Diana Whittaker

Aisha Sidibe-Leyva

English 110

October 24th, 2018

 

As human beings, we tend to make the mistake of creating generalized perceptions on what we see on a superficial level. Getting cut off on a highway, for example – most people blame the driver for being rude and speeding, but don’t consider the circumstances that driver was under to do such a thing. In a situation like that, its relatively harmless, which is what makes the circumstances relevant. But this is not the case for a broader scale like race, and is especially not the case for Deloria, Alexie, and the Native Americans. White people have created narratives for what a Native American is like and used it to blanket over the reality of the Native themselves. Thus Natives are forced to cope with this misrepresentation of their culture by outsiders and understand what they become while inside of their circles. Alexie’s writing gives insight to how Natives react: in retaliation to the damaging and incorrect assumptions made on them, native school children mockingly – and sometimes, resignedly  align with stereotypes, all while inversely strengthening their bond with their culture in order to preserve their identity as Native Americans. While this reaction may come off as perpetuating these stereotypes towards the same people who created, Deloria’s “Custer Died For Your Sins” demonstrates that it is deliberate because there is no way to stop the stereotypes from being formed and pushed onto Natives, and that Naives, in their own right, create and strengthen their unity as people who face this discrimination.

When it comes to discrimination, however, it is not executed in a way that, at face value, seems harmful. Alexie mentions this through the non-native teachers who taught on the reservation. Teaching, in and of itself, is meant to be helpful, but through Deloria we note that the teaching was meant to assimilate Natives with white people by force. “Indian children were kidnapped and forced into boarding schools thousands of miles from their home to learn the white man’s ways” – there is the underlying assumption, by the “white man” that the Natives are somehow less educated or civilized as opposed to the non-Natives. Alexie’s writing reflect this as well when as he says, “As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian World.” While the so-called altruism exhibited by whites to help natives doesn’t seem done in malice, it creates a false idea that Natives need help and are seemingly wrong in their ways just because the ways are different. Thus, it becomes malicious in the way only the Natives can feel, and only Natives can learn to cope with.

For the school children in Alexie’s essay, it seems they mock these stereotypes by appropriately conforming to them in the right setting. Alexie retells how they were openly resistant to Alexie’s efforts to teach reading and writing because they were more accepted (by Natives and non-Natives alike)  if they conformed to the expectation of the lack of intelligence imposed on them. It is to the point where they are “sullen, and already defeated”. In the same ways, then, Deloria also seems to be defeated in trying to disprove. His sarcastic way of assigning blame, claiming Indians “transparency” and that they have a “secret osmosis” to them that makes their knowledge and culture known to anyone else. It’s in this way that he also resigns himself to these assumptions because his sarcasm doesn’t outright disprove them, much like the school children in Alexie’s essay that did not try to disprove them by going against the status of ineptitude held against them.

However, when focused outside of the context of white people, we find that there’s a resounding strength in cultural identity and cultural intelligence within Native circles. Alexie describes this through the children who did not understand the materials presented to them in school but were otherwise freely expressive outside of it – they “struggled with basic reading inside the classroom but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs”, told stories outsidewhen they would barely speak in class, and stood up to bullies where they were less able to stand up to non-Natives.  In addition, the Native children who did not manage to make success for themselves in the white man’s world were accepted by other Natives, and would shun those who tried to conform to it, like Alexie himself. Through Deloria, we see something like this on a much larger scale. The solidarity between the Native tribes in order to make progress needs to be done in “traditional Indian fashion”, which is to say needs to be held to the standard of Indians, not whites. The outpouring of knowledge on Native tribal politics exemplifies the same intelligence Alexie’s classmates show; their unification and togetherness under their culture is intelligence in and of itself. It stands directly against the imposition of stereotypes on them.

However, Deloria’s stance on what Natives needs is at odds with what Alexie’s actions. Seeing as his efforts to be acknowledged as intelligent were shunned by his peers, and that Deloria believes that natives should be left alone, Alexie’s attempts to teach Native children to read and write in order to “save their lives” can be seen as both good and harmful. There is this lingering idea that the education received by Native children is based on what the white man sees as truth, which the children reject by having purposely disengaging themselves form learning it. This represents a smaller version of Deloria’s argument, and as such, Alexie attempting to use his learning seem like he is trying to assimilate with some parts of the white man’s way. On the other hand, Alexie seems to realize he represents success where it is not expected – in a Native person. Being able to teach native children to engage in literature and poetry seems in an effort to spread knowledge of their existence and success outside of the reservation.

Through Deloria and Alexie, we see that the attitudes of Natives towards themselves and towards the stereotypes given to them reflect one another. Deloria represents a broader version of this notion, while Alexie provides a smaller, more personal retelling of struggle Natives face and their reactions to it.