Custer Died For Your Sins

"Dunbar-Ortiz’[b:An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|20588662|An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3)|Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1395003842l/20588662._SX50_.jpg|39861426] was grim and horrific, yet while Deloria covers some of the same territory, he does so with a cheeky humor which slyly exposes the hypocrisy of white America’s attitudes towards Native Americans. His chapter on “The Anthropologist” in which he presents a a pseudo-sociological analysis of this sub species is a hoot, but will also give many well-meaning white academics pause: why <i>do</i> universities and government agencies shower so much grant money on white people to study Indians, as opposed to giving it to, well…Indians? Likewise , in discussing "The Missionary", Deloria quotes a midcentury “expert” who ponderously declared that Indians were in fact human. “Thanks", quips Deloria , “we were really worried about that”.<br/><br/>Written mostly in the late '60s (with a few updates in the 1987 edition) what I found most challenging was Deloria’s disapproving assessment of the Black Power movement and of Indian connections to it. Deloria saw civil rights and Black Power as primarily cultural movements advocating for Black inclusion in white society, whereas Native interests lay in being left alone by white society. However Deloria fails to appreciate the underlying issues of white resentment, dispossession and violence which threaten both communities. While the two have different histories, their exploitation by whiteness means they have much in common. Black power was not about culture but about economic and legal rights, and MLK fought for the political power of the vote and an to end white terror against Black people, nor just for the right to sit next to whites at lunch counters. Deloria’s dismissal of the Black struggle is disappointing."