"The American Indian", I hate that.

It is midday, got my son home sick, taking a break in front of the television.  I like to watch “Encore Westerns”.  “Laredo” is on, the episode “Oh Careless Love”, about the Texas Rangers winning the old West.  If I keep watching, I can see Paladin, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Marshal Matt Dillon each take their turns in winning the old West.

God, I know why First Nations hate the whites.  I am an American, but Canadian originally (not that there is a tremendous difference), and I do not borrow from my heritage lightly.  First Nations has become the ‘term de jour’ in Canada for what are generally known as “American Indians”.  It is my nod to 'political correctness'.

Watching Laredo where a couple of the Rangers are treating with the ‘Indians’. 

The ‘redskins’ talk in the typical way of Hollywood, in grunting mono-syllables “I no say yes yet”, broken phrases, long black, braided hair; the chief has a fat daughter… “she carries a lot of weight with the old man” (her father), said one of the Rangers.  (and she giggles like she has a mental deficiency)

They eat with their fingers, eat stewed coyotes, talk of many wives, prefer the brute culture.  Then it looks like they cut to an old Hollywood western for scenes of  “braves on the warpath”.

“Here stick, you beat me, I make good wife” said Little Bird, the chief’s daughter.

It’s like watching “Blazing Saddles” but without the satire.  You watch the extras on the Blazing Saddles DVD and there are powerful interviews with the white actors expressing their regrets over the continuous use of the word “nigger”.  No, I am not going to say ‘the “n” word’ because “nigger” is too ugly to pretty up.  And yes, I am a white man using that word.  They said it for a pointed purpose.

There is absolutely nothing satirical or apologetic or the least bit responsive that a terrible wrong is being committed to film.

SIDEBAR: A couple weeks ago, there was a brief news report of an AIM protest march of the Washington Redskins.  The NFL reaction, as reported, summed up as “get over it.”

The plot of the show hinges on a Ranger marrying the Chief’s daughter, making the young chiefs who want war look bad.  Of course, once the cavalry arrives, the Ranger will get pulled out and the white man will reneg on yet another agreement.

So, we make fun of sweat lodges, shaman practices, ritual dances, do whatever we can to make the Indians look backward and primitive.

And the thing of it is, as a I watch to critique, I find the episode to be entertaining.  It’s funny to make fun of ‘lesser’ people.  White man outnumbered but will outsmart the Indian.  Makes for entertaining television.

It is so wrong.  A history of a great nation laid over another history so dark.  “Laredo” was on the air from ’65 to ’67.  We have 400 years of history between immigrant and the first nations to correct.

Some Untold Darkness in our History

Just finished James Bradley’s “The Imperial Cruise”.  He is the author of “Flyboys” and “Flags of our Fathers”, so I picked up this book with high confidence of good information.

I was not expecting what I got.  “A Secret History of Empire and War” is the subtitle.  Bradley focuses on Teddy Roosevelt, President at the beginning of the 20^th century, and weaves a very compelling tale of the dark side of American history.

This is not a review, just some threads of thought that impressed me.

The language used in that time period of American History to talk about the superiority of the “white race” so eerily echoes Nazi Germany, right down to the Japanese being adopted as ‘honorary Aryans’ by both America and Germany.

But what struck me was the repeat of the Conquistadors.  Part of my cultural knowledge of the New World is how the Spanish used missionaries as the leverage and the wedge to invade and conquer the New World in the name of Jesus.  At worst, the missionaries were the agents and collaborators of the conquerers.  At best, they were ignorant stooges who were exploited for their naïve faith in ‘converting the natives’.

I got the sense of White American and European expansion into Asia going along the same lines.

Bradley is not drawing historic parallels or offering ‘alternate church history’.  The historic reference he comes back to a number of times is that of “Jesus Opium”, white missionaries fronting the importation of opium into China. Yes, it was the British who introduced opium to China, but the number of American families that built their fortune in the opium trade was eye-opening to read. 

I would not have included “Drug Boss” in Queen Victoria’s curriculum vitae before this book.

This is not the first inclination of Christianity-or the Christianity of some people-mixing into American politics with less that Jesus-like results.  Gotta go pull some more from my library.