Harjo's 2007 Mantle of Shame Awards

[frederica]

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416315

[Leonard]

I was wondering is you have a '10 Worst Movies List' anywhere here also. My personal 'nominations' are 'A Man Called Horse' and 'Dances With Wolves'.

Leonard.

<edit>

OK, so I am trying to be a little silly, but serious at the same time to my own people in my own 'white' culture if any of you are here and reading this - just because you have seen a few movies and read a few books does not mean anything and does not make you an 'expert'. This is not the way things are (if they ever were) in 'Holly Wood's' visions. This is really helping me to work through some things and get some closure in my own life and move on.

The first and biggest 'reality test' I had was when I was invited by my friend, Fred Mattia, to his dad's place on the Tohono O'odham Reservation. His dad's place was maybe a mile or two from the border with Mexico and the nearest reference points are a city by the name of Ajo and some sort of national cactus forest I think was called 'Organ Pipe'. Anyway, I only spent a couple of weeks there and this does not make me an expert either, but I saw the stark reality and the conditions and this changed my mind about a lot of my pre-conceived notions.

About 15 years later (1 & 1/2 years ago) I had an opportunity to volunteer with a charity relief organization and see the Pine Ridge Reservation first hand and see the actual condition and talk to the actual people. Anyway, my point is that it ain't 'Dances With Wolves' out there either.

I think my culture has a problem with books and movies and we mistake it with the real world and want to 'cash in' and 'make a buck' of of some romanticized notions we read in a book or see in a movie.

I think this is how the frauds and plastics get away with it is because my culture is ignorant of the real condition of things.