“Lastly I want to share this award with all the first nations
people represented in this film and all the indigenous communities
around the world. It is time that we recognize your history and that we
protect your indigenous lands from corporate interests and people out
there to exploit them. It is time we heard your voice and protected
this planet for future generations.”
That is good but that is not our narrative. Those are not our
awards. We are objects in that arena; the camera is directed at us not
by us. We are consistently dressed out of time and out of place for
their marketability, indeed our marketability as well. Our place in
their media is as our ancestors pre-1900: feathers, leathers,
plains-people the whole bit. That’s where we fit as Reel Injuns. We’ll
keep taking those roles, that’s part of our survival and evolution.
Much could be said about the portrayal of Natives in the Revenant or the
very act of celebrating other people in idolatrous fashion when Natives
show more allegiance to NFL teams than their own Tribal Nations but
that’s none of my business.
What good does it do us to have celebrities recognize us & why do
we so fondly receive that? Well, it does a tremendous amount of good
considering the creation of pop-culture, the manufacturing of “cool” and
the lot we Natives find ourselves in. That lot aptly described as the
most dis-empowered, disenfranchised lot in history. However, it
behooves us to celebrate our own creative action, our own hard work to
revive our languages, the evolution of ceremony, strengthening of
land-people-animal-being ecosystem connections, developing our own
abilities, our own adaptations. Don’t get caught too long in the allure
of celebrity, in others.
http://lastrealindians.com/leonardo-dicaprio-recognizes-1st-nations-in-golden-globe-speech-by-chase-iron-eyes/
COMPILED & REVIEWED BY CLAUDIA A. FOX TREE, M.Ed (Arawak). Here are resources I recommend in courses I teach about Native Americans - like book lists, websites, video clips, music/songs, curriculum ideas, and other thoughts thrown in for explanation… Mostly, this blog is a place to present truths and perspectives about the Indigenous People of the Western Hemisphere (with particular focus on the Caribbean) not easily found in other places.
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