"Injun" in Chris Kyle's AMERICAN SNIPER

When American Sniper opened in theaters last week, I started to see reviews that pointed out Kyle's use of the word savage to describe Iraqis. That word has been used to describe American Indians. I wondered if Kyle made any connections between "savage" and American Indians in his book. The answer? Yes.

In his autobiography, Kyle uses "Injun" in two places. Here's what he said on page 267:

Or we would bump out 500 yards, six or eight hundred yards, going deep into Injun territory to look and wait for the bad guys.

And here's what he said on page 291:

Our missions would last for an overnight or two in Injun country.

See? He made connections between "savage" Iraqis and "savage" Indians. In his book, he used the word "savage" several times. Here's page 4 (the book uses caps as shown):

SAVAGE, DESPICABLE EVIL. THAT'S WHAT WE WERE FIGHTING in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy "savages." 

Later on that same page, he says that when people asked him how many he's killed:

The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives.

On page 147:

THE BAD GUYS THE ENEMIES WE WERE FIGHTING WERE SAVAGE AND WELL-armed 

On page 173:

It was near a hospital the insurgents had converted into a headquarters before our assault, and even now the area seemed to be a magnet for savages.

On page 219:

I hated the damn savages I'd been fighting.

On page 228:

They turned around and saw a savage with a rocket launcher lying dead on the ground.

On page 244:

They had heard we were out there slaying a huge number of savages.

On page 284:

There was a savage on the roof of the house next door, looking down at the window from the roof there. 

On page 316:

"...after we killed enough of the savages out there," I told him. 

On page 338:

I'd have to wait until the savage who put him up to it appeared on the street.

Of course, Kyle is not the first person to equate American Indians with Iraqis. In 2008, Professor Steven Silliman of the University of Massachusetts did a study of the use of "Indian Country." His article, The "Old West" in the Middle East: U.S. Military Metaphors in Real and Imagined Indian Country includes a chart of how it was used in the Middle East, by media and soldiers.

And, anyone who has paid attention to the use of "savage" or "Injun" in children's literature will be able to list several books that use either word to dehumanize American Indians. Here's a few examples:

• Laura Ingalls Wilder used "savages" in her Little House on the Prairie.  
• Carol Ryrie Brink used "savages" in Caddie Woodlawn.
• Lois Lenski used "savage" in Indian Captive.
• Elizabeth George Speare used "savages" in Calico Captive and "savage" in Sign of the Beaver.
• Eoin Colfer used "savage Injun" in The Reluctant Assassin.

When we share books with the dehumanization of American Indians, do we inadvertently put people on that road to being able to dehumanize "other" in conflicts, be the conflict that takes place in war or on the streets of any country?

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Update, 5:03 PM, January 26, 2015

In addition to the article I linked to above, please see the conclusion of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples History of the United States. Irony abounds within military activity. At one point in time, US soldiers dehumanized Native peoples so they could destroy us, our homelands, and our ways of life. Kyle's framing of Iraqis as savages is a present-day manifestation of that.

Dunbar-Ortiz documents the flip side of that stance, quoting Robert D. Kaplan, a military analyst who Foreign Policy magazine named as one of the top 100 global thinkers in 2011:

"It is a small but interesting fact that members of the 101st Airborne Division, in preparation for their parachute drop on D-Day, shaved themselves in Mohawk style and applied war paint on their faces."

She cites other instances of that sort of thing. Get her book, if you can from Teaching for Change. 

"What Students Need to Know about America's Wars"

I'm on a listserv for the National Council of Teachers of Social Studies. Yesterday a subscriber posted information about an upcoming "History Institute for Teachers" called "What Students Need to Know about America's Wars." Curious, I checked out the webpages, looking specifically at the video of a session that was on war with Native peoples.

It was an unpleasant experience. Perhaps I should not have taken the time...

The material is developed by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The lecturer, a man named Skarstedt, notes that there are ideological disagreements over the ways that history of American Indian/United States conflict is presented, but it is clear in his remarks where he stands in the debate.

He begins by saying students wonder why they need to study the frontier wars. He tells the teachers gathered in the session why it is important, using Apaches as an example.

He shows a photograph of four Apache men. He carefully describes the weapons they hold and talks at length about how skilled they were. How they were able to blend into their surroundings, very resourceful, could survive for days with little food or water. They knew the terrain and were "tough as nails."

Then Skarstedt asks "What did the US do to get them?"

He shows the next photograph: men on horses. It is the cavalry! On horseback, he tells us, the US was able to wear down, defeat, and capture the Apaches. And here is why studying the Frontier Wars matters:  He says the US learned valuable lessons by fighting the Apaches, lessons that it uses today, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of wars with Indians, he says, the US developed its "special ops" teams.

Next slide?

It is a photograph of two men, with weapons, wearing masks. They're in Afghanistan or Iraq (Skarstedt doesn't specify). They, he says, are like those Indians. Tough, well-armed, fast moving, blend into the environment, lots of firepower, willing to endure great sacrifice.

His next photograph is one of soldiers, again, on horseback. They are, he tells us, the special ops unit that is pursuing fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Seeing those images used that way was deeply troubling to me. Apaches and Iraq/Afghan's. Obviously he feels they were/are enemies of the US who must be taken down. Who do you think they are? What do you think they were/are doing?

He argued at the opening of his lecture, for people to recognize the complexity of conflict and how it is presented, and then he goes on to do otherwise. In making his points about war tactics, he introduces and affirms simplistic notions.

Later in the lecture he speaks about the people of Cahokia and Taos Pueblo. Both, he says, are gone. They were very advanced and peaceful, he tells us, but they are no longer around. Probably, he says, due to the warring tribes, of which he names the Apache, Comanche, and Sioux. Of course, the people of Taos are not gone. They're a thriving Native Nation!

I wonder if he's ever tried to give this lecture to an audience that includes American Indians?

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Update, May 3rd, 2011: You can view the entire lecture, or see Skarstedt's slides by going here. Scroll down to the section called "The Frontier Years."