Writer and Native American Sherman Alexie talks about the destructiveness of feeling “lost and insignificant inside the larger culture.”
The Challenges of Being Lost Inside Your Culture from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
As featured on Moyers & Company
April 9, 2013
In an extended clip from this weekend’s Moyers & Company, writer Sherman Alexie, who was born on a Native American reservation, talks to Bill about feeling “lost and insignificant inside the larger culture,” and how his culture’s “lack of power” is illustrated in stereotypical sports mascots.
“At least half the country thinks the mascot issue is insignificant. But I think it’s indicative of the ways in which Indians have no cultural power. We’re still placed in the past. So we’re either in the past or we’re only viewed through casinos,” Alexie tells Bill. “I know a lot more about being white than you know about being Indian.”