Catch up Posts 2-5

Ok, I could not post anything on here for a long time cause I deleted the email, so here are my 2nd through 5th posts everybody. Enjoy :)

Post 2 Lowen 31-69/ Alexie 29-46
I found the information that Lowen presented about Christopher Columbus to be very interesting. Most of what he talked about were FACTS in history that I have never even heard of. That both Vikings, Africans, and possibly Asians had landed on the "New World" before Columbus puts a large dagger in his title as the discoverer of a new continent. It shows just how Euro centric these history textbooks have become if they give the first place ribbon to the fourth place finisher who is white.

I agree with Lowen in the humor of modern thinkers to continue to think of Columbus or any other explorers of his day as "Discovering" the Americas. There were already PEOPLE there! The Native Americans should be credited with the discovery of a new continent, and there is really no way to argue against that. Lowen might have made the central statement in the entire book when he wrote "Deep down, our culture encourages us to imagine that we are richer and more powerful because we're smarter" (37). The reason that a white discovered America was because he was so much smarter than all those colored folk that found it before him! So far this has been a major theme in both this book and in The Summer of Black Widows. Alexie may not have said it outright yet, but every Native American knows that there is still a lingering presumption that they are still somehow a "savage" people.

What amazed me most by far about Columbus was his involvement in the slave trade. As America has now turned against this trade and view it as a hideous act, one of our great white pioneers can't possibly be know for being the man who started this act.

Post 3 Lowen 70-92/ Alexie 49-60

In the section of "Sister Fire, Brother Smoke" by Sherman Alexie there is much sorrow and despair. He reverts to the death of his sister in the fire multiple times, and I think that all humans have a distinct fear of being burned to death and it is very hard for someone to cope with losing a friend to fire. Fire does not only kill the life that is within a body, but it also warps and scars the body until it is no longer recognizable. Alexie probably feels like the Native American Nations have been severely burned by the whites who came in and killed their ways of life and left their culture scared almost to the point of unrecognizably.

Lowen also is making this point in his book. He tells us the truth about the first thanksgiving and also about the beginning of the "triumph" of whites over reds. It helps that Lowen paints the picture of how kind and generous the Natives Americans were to the newcomers and how they kept them alive upon their landing. It is a classic case of a baby tiger showing up on your doorstep and you taking it in, not knowing that it will one day be more powerful and kill you. But don't worry it is alright, because we have now changed thanksgiving to fit our needs and reestablish our security in ourselves and history.

Post 4 Lowen 93-113/Alexie 63-74

Lowen makes an interesting point about how modern day whites really have no clue what happened before the "discovery" of the Americas in the 15 and 16 centuries. He points out that experts on the subject tread lightly on the subject also because they are not certain of anything but only have hypothesis, but nothing is for certain. Modern day textbooks however plow the road by telling students exactly how the Natives came to the Americas and exactly why they came.

In reading this I came to the conclusion that modern day high schools dislike students questioning their authority. It is preferred that students simply learn the material and memorize it, rather than question it and find out for themselves. In this system lies that are presented as facts take are pounded into the majority of the population of a country in only 50 years. This is a very effective propaganda strategy.

I loved the poem "The Lover of Maps" by Alexie, it is short but carries a great deal of meaning behind it. He is trying to show that one culture can't define another culture in their own terms. That is like trying to teach someone to speak Spanish but you only teach in English. The quote "She tells me our stories are maps told on a scale larger than can be held by our clumsy hands"(63). You can attempt to define Native Americans with a Euro centric definition, but you can't fully explain or capture the vastness of their cultures.

Post 5 Lowen 113-134/Alexie 77-99

I love the title "Tourists" that Alexie gives this section of his book. It can be taken so many different ways and has a very deep meaning in many senses. I liked the poem "Prayer Animals" particularly in this section. He does a comparison between the modern world and the natural world giving each a five lined stanza. He is very biased toward the natural side and plays it up much higher than the "Weeds bursting through the sidewalks"(84) of the modern world. The ending leaves you thinking and a bit bewildered however. He ends with the line "Will the hunter use the rifle or his teeth?"(84), which does not make very much sense to me considering the rest of the poem.

Lowen makes a marvelous point when he shows how we have used imagery to tell lies and make Native Americans out to be the criminals. He talks about how in Western movies and paintings it is always the Indians who attack the whites, when in reality it was the other way around. Even if the Indians did attack the whites they had every right to, we were on their land. Lowen also makes the case about how the use of maps has helped justify our injustice. By simply drawing a line that says "Colonial Territory", we can then rightfully move the Indians off because they were in fact on our land that we had so rightfully claimed.

He ends the chapter with a statement, which I think is absolutely true, saying that although we told Native Americans to assimilate into our culture, we really wanted nothing less than to push them right off the continent. This is a very troubling statement, and reminds me of the movie scenes where a man asks a stranger if he wants to come inside out of tradition and a matter of course, but in reality he wants the stranger off his land. The problem is, it is not even the mans land in the first place!