Vino Deloria Leaves Us Alone Summary

1576 Words7 Pages
Leave Us Alone By: Denise Meza Vine Deloria takes a new approach at addressing issues that Native Americans have had to face for several years. In Deloria’s “Custer die for your sins: An Indian Manifesto” a general concept of “leaves us alone” is addressed. Circe Strum agrees with his general argument but her study of identity in “Blood Politics: Race, Culture and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma” reveals contradictions. Vine Deloria is known to be the first to write an overview of Indians and be successful in doing so. In Custer Die for your sins Deloria attempts to cover several different issues that the Indians have encountered and continue encounter due to ignorance. In a humorous way Deloria is able to express his opinion while also spreading awareness of what “Being Indian” consists of. The chapter titled: “Anthropologists and Other Friends” blames anthropologists for all the misleading associations made towards Indians. Deloria argues, “they [anthropologists] are the most prominent members of the scholarly community that infests the land of the free…”(CDFYS: 78). Without realizing it, in their attempts to help the Indians anthropologists have only created false assumptions of Indians. All the research conducted as described in this chapter is unreliable.…show more content…
In the film “ We Still Live Here” Little Doe expressed her frustration with the white dependency that existed between the Wampanoag tribe and the American society. Even in recovering her own language, she needed the assistance of a white linguist because she lacked the knowledge needed to revive the tongue. “ Isn’t this ironic? The question wouldn’t be would we do it ourselves, that we would have to depend on some white person to do this work ” stated Little Doe. Native Americans prefer to be left alone but under most conditions they are unable to succeed
Open Document