The animated feature, along with the white-washing of history, is part of mainstream America's continued silencing, erasure, misrepresentation and commoditization of Indigenous peoples.
"You inherited everything we died for and all we get is a goddamn mascot", raps Frank Waln, who was featured on MTV's Rebel Music: Native America, last year.
"Disney made us look like idiots in Peter Pan so I took one of their songs and tore it to shreds", Waln later tweeted. And that he did.
His commentary follows #NotYourHollywoodIndian, one of several campaigns tackling Indigenous representation over the past couple of years, launched in response to Adam Sandler's Ridiculous Six. And in this spoken word poem, Rowie Shebala addresses the impact of how that horrific destiny is still being perpetuated through systems of violence, like cultural appropriation, pervasive poverty, the prison industrial complex, the sexual assault rate of indigenous women, and the use of Indigenous images and names as sport mascots.\
08-21-2019
- KBOO