American Indian artist, Charlene Teeters (from In Whose Honor film about Illinois Mascot) shines a light on the stereotypical images of American Indians used in mainstream America. Using the media of popular culture as her medium, she works with installation art. She bombards her audience with commercialized images and names used to portray American Indians, such as Redskins, Braves and juxtaposes them against photographs of friends and family who she considers real American Indians. Teeters hopes to bring a voice to the silence and visibility to invisible people. She uses art as a forum to raise the level of debate about stereotyping and racism in modern America.
QUOTES from above video:
We are just 2% of population… They say 2 million were dead, but it's probably closer to 20 million, and that's probably an understatement. This was probably the most complete and continual process of genocide in human history.
There are over 3000 sports teams w mascots.
Ignorance is our biggest enemy. The battle used to be on the battlefield… the battle today is in the classroom… the courtroom… and we 're fighting over our self image and identities… the battle is over our image and we are trying to reclaim ourselves, our history, our culture, and our spiritual items and images… It is about self determination and self identification.
We'll never have an equal voice in this country to heal ourselves if we can't keep from being trivialized and not listened to.
We all have responsibility to deconstruct the things that separate us; it's not just a Native American issue.
We also have to challenge the confusion within our own community (internalized racism, oppression, and sexism).
QUOTES from above video:
We are just 2% of population… They say 2 million were dead, but it's probably closer to 20 million, and that's probably an understatement. This was probably the most complete and continual process of genocide in human history.
There are over 3000 sports teams w mascots.
Ignorance is our biggest enemy. The battle used to be on the battlefield… the battle today is in the classroom… the courtroom… and we 're fighting over our self image and identities… the battle is over our image and we are trying to reclaim ourselves, our history, our culture, and our spiritual items and images… It is about self determination and self identification.
We'll never have an equal voice in this country to heal ourselves if we can't keep from being trivialized and not listened to.
We all have responsibility to deconstruct the things that separate us; it's not just a Native American issue.
We also have to challenge the confusion within our own community (internalized racism, oppression, and sexism).
and this video uses my sisters poster of "Would You Wear?"
