cowboys and Indians

White domination is so complete that even
American Indian children want to be cowboys.
It’s as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.
—Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race

This week in one of my classes we read an article written by my instructor, Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, entitled Cowboys and Indians: Toys of Genocide, Icons of American Colonialism.

 The article described how deeply racism against Indigenous people is embedded in our culture. For instance, did you know that George Washington sent troops to burn Seneca villages, including people's homes and their winter food stores? I didn't. Abraham Lincoln ordered the mass hanging of 38 Dakotas, the biggest mass execution in U.S. history, and a world record for the most people ever to be hung on one gallows. And you probably do know about Andrew Jackson and the Cherokee Trail of Tears. These are the faces we honor on the $1, $5, and $20 bills.

But what made me think more was what Dr. Yellow Bird pointed out about the iconic roles of cowboys and Indians in our culture. Sure, I knew that cowboys were often the agents of the genocide of the Indigenous people of this continent. But it had never clicked in my mind how messed up it is for kids to play cowboys and Indians. He rightly pointed out that it would be pretty horrifying to watch kids play African slave and white plantation owner, where the slave owner split up families at a slave auction, or whipped people. And I can't even imagine American kids trying to play Nazi concentration camp, putting Jewish people in gas chambers. How about Chinese sweat shop for a fun game? Especially because the part of cowboys and Indians that kids play is typically the part where the cowboys kill the Indians. In other words, our culture totally condones children re-enacting the violent genocide of our nation's original inhabitants. Western movies, toy cowboy and Indian figures, and Indian head dresses, bows and arrows, cowboy hats and pistols are all normative parts of the play and acculturation of American children.  Including American Indian children. Wow.

I recognize racism when it comes in the form of racial slurs or jokes, when someone is labelled by a racial stereotype, or where the service afforded to people of different races is different in a public establishment. But it surprised me to realize how I have participated in the embedded racism against the Indigenous peoples of North America by playing cowboys and Indians myself as a child, or embracing the cowboy image as an adult.

Things won't change if we don't recognize them. So I feel compelled to share with as many people as possible this "aha moment" I've experienced, where something that was right in front of my face became visible for the first time. Check out Dr. Yellow Bird's article. And notice and point out the ways that embedded racism subjugates Native people in our culture.