While reading the Indian question there were a few things that stood out to me. The first thing that amazed me was not surprising that the white men again were raping people of their freedom and human rights. The fact that the Indians and their spiritual dance actually scared and threatened them is a joke to me. I’m still not sure or clear how in the world men who are thought to be so bold and daring can be threatened by individuals who just danced! I feel like it’s just another one of their ways of making an excuse to be the greedy individuals that they have always been. The Indians never interfered or attempted to do anything that the white men did or had, so it upsets me that they were treated the way that they were treated for no reason at all. It was always the white man’s duty to try and make everyone civilized, or in other words like them! I don’t believe that they ever accepted anyone else’s ethnicity or culture but their own. The Indians tried their best to defend themselves and their land but nothing worked. The whites knew that they didn’t stand a chance at war with them and still attacked them with full force and no mercy. Not only did they attack the men but killed babies, children, and women. How cool is that?! They even tried to run and the whites knew that but didn’t cared that just made the attack much easier, “they shot us like we were buffalo’’ page 230. This chapter was apparently very disturbing for me, and left clear images of torture in similarity to the chapter borders pages 191 to 221. The question that I would like to raise is who if anyone would ever be able to be equal to the white man?
That was very intriguing to read. I think that when you look at history and time there is a colonization happening someone or some culture is left in the dust. In this case with the Native Americans, the European settlers were the people who would be conquering and "reforming" these so called savages or beats. When looking at this one can realize that it is really fear based out of differences that drives this need to reform others, naturally one understand their own ways but does not always understand or embrace the differences of others. Not to disagree with your comments about how the white man did so much wrong, because there isn't really much to disagree with. However, I think it should be stated that many cultures and races if not all cultures and races have done the same. Native American tribes had many wars amongst themselves and killed and slaughtered one another, we don't have to look back further than the genocides in Darfur or Rwanda (Hutu and Tutsi) in Africa to see those people killing and slaughtering one another because of differences of ethnicity or culture. Many Chinese wars were fought during the romance of the three kingdoms in feudal china and they went after one another based upon alignment to certain family or sects. I would like to answer your question by saying that its not whether or no someone is "better" or "equal" to anyone else because I don't really agree that a race or gender could or should be considered superior than others, rather one should look within their self and realize that people in general are capable of great good and horrible atrocities regardless of race, but it is often the issue that is race or ethnic background that may drive people to look at the differences they see and try to think they are better than those they see as different or somehow sub human.
ReplyDeletethanks Dan!
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