Customer Reviews

Confounding the Color Line: The (American) Indian - Black Experience in North America

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In one article, the author comments, "Why didn't Black people take up the issue of racist 'Indian' mascots back in the 1960s?" Hello! Because they were fighting their own struggles. And most movements for equality start with the oppressed group themselves. Native Americans should have fought to get rid of those mascots in the 1960s; surely the blame can't land on blacks. Blackwise, there were slaves and freed Blacks critical of slavery before there was a mass of white abolitionists. Why does this book not have a chapter where someone laments, "Why didn't Native Americans fight to free black slaves centuries ago?" The same comments could be made in reverse.

In another chapter, an author takes a Black musical audience member to task for opining that Lumbee music sounded like it was Black-derived. Look, there are countless examples of non-Blacks appropriating Black music and other artistic expressions. The question raised by the audience member is legitimate.

In short, I found many examples where this book seems to suggest that if Blacks and Natives have tensions, then it is the fault of the former group. Very little is said about Radmilla Cory, a Black-Navajo woman who received jeers from Navajos when she won Miss Navajo. A Black academic whose name I forgot has written three books about how the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaw bought Black slaves and did nothing to see that any Black slaves were freed.

If these two groups have tensions, both groups can be to blame. This book seemed very one-sided. I found it disturbing, indeed.

I have to disagree with Mingo. I felt the opposite after reading this book in detail and examining the chapters in discussion in a college history class. I felt it really exposed readers to all sides of each topic the chapters address. I learned a lot and thought about these issues/topics in ways I never had before. It opened my eyes to more than what I learned from primary school history books. I highly recommend it.