In reflection of this week as a whole, we learned more about the struggles that natives faced in the 20th century. Not only did native populations lose their homeland, they lost their culture.
After overcoming genocide for generations, natives were conquered by white settlers. Then the Native people were forced to sit in white schools and assimilate to the greater community.
What I learned this week about how the culture takes the identity of what it means to be native is heart-breaking. Learning the context of just how offensive some of the Native stereotypes are.
The biggest thing I will take away from this week is that the struggles for Natives continue today. Things that I take for granted as a white person, such as, the ability to talk to a cop, or the ability to not be made into a cartoon.
blengel June 29, 2018
I think it is awful how people tried to take away the identity of the Natives. I have a friend who does something that is almost similar. He always wants his friends to be interested in the same things as him, buy the same computer equipment as him, and tries to get me to go to his church instead of mine. Obviously this is nowhere near anything that the Natives went through, but it just feels weird when he tries to do that stuff. I just can’t understand why people can’t just let others live their life. I guess now we live in a world where if anything like this were to happen it would probably be shut down. But back then they had more conquering views.
I also can’t quite understand how they could just take the children away from their families. That is just so morally wrong. I feel like some of the government employees doing this had to think about if that were to happen to their child. Then again, they only viewed the Natives as savages, so why would they care?