...Native women have been highly sexualized throughout pop culture and history. There are a number of examples that come to mind–the story of Pocahontas, or Tiger Lily in Peter Pan, or Gwen Stefani in her “Looking Hot” video, or even the Land ‘O’ Lakes Girl–the “Indian Princess” stereotype is far and wide. A current example of an American Indian stereotype happened in 2012. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show caused some controversy as their model, Karlie Kloss, strutted along the catwalk. She wore a tiny leopard print bikini, high heels with leather fringes around her ankles and hips, a large turquoise pendant, matching rings, bracelets and a belt. Her most alarming accessory, however, was a lofty Native American headdress. Kloss’s garb was designed...
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...Native Americans, Struggles, Mascots, and Controversy There has been a national debate for years over Native American athletic mascots. “Members of the North Carolina Mascot Education and Action Group and the Guilford Native American Association, however, repeatedly told us that they perceived the use of Indian mascots, logos, caricatures, and similar images by our schools as a clear form of institutional racism” (Grier 2005: 51). In this paper we will discuss the controversial impact of the Native American stereotype used as mascots. In the early 1900’s when the threat of colonization was abolished Americans started to use the Native American mascot to show their acknowledgement of their struggles. Although this was symbolic it has been an ongoing controversy within schools and sports. California is the second highest state that uses the most Native American imagery and symbols. The importance of this contemporary issue is an ongoing debate in California that has impacted the true history of Native Americans and the battles they went through. The truth is crucial because their imagery and interpretation is misunderstood in American history. In the early 1900’s it became acceptable to use Native American imagery for advertisement. “One of the reasons why most Americans find the mascots unremarkable and do not turn a critical eye toward the mascots is because of the prevalence of similar images throughout U.S. popular culture” (King, et al 2002:391). Although years later...
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...industry shapes the perception of movie viewers in every aspect of their lives. In Hollywood movies, Americans and Indians are the key players as a result of their long interaction in the history of America. Therefore, Hollywood movies greatly affect the perceptions of the Americans and other audiences about Indians. In most cases, Hollywood stereotype Indians as savages, as well as primitives. They portray Indians as vicious and dangerous people headed for extinction. Even with the production of Indians and western films, this wrong perception of Indians still remains in the mind of many movie audiences (Aleiss, 35). The Native American has experienced extensive damage from mass media in the way it portrays cowboys and their process of moving in the west. These cowboys moved across the west conquering the lands while riding the horses. In real sense, they were driving the Indians out (Mihelich, 130). This example points out at some of the cultural misconceptions created by the Hollywood. The conception of the movie by young Americans is inaccurate, as well as highly damaging. This misconception especially in young children makes it difficult for them to learn about the Native Americans of the present days (O'Connor, 72). The stereotype on Indians has also affected the Indians in America. Many of them suffer from self-esteem deficiency caused by the stereotyped depicted by the Hollywood. Over the decades, the culture and the religion of the native Indians has been suppressed...
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...comparable to the idea of Stereotypes, or preconceived notion placed on a certain groups of people . In Celluloids Indians Jacquelyn Kilpatrick describes stereotypes as such, “‘ [s] tereotypes are evaluative concepts about status and roles and as such are central to interpreting and evaluating social groups including one’s own.”’ (xvi) Using this idea Kilpatrick explores “the social, ideological and political construction” (xvi) of stereotypes in literature, film and politics in accordance to different perspectives. In short we explore how the interpretation of film and literature relies on the perspective in which it is told, as different perspectives manifest different stereotypes. Prehaps some of the most prevalent examples are Literary works. These works often stem from stories of experience in encounters with Native Americans. Many of these literary...
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...The first common stereotype used to describe Native people, is The Noble Savage Image. According to the book written by Carol Cornelius, the Noble Savage Image was seen as a romantic view of Indians and how they lived in harmony with the nature. It also suggests, that the “outsider” has been not influenced or corrupted by the civilization. A clear example of this image, is the character Hiawatha, which was created from the combination of the Iroquois “Aywetha”, and the Ojibwa mythology. According to this creation, Native Americans are seen as “one people”; which means that they do not show the diversity among Native Americans. Other common stereotype is the idea that states that Native Americans only can better themselves if they are with white...
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...Victor is the main character of “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and he has an identity crisis throughout the story since he lives in the city but is from the Indian reservation. He identifies not only as a Native American, but he lives in a community surrounded by mostly Caucasian people which makes him feel out of place. He feels that he does not belong in the reservation and also does not belong in the big city. The narrator, Peaches, in “Separation Anxiety” identifies herself as an African American and lives in a community where everyone...
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...The responsibility for the identity crisis among Native Americans lays on the Hollywood. It has assigned an abundant amount of unrealistic stereotypes to Native Americans, which are the reason that Native Americans don't know who they really are. Today, Native Americans struggle to fit into the mold of behavior and appearance that Hollywood has constructed for them. In “Smoke Signals”,a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, and later a film by Chris Eyre, two youths, Victor and Thomas, must journey to Phoenix Arizona to retrieve the ashes of Arnold, the father of Victor who left him and his mother years earlier. The journey of these two young men is, in a way, a metaphor for the identity search. Though “Smoke Signals” is a road movie, as claimed by...
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...1920’s. The exhibit's goal was to debunk common stereotypes of black people and expand our history beyond slavery and the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s. Similar to Picturing Indians the photographers intended to deflate common stereotypes of Native Americans. H.H Bennett’s pictures show the negative white perceptions of natives during the nineteenth century. Natives have faced “federal policies of Indian removal, centuries of mutual distrust” (Hoelscher,10). The common stereotypes natives are associated with are being “the Indian warrior, as Chief or Medicine Man, as Naked Savage, as Sex Fantasy, as Prisoner, as Noble Savage, as Vanishing American, as Object of Study, as Tourist Prop, and as Victim” (Hoelscher,10). In contrast, Blacks have experienced slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching, mass incarceration and other forms of racism and disenfranchisement. Throughout these periods of history, Blacks have been tagged as being impoverished, unintelligent, overly sexualized, criminals, and many more. These same degrading stereotypes have hypermasculinized Natives and African...
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...Native Americans Deepak Patel HIS/135-The American Experience Since 1945 October 6, 2012 The Native Americans who were native of the United States have suffered many injustices during the 1960s. Many negative stereotypes still existed about Indians, showing Native Americans in a bad light. Native Americans had the highest unemployment rates, the lowest average income, and suffered from poor health that they could not have fixed. Eisenhower also set up the policy of ‘termination.’ This policy was made to “end the status of Indians as wards of the government and grant them all the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship” (Eckholm, 1994). The results of this were disastrous, and many Native Americans remained poor. Still, Native Americans were constantly relocated to reservations that were supposed to preserve their societies, but actually left them powerless. Native Americans eventually started to get mobilized to challenge the government on water, fishing, and treaty rights. The Red Power was a political movement in the 1960's. The Native Americans were fighting to get back their land. They felt that they had to get violent in order to regain their civil rights. Most them were willing to break the laws and confront the government. Most of these Native Americans came from the urban ghettos and were not Indians from reservations. They were influenced by the African Americans. This movement lead up to a series of...
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...Culture and diversity appreciation Christoph Clayton November 1st, 2015 ETH/125 Instructor Lange The human perception of life is one consent thought that runs through one’s mind on a daily bases. The perception of the everyday person is influenced by their unique surroundings. These surrounds can also be influenced by that person’s culture and diversity. This is what make all of us different, the difference from yourself and others is your unique diversity and your culture you follow. Different cultures and diversity is what makes our great world so different and uncommon. Diversity and culture playa huge role in some people’s perceptions of life and what they thing is right and wrong. There is no right or wrong when it comes to your faith and or your decision making. The acceptance of different cultures and diversity falls on us as people, you have the right to follow the masses or follow what you think is right. This has been big issue over the last few years, especially with issues such as gay marriage, legalization of marijuana and even the separation of church and state. The government and the media have their own agenda when it comes to the foster of acceptance and culture. I feel that if the media and government would allow different cultures an opportunity to be seen and studied then we would learn so much about other people and their perceptions on the world. The world is an evolving and changing place, we need to be able to adapt and accept change. The acceptance...
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...Arnold is the misfit Native American teenager outcast that just wants to find his place in the world. In the novel, the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie, Arnold discovers his true self by trekking his way through a series of challenging events. He breaks stereotypes by coming to realize the struggles of an alcoholic, addictive lifestyle and in the process, finds himself. There are three hundred and thirty six reservations in America. One of the biggest difficulties each reservation faces is addiction. Arnold, as well as many others on these reservations come across the reality of this, in their own homes. The stem of alcoholism among Native Americans can be one of many things, including hurt being passed down among generations and generations. Native Americans have lived in America for years and years, even so, they...
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...Culture and diversity appreciation Christoph Clayton November 1st, 2015 ETH/125 Instructor Lange The human perception of life is one consent thought that runs through one’s mind on a daily bases. The perception of the everyday person is influenced by their unique surroundings. These surrounds can also be influenced by that person’s culture and diversity. This is what make all of us different, the difference from yourself and others is your unique diversity and your culture you follow. Different cultures and diversity is what makes our great world so different and uncommon. Diversity and culture playa huge role in some people’s perceptions of life and what they thing is right and wrong. There is no right or wrong when it comes to your faith and or your decision making. The acceptance of different cultures and diversity falls on us as people, you have the right to follow the masses or follow what you think is right. This has been big issue over the last few years, especially with issues such as gay marriage, legalization of marijuana and even the separation of church and state. The government and the media have their own agenda when it comes to the foster of acceptance and culture. I feel that if the media and government would allow different cultures an opportunity to be seen and studied then we would learn so much about other people and their perceptions on the world. The world is an evolving and changing place, we need to be able to adapt and accept change. The acceptance...
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...Communicating across Cultural Barriers Nancy J. Adler If we seek to understand a people, we have to try to put ourselves, as far as we can, in that particular historical and cultural background. ... It is not easy for a person of one country to enter into the background of another country. So there is great irritation, because one fact that seems obvious to us is not immediately accepted by the other party or does not seem obvious to him at all. ... But that extreme irritation will go when we think ... that he is just differently conditioned and simply can't get out of that condition. One has to recognize that whatever the future may hold, countries and people differ ... in their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. In order to understand them, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language as far as we can, not language in the narrow sense of the word, but the language of the mind. That is one necessity. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of other people. ... Jawaharlal Nehru, Visit to America All international business activity involves communication. Within the international and global business environment, activities such as exchanging information and ideas, decision making, negotiating, motivating, and leading are all based on the ability of managers from one culture to communicate...
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...was created. The first use of the term was a reference to a camp in West Virginia made by The Railroad Trainmen’s Journal. Eight years later, the New York Journal-American defined the term as “a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks, whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him” (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2017). While the New York Journal uses the state of Alabama in their definition, the word hillbilly has actually been used to describe anyone in the hills mentioned by the New York Journal: the Appalachian Mountains. As defined officially by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), the Appalachian mountain range extends from northern Mississippi and Alabama up to southern New York. However, as the region grew and developed, the locations to which isolated hillbilly stereotypes could be applied shrank to what ARC classifies...
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...ShaQueelah Pierce Criminal Stereotypes of African American Males Watkins - English IV September 1, 2013 As human beings, we do certain actions without even knowing that we have done them, such as stereotyping other races or people by the way they look, talk, walk, or just carry themselves. African Americans, in particular, are a race of people that are stereotyped, but the typical African American males are usually stereotyped negatively. The typical stereotype for African American male is angry and criminals. The research I have conducted, has revealed to me that the criminal stereotype affects people’s memory, and essentially have a bad impact on people’s lives. I have evidence to show that there are people that believes the three issues and why it is not a valid stereotype toward African American males. African American males have gone through a lot of scrutiny throughout history. "In the past twenty-five years, African American males in the United States have gone through various social challenges." Bing lynched and murdered brutally just for their skin color, even the police pulling them over for no apparent reason and also considering the infamous Rodney King beating. Vast majority African American males have been through a lot of unnecessary adversity. Through these pointless social acts, some African American males have drifted toward criminal activities, such as: robbing people or stores, selling drugs, and doing anything to make money...
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