[Vision2020] Buffalo:Cruel Joke Relates to Cruel History!

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Don et. al.

I must have failed to be clear in my original post regarding the buffalo 
joke.

What Native Americans want or do not want to be called is not the issue.  

The issue is that the joke about the buffalo was cruel and insensitive given 
the historical facts about the buffalo and its meaning to some of the 
indigenous people and cultures of this continent.  The ruthless slaughter of the 
buffalo hunted to near extinction, primarily by white Caucasians, was a deliberate 
attempt by the European culture to displace the indigenous native culture, via 
destroying an animal that was critical to the cultural and physical survival 
of some indigenous cultures

Therefore to place a Native American in the role as a senseless killer of 
buffalo raises serious questions.  Why did the author of the joke place a Native 
American in this position?  Why not a drunk Irishman, a stuffy Englishman, a 
rapping Black man, etc.?  And why not a cow or a pig?  Apparently the author 
thought there was some meaningful connection between Native Americans and 
buffalo.  But the author was either deliberately being cruel, a common tactic in 
humor, or did not know about the history between the buffalo and Native Americans 
regarding the ruthless slaughter of the buffalo by the invading European 
culture as a tactic to destroy Native American culture.

Perhaps the author intended the brutal irony implied by placing a Native 
American in the role of a senseless killer of buffalo, when historically this 
animal was respected and depended upon for survival by some Native American 
cultures, and was nearly wiped out by the invading white European culture as a 
deliberate tactic to destroy native culture.

I find it very common for even so called "progressive" minded people to 
downplay and declare mostly irrelevant to modern times the genocidal campaign that 
was carried out against the indigenous people of North America.  But the 
cultural worldview that justified this genocidal campaign is still with us, 
expressed in part in our recent invasion of Iraq.

Ted Moffett
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