Jim Ruel--Comedian, Indian

            There is something I think of when I watch a comedian do jokes about races or activities of race groups. It is something I heard in observation a couple years back: the camera always closes in on a laughing audience member who belongs to the race the joke was made about. It is  almost as if the camera is giving you permission to laugh without calling you racist. “No, go ahead and laugh! No, you’re not a racist. See that [insert ethnicity here]? He’s laughing, too. Go ahead and enjoy yourself!”

            And something else I’m fascinated with, as far as language and laughing, is that groan/laugh audiences make. For example, at the beginning of Jim Ruel’s act (the one Dr. Morris posted on D2L), he says, “I hope you enjoy my act…and my land.” And the audience was already laughing. But when he brought up history (i.e. taking Native American land), the audience stopped heartily laughing and did a nervous, self-conscious half laugh. Those fascinate me. What are those people thinking? “Is it okay to laugh? Was that meant to be a joke? Was he being rude to us, the audience, and laughing at it would make me seem stupid?”

            I found it hilarious when, less than a minute into the act, Jim Ruel brought up the idea that people don’t think of Native Americans as being funny. We’ve discussed it on so many occasions in class that it struck me when he mentioned that himself. And I suppose it’s not something I ever really thought about…I just assumed all races, colors, and creeds did comedy.

            A laugh-out-loud moment for me was when he said, “I’m from Milwaukee, which is an Indian word…I learned that from Wayne’s World.” I rather enjoy that movie and it struck me as hilarious. It also reminded me about that whole scene in Wayne’s World, where Alice Cooper goes off on a tangent about the Native peoples and Garth and Wayne just stand there dumbstruck. I can pretty much figure that’s how a real life situation would go. Undereducated people standing dumbstruck at someone who is presenting them with a litany of facts they’ve never heard about Native Americans.

            Not that I was surprised, but I was thoroughly entertained by Jim Ruel.

Nom Nom Humans

            While we were discussing things in class on Thursday, this video clip kept popping up into my head. It’s a bit from King of the Hill, that animated TV show that reruns on Adult Swim all the time. It you’re too busy to watch the clip, this is the gist: Bobby, the son, learned about Native Americans in school a few days before Thanksgiving because the one Native American in the town (John Redcorn) came to their school. Bobby was so intrigued that he goes way too far in his studies at the local bookstore. For thanksgiving, he makes a speech to his family and neighbors (including Redcorn) and presents them with a fake human head, like one of the tribes would have devoured ages ago.

            What isn’t shown in the clip is what kept playing in my head during class. John Redcorn turns to the boy standing next to him who is very disgusted and accuses Redcorn of eating people and declares, “That was hundreds of years ago! We don’t do that anymore!”

            In fact, if you’ve seen any episodes of the show, Redcorn is the “healer.” He does the new age type of medicine: massages, stones, candles, incense, music…you get the idea. Whenever he starts a speech about “his people,” the wind gently blows his long dark hair, giving him the very noble look of a classic noble Native American.

            We were discussing in class the idea that most portrayals of Native Americans are based in the past. The savages Columbus encounters, the Reds that attack Cowboy camps, etc. The notion of any Native is based in the past. There is rarely a portrayal of a Native in a modern day setting, except maybe for the alcoholic Native that lives in a trailer park. I’ve seen those portrayals.

            Which begs the question: which would the Native Americans rather see on a screen? At this point, it would take something drastic to really change how they are seen on television or on the movie screen. Which one is better? The noble savage, standing tall and proud amongst the crowd, giving off a sense of strength? Or the drunk that all the other characters walk pass and murmur sketchy things about?

            And this brings me to the genius idea that was mentioned much earlier in the class: leave them alone. To me, the smartest move with the highest probably rate of success is the “leave them along” campaign. To stop using their image in mascots, in plays, in movies, in television, anywhere. Let them purify the entertainment we see by letting the rest of us know that, when we see something “Native,” that it really does come from a Native American.

http://video.adultswim.com/king-of-the-hill/a-native-american-feast.html
(just watch the first clip that comes up, it rolls directly into the other clips that don’t have anything to do with this blog post)

Cherokee Nation Will Return

            As a child, I was completely raised on my parents’ music. I am a 1970s child at heart, I swear. So, much to my older brother’s chagrin, I would go around and sing this one song practically on repeat from my parents’ Gold 1960s CD: “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and the Raiders. It’s got extremely catchy lyrics and I loved it.

            Since starting up this class, I’ve been pondering over that song. Listed below are the lyrics I personally know. However, the further I dug about this song, the more I became curious. I wanted to know if this was yet another racist portrayal of a forgotten people or if it was genuinely supposed to be in support of the Cherokee tribe. The original writer was John Loudermilk, who is not Native American, according to my research. The one reply I found on an ask.com question (which seems legitimate, however, this seemed to be a difficult topic to research) said that the original singer was Marvin Rainwater, who is indeed Cherokee. The song at that point had different lyrics than the one I know and was titled “Pale Faced Indian.”

            Then a British guy came around, named Don Fardon, who made quite a name for himself with this song. Also doesn’t seem to be Native American in any way. (Who knows? I was giving him the benefit of the doubt and maybe had some heritage in it. Nope.)

Then according to one site I found, one of the members of Paul Revere and the Raiders was part Native American, although it does not specify if he really was Cherokee.

And all of this hullabaloo began with the notion on American Top 40 back in the day that Loudermilk was kidnapped after a car accident by Cherokee tribesmen who wouldn’t let him leave until he promised to write a song about their struggles. Of course, this wasn’t true.

However, doesn’t this seem the opposite of the point? The rumor he spreads intimates that these Cherokee people are abusive and kidnap a guy just because they can. But then he creates a song that’s supposed to enliven the Cherokee people and given them something to strive for.

I still don’t know what to make of this song.

Lyrics to the Paul Revere and the Raiders version:

They took the whole Cherokee Nation
And put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife

They took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

They took the whole Indian Nation
And locked us on this reservation
And though I wear a shirt and tie
I’m still a red man deep inside

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

But maybe someday when they learn
Cherokee Nation will return
Will return
Will return
Will return
Will return

                                                        

Youtube Link to Song by Paul Revere and the Raiders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ojRQ15My7s

Youtube Link to Song by Don Fardon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupp_SmrHqY

Youtube Link to Song by John Laudermilk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Ejy3xW9qI

Youtube Link to Song sung by Marvin Rainwater:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIpRJlWV0AM

Wikipedia Link about the Band:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere_%26_the_Raiders

Information Link:

http://www.chimesfreedom.com/2011/06/07/listen-my-children-and-you-shall-hear-inaccuracies-about-paul-revere/

Cutting Out Tongue to Spite Face

            I went ahead and used one of the links that Dr. Morris provided to us on the D2L site and looked at an article that dealt with Cherokee translators, a spotlight on their work to keep the language alive. This is not the first time I’ve come across article that extol the efforts of translators that are helping to keep a dying tradition alive. In my Ethnic American Literature class a couple years ago, I read a book called Here First that was an anthology of different Native works. It discussed their feelings about losing land, about losing language, about losing sense of self as a tribe and as a people. This article echoes the same sentiments. The translators have the ability to breathe fresh life into their whole tribe by spreading the knowledge of the language. There are so many important things that get passed down from one generation to the next. But if there is no communication because there is no similar tongue, that information will simply be lost.

            We discussed briefly in class about the presence of Native American Schools, such as the one set up in Carlisle. The point was to “Americanize” the Natives to extinction: prevent practice of their religion, practice of their culture, and use of their own language. Drilling English into their heads with such strict enforcement completely pushed out the usefulness of their native tongue. We’d like to think that was years ago, but one of the Cherokee translators recalls her own struggle to maintain her native language. Her grandfather used to teach the Cherokee language to all of the kids after their playtime. But after his death, everyone drifted apart and the importance to learn this language fell away. Phyllis Edwards says, “You were not allowed to talk Cherokee, and there was not anyone available at that time like a bilingual speaker to translate what was being said to us.” She had her own struggle between what was meaningful to her (keeping her Cherokee language) and what was easy (assimilating into the mainstream and speaking English so she could communicate with everyone else). This prompted her decision not to teach her own children their native language, just because it was easiest. She didn’t want them to struggle like she did to communicate. But at the same time, by doing so, she was making it harder for her children to communicate with their elders.

            I also recalled from my Cultural Geography class as well as my Anthropology class the very real fact of dying languages. There are 548 languages, today, that have less than 99 people who can speak that language. So tongues are dying out at an alarming rate. For the Cherokee people, or any Native tribe for that matter, are going to have to fight tooth and nail to keep their own language alive. The domineering languages (English, Mandarin, Spanish, etc) are threatening to topple over anything “lesser” in number.

            Which in general is a terrible thought. American is known to be the “melting pot” where all cultures can come together. We’re all losing a sense of identity because of it. And anyone from a Native background is thoroughly screwed.         

Languages:

http://www.powells.com/review/2008_07_13

Cherokee Article:

http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/Index/5926

Once Upon a Time...

            Pardon me a moment while I indulge in some hopeful naiveté.

            Maybe Natives would do better in 2012 than they did 100 years ago. Think about it. Our attention spans, sadly, have diminished to almost nonexistent proportions. I graduated with an alarming number of students who openly admitted to never having finished a single assigned book in their whole high school careers. My father worked with men who couldn’t even recall the last book they’d read, and in fact, thought my father a hardass monster when he informed them that my brother and I spend our summers readings. “Awwww come on! Give them a break!” As an English major, this information depresses me beyond words. I find joy, solace, release, ideas, vacations, and intellectual debate within the covers of books. A world without them would be bleak.

            The illiteracy rates in the United states are upsetting, to say the least. 1 in 5 people worldwide cannot read. In the United States alone, approximately 1 in 4 people scored in the lowest literacy brackets. So, given this information, the general dislike for reading, our every-shrinking attention spans, and the supposedly new age-y openness to new things, why not let the Natives flourish with what they do best: storytelling. I’m jumping off the statement Dr. Morris made in class, that she’s met Natives from all walks of life and they share in common humor and a love of telling stories.

            My whole post sprung from pg. 97 of Thomas King’s book we’re reading in class. Essentially, oral literature is not quantifiable and therefore not as worthy of intellectual discussion or study.

            Which is foolish. Think of the average person. Plopped in front of the television, a can of something in their hand, a snack on the table next to them, watching a show. Let us presume it’s Comedy Central. Those jokes, that oral literature, sticks with the average person. They’ll see their friends or coworkers the next day and have a good laugh as they retell those jokes. Yet, ask them to remember the symbolism or even the character names of, say, a Hawthorne novel and you’ll hear crickets. Which isn’t to say I’m not guilty of the same thing. Names are not my forte and certain genres of novels put me to sleep. I love a good story or a great joke, they stick with me. They make an impression on me.

            So in 2012, why not let our institutions follow the siren call of a good story. It’s what our generation needs. Children of three years old would rather play Angry Birds on their parents’ cell phones than take a trip to the library. Or, at least, has been my experience. But give Natives the right setting, the right stage, and their history could really take off. If The Inside or Access Hollywood can mould the nation to care about the rich and famous, let a shunned group of Natives have their shot at opening the eyes and minds of the nation as well. Who doesn’t love a good story?

Illiteracy:

http://education-portal.com/articles/Illiteracy_The_Downfall_of_American_Society.html