Review by lauraleafromthelibrary - The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

2.0

Page xvi — the Canadian vs American debate
Focus on American history
Page 34 — fought the cavalry
Page 41 — Indians on the Hollywood walk of fame
Page 45 — white actors playing POC
- Cultural appropriation — dressing up as indigenous people
Page 60 — too heavy to lift. WOW
Page 94 — insanity or policy?
Page 97 — moving Indians around like you’re moving house
Chapter 5 — the genocide of a people / residential schools
- We have no history of colonialism (124)
Page 136 — Indians from India
- You mean like cowboys and Indians??
Page 179 — the new buffalo — Indian Gaming.
Page 188 — “racism is endemic in North America. And it’s also systematic. While it affects the general population at large, it’s also buried in the institutions that are supposed to protect us from such abuses.”
- Talking about racism in Alberta.
Page 192 — “1985 — you see my problem. The history I offered to forget, the past I offered to burn, turns out to be our present. It may well be our future.”
Chapter 8 — sovereignty argument — gaming profits, landfills, and coal mining? WOW *heavy chapter
Chapter 9 — whites want land.
- Using Alberta is a bad example.
Page 225 — “Of course, no one in Canada or the United States is going to support a holiday that isn’t a celebration of national power and generosity, so we’d have to disguise it, much the way we do Thanksgiving.”
- Victoria Day reference
Page 236 — salmon people

This book has not aged well. Environmental discussions did not age well. Race relations did not age well. Ethnic titles and language did not age well. Not my favourite. I want to learn about Canadian First Nations — not cowboys and Indians.