality gap between aboriginal and White is gigantic. Losing to an Indian at a game that your race developed and “own” would be an ultimate humiliation. A time where Indians were seen as inferior and incorrect compared to the Zhanaganush culture. At this time