Stereotypes of Native American Indians

My Native American Indian stereotypes probably come mainly from watching westerns virtually every day as a child and seeing many western movies. We did study American Indians in school, but not in great detail. The one lesson on Indians that I remember involved the first Thanksgiving in colonial America, where the Indians came in loincloths and headdresses and the Pilgrims came in full Pilgrim dress, with black hats and buckled shoes.

Somewhere along the line, I have developed the assumption that Indians have been unfairly treated by whites in America. I remember a history lesson that taught how the Indians traded Long Island for a pouch full of beads or necklaces. In my mind, the Indians were noble people who bargained in good faith, while the colonists were greedy and perfectly willing to take advantage of the Indians' naivet�. Learning in school that Indians must live segregated from other Americans on Indian reservations and that they did not have the right to vote or own land struck me as profoundly unfair, given the fact that the entire continent belonged to the Indians before the white man cheated him out of it. The Indians that once roamed our continent freely, living off the land, were relegated to reservations that were little more than concentration camps. Since being deprived of their liberties, Indians have led an unhealthy life on the reservations. It is my impression that they are prone to alcoholism, and I believe I read this during

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ate stereotype. I base this assumption on my observations of other people in our country that have come from foreign countries where English is not spoken. Although I fault westerns for many of the probably false assumptions and stereotypes proliferated regarding Indians, I also have to give credit to other television shows for helping to correct them. One notable example was an episode of the 1990s American Movie Channel show Remember WENN entitled "And How!," in which the Indian stereotype is reversed. This program about a 1930s radio station in Pittsburgh featured a radio show in this episode called "The Lone Stranger," an obvious send-up of the old radio and TV show "The Lone Ranger." In a reversal of the original show's concept, the actors portraying the Lone Ranger and Tonto come to the studio, and the Lone Ranger is the drunk one, while Tonto is learned and articulate. The Tonto actor, played by the authentic Native American actor Russell Means, is sad and cognizant of the injustices and stereotypes that his people have been subjected to, and the episode is uncharacteristically somber in places for a program that is normally upbeat and hilarious. This-although still obviously fiction-probably more closely

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