Thursday, May 13, 2021

8 misconceptions about Native Americans

Joey Clift (insider.com, January 9, 2020); Xochitl, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Lakota language crash course, U of Denver in 2018 (Hyoung Chang/Denver Post via Getty)
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8 of the biggest misconceptions people have about Native Americans
We're in in country (racist U.S. military slang)
As one of the few Native Americans in the entertainment industry, I'm used to being asked bizarre questions about my culture and upbringing.

Many people seem to think that all Natives live in teepees and look like caricatures from the 1700s.

Here are some of the weirdest and wildest misconceptions people have about being Native American today.

The mainstream media does little to help.
Growing up on the Tulalip Indian Reservation in Washington state, I was ill-prepared for how little the average person knows about Native issues.

For context, according to a study by the Native-run nonprofit IllumiNatives, 87% of United States schools fail to cover Native American history beyond 1900.

My house is on the left 😏 (Artur Widak/Getty)
That fact is never more apparent than when a grown adult — who's gone to college and could know better — asks me if I was born in a teepee.

To head some of these questions off at the pass, I'm here to clear up some of the weirdest and wildest misconceptions people have about being Native American in the 21st century. More

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