Reservation Dogs - Keira

The aspect of this show that was the most surprising—but sadly, should not have been—is the normality of the people’s lives living on a reservation. I think that the large majority of Americans have never had first-hand experience with Indian reservations. We are stuck with this romantic, 19th century idea of Native Americans that doesn’t exist anymore; and even worse, we are fine with maintaining that stereotype instead of acknowledging the fact that we still have Indigenous people living here in the US and that we don’t know what their current lives and problems are. The show was comedic, but it also highlighted real issues of Native life: for example, the lack of sufficient healthcare/medical services, as there was one doctor for everything. One of the articles mentioned the continuing lack of access to clean water in the Colorado River Basin, even though the tribal nations have rights to it. Issues like these are always pushed into the background in the US, which makes them easy to ignore, easy to make Native people invisible, but I appreciated how this show brought them into the spotlight. Hopefully this show will continue to make Native people visible and give them a stronger foothold in American society.

One of the scenes that shocked me the most was the scene in the car with the elderly couple. The man was complaining about Natives wanting their land back—as if white people were the victims. This reminded me of our discussion about how racial conspiracy theories have subverted reality so much that white people convince themselves they are the victims of all the people different than them (in race, gender, sexuality, religion). In the article about the Haaland v. Brackeen case, the non-Native plaintiffs claimed that “ICWA violates their constitutional rights by discriminating against them”. Again, a majority group of people convinced themselves they were being discriminated against—that they are the victims of an unfair justice system—when indigenous people have been systematically oppressed in all of American history. Hopefully the ICWA will not be overturned, but more attention needs to given to Native people, especially by the US government.



Comments

  1. David BernellMarch 1, 2023 at 3:12 PM

    With the example of lawsuit and the scene in which a couple talk about Native Americans wanting land back, this post highlights the importance of history in being able to understand and appreciate the present -- and how forgetting or distorting history can lead to the surprising (but also not surprising) situation in which those with power and privilege can come to claim they are victims of unfair treatment.

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