Thursday, May 15, 2008

Video: I'M NOT THE INDIAN YOU HAD IN MIND

Got the review (below) yesterday... Sounds terrific, and with its length of five minutes, would work well in a classroom, leaving time for meaty discussion! The image shown here is from the website of the American Indian Film Institute. (Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without permission of its author, Beverly Slapin.)

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I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind. 2007, 5 minutes, color, grades 7-up.

I’m not the Indian you had in mind. I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him ride, a rush of wind, a darkening tide, with wolf and eagle by his side…” In this brilliant, fast-paced visual and spoken-word performance, Tom King and actors Tara Beagan and Lorne Cardinal juxtapose themselves and other contemporary Indians with cringe-inducing media images of Indians—“the clichés that we can’t rewind.” But there is more than stock footage of tomahawk-wielding Indians, a cigar-store Indian and a haute cuisine Indian-themed restaurant whose waiter wears war paint. I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind is razor-sharp social commentary with visuals of pollution-spewing smokestacks and gas pumps and freeways and drained lakes and war rooms and a world gone “Monsanto-mad,” and this, muses King: “Sometimes late at night when all the world is warm and dead, wonder how things might have been had you followed and we led.”

(Note from Debbie: The DVD is $15.00, available from Oyate.)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

"I" Still Isn't for Indian, by Nina Lindsay

In November, 2003, School Library Journal published an article by Nina Lindsay. Called "I" Still Isn't for Indian, Nina's article is an overview of children's books about American Indians, published around the turn of the century (2000). Her article is nearly five years old now, but definitely worth a look, click here to read it.