Most depressing week yet

This week we watched the documentary "We Shall Remain: Wounded knee". As we were told and as I had expected, the film was very powerful. It's certainly one thing to sit in a classroom and hear about these injustices and quite another to see footage of people dying. Even though we were warned about how current Wounded Knee was, I was struct by how contemporary the footage was. The clothing styles were so similar to what we wear today, and I still see some of those car models from the film on the road today.

Previous to this film I had never heard of AIM. This is especially shocking to me as I am also currently taking a history class about American political and social movements. AIM seems to fit in as a movement just as well as the other civil rights, feminist, anti-war...etc movements. I pondered as to why whites were almost more inclined to discuss deals with the blacks than with Indias. Then I read the article "We aim not to please" by Mary Brave Bird. She explained that, "The blacks want what the whites have, which is understandable. They want in. We Indians want out." (112) This act of defiance, or survivance is a critical point for AIM.

I also thought it was particularly interesting to read another piece for the perspective of a native woman during this movement. There were a few things that I was surprised by by in this reading. Indian women were very involved throughout the movement. And some wielded considerable influence. Brave Bird describes one outspoken woman confronting goverment officials, "Enough of your bullshit...This is our building she told him. Then she gave him the finger. And in the film, we saw a woman pushing for the progression of the movement. We see a people backed into a corner, left with little choice. And echoing some of the philosophies of the other movements at the time, sometimes violence was necessary.