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ERIC Number: EJ841543
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0161-6463
EISSN: N/A
The Last Indian in the World
Dunn, Carolyn
American Indian Culture and Research Journal, v32 n2 p79-84 2008
In June 2004, the American national media spent a considerable amount of airtime revisiting the events of June 1964 when three civil rights workers were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. On the fortieth anniversary of the murders. National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" devoted airtime to a story, "Truth and Reconciliation in Neshoba County," in which reporter Debbie Elliot went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, the seat of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, to examine how "people in Neshoba, both black and white, are grappling with their community's legacy." The story goes on to look at the activities of the thirty-member Philadelphia Task Force and dissects the activities of this group as racial networking under the black-white binary that has become synonymous with the civil rights movements in the United States. The story overlooked the several members of the Philadelphia Task Force of Mississippi Band of Choctaw tribal members whose roots in Neshoba Country predate that of whites and blacks by thousands of years; thus framing the discussion of this particular issue in "black and white" and excluding any evidence of Indian in that mix. One year and two months later, the world watched as thousands of people were stranded in the New Orleans Convention Center following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As the media reported on the looting of New Orleans, it became suspiciously clear who was looting and who wasn't. Another message that was clear to this author as she watched the disaster unfold was that members of her own family were affected. The eight communities of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians suffered much damage. The Indians were the invisible ones, erased from the memory of America as the various news organizations set up camp in the Gulf. Only the Native media paid attention to the Indians who suffered. In this article, the author comments on how the (non) response of the federal and local governments to the plight of the Hurricane refugees was similar to genocide, and mirrored the violent colonial history in which Native peoples were forcibly removed from ancestral homelands; sent away in the worst possible environmental conditions; left to die without food, water, shelter, or sanitary conditions; and forced to stay in a place that was supposed to be safe. (Contains 2 notes.)
American Indian Studies Center at UCLA. 3220 Campbell Hall, Box 951548, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1548. Tel: 310-825-7315; Fax: 310-206-7060; e-mail: sales@aisc.ucla.edu; Web site: http://www.books.aisc.ucla.edu/aicrj.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A