Native American Representation, Characterization, & Politics
African-American writer here. A recurring character in my action fantasy novel is Jacob, a lieutenant for an international peacekeeping force. The HQ for the North American branch is in South Dakota, and after researching, I’ve decided to associate Jacob with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. The novel takes place in an unknown future.
When Jacob was younger, his father was the tribal president whose ambition corrupted and led him to illegal smuggling activities with the setting’s new technology, Crests. This eventually led a falling out with his vice president, whose son Cyrus is a friend of Jacob’s, basically starting an internal civil war. Although it was supposed to be a matter settled by the tribe, a group of officers took matters into their own hand and quelled the civil war themselves, leading to the imprisonment of Jacob’s and his friend’s dad.
However, the officers leading the operation were charged and arrested for forgetting their training and breaking reservation-state laws. Jacob, a big idealist, regrets siding with his father after all the pain it caused to the tribe and his mother, so he signs up for the force to help do some good, to save as many people as he can from hatred and bitterness, and to uphold a pure, gentle form of justice. While his mother supports his decision, this gives Jacob a stigma by some of his tribe – in other words, ‘why are you working with people who hurt your kind?’
I wanted to portray both the dads and that squad in the wrong. The reactions of everyone else is hinged on grief (the Rosebuds) or shame (the rest of the NA force).
(2/2) Cyrus, on the other hand, was put in a similar situation but can’t take the pressure and decides to join a criminal antithesis to the force; they offered him more kindness and freedom, but in reality tapped into his hatred and frustration. Jacob finds Cyrus one fateful day and can’t bring himself to arrest him, instead wanting to talk it over and let go of his hatred.
All in all, the angle is meant to show Jacob there are some people who don’t want to be saved, that saving everyone is impossible, but he comes to conclusion it’s a beautiful thing to try anyway.
My question is “Are the responses and beliefs of the RST members in-line with their real-world culture and/or beliefs?” If not, anything that needs to be changed, added, or removed? Things I’ve done already is read the website, some articles, asked around, watched YouTube videos, and gotten objective facts about the tribe. I even tried emailing them directly, but I got no response after a couple of months.
Also, is “Rosebud Sioux Tribe” just the Federal designation with “Sicangu Oyate” being what they really call themselves?
Alright, I’m going to break down everything in here from start to finish.
When Jacob was younger, his father was the tribal president whose ambition corrupted and led him to illegal smuggling activities with the setting’s new technology, Crests.
So, even though the tribe officially has a “president”, you’ll notice the president is part of a counsel, and the counsel is the thing listed on the website instead of the president’s office. It is really rare for a single person to be the be all end all of choices made within the tribe. A single pointed leader is, majority of the time, something that is required by colonial powers for administrative purposes/to have somebody to talk to. It’s not a natural situation for us. Even if we did have a single chief, we have elders for a very important reason.
As for corrupt and ambition leading to smuggling… I am not quite sure where to begin with how wrong that is.
There is this general cultural perception that Native people are thieves. The term “Indian Giver” is still in use to this day, indicating somebody who gives “a gift” and “surprises” somebody with wanting payment back, which was spread by colonial powers to justify their colonialism (even though they knew, upon receiving the gifts they got from Natives, that they would have to pay it back. They just didn’t want to). Casinos are generally considered smart business ventures except if they’re Native run, then it’s greedy Natives stealing from outsiders.
Do you see a pattern here? A really toxic, tone deaf pattern?
Natives are not thieves. We are not people easily corrupted by ambition. We live off the land. Our cultures, as a whole, promote sustainability because otherwise we will not survive. Our greatest monsters are those who have been poisoned by greed. We are socialist to the core because we have to be.
If Natives are turning to illegal activity, then you’ve got a few possibilities:
1- The government isn’t listening to any of their needs, so they turn to illegal activity to at least get government attention
2- They need the resources immediately, and illegal activity is the only way they can get those resources because of point 1
3- They’re trying to protect themselves or the tribe’s interests. Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil to survive to see the sun
Chances are, you’re going to have 1-3 be more likely sources. Because Natives are denied resource after resource by the government and need to survive somehow.
The fact you have a leader— who you assume would have the absolute authority to act this way— who would have been living off the land, living among elders who promoted giving, living among a community that shares before it takes… I cannot describe how inappropriate that is.
It’s point blank taking a Western, capitalistic society convention and applying it in a Native socialist environment. It makes no sense.
And in the same paragraph, you continue:
Although it was supposed to be a matter settled by the tribe, a group of officers took matters into their own hand and quelled the civil war themselves, leading to the imprisonment of Jacob’s and his friend’s dad.
So… you’ve recreated colonialism. And recreated the concept of how Natives are incapable of handling anything themselves.
Again, this is following a tone-deaf pattern of real world offences against Native communities. I know you’re going to portray this as wrong, but it still happened. It’s still recreating something that does not need to be recreated. Which makes the following:
Jacob, a big idealist, regrets siding with his father after all the pain it caused to the tribe and his mother, so he signs up for the force to help do some good, to save as many people as he can from hatred and bitterness
1- He’s becoming a white knight. He is aligning himself with colonial powers because they’re “the good ones” to save people. I have met this particular breed of supremacist, where they preach that people who fight and go against the system are simply “lost” and in need of “saving.”
It’s just as toxic when it comes from somebody non-white, because Natives are warriors as well as peacekeepers. We will fight for what is right and what has wronged us. We try to avoid bloodshed, yes, but we don’t shy away from it.
2- Why would he side with his father because he’s “an idealist”? Like, that logic does not make sense for me. Is this some sort of “the ruler is right so the ideals go along with his”? His reasons for going to that side are convoluted and ill-explained, seeming to put him on the side of colonizers for no other reason than the colonizers are right part of the time, so that’s good enough.
3- There is absolutely no talk of restorative justice in here. Did the counsel let the tribe deal with it? Reverse all their actions (yes, including releasing the people involved to let the tribe deal with it) because they were wrong and return it to the privacy of the tribe? No? Then they’re still imposing, even if they did throw the people who caused the initial imposition it in jail.
While his mother supports his decision, this gives Jacob a stigma by some of his tribe – in other words, ‘why are you working with people who hurt your kind?’
This stigma is 100% justified and if he doesn’t have any sort of identity crisis over this, then you’ve basically painted a different skin colour onto a white person. This sort of identity issue is extremely complex, and if you just go along with, as I said before, a colonial power, then you have completely internalized their messaging and the associated racism.
Cyrus, on the other hand, was put in a similar situation but can’t take the pressure and decides to join a criminal antithesis to the force; they offered him more kindness and freedom, but in reality tapped into his hatred and frustration.
Hatred and frustration at— say it again— colonial powers is not only to be expected, but to be supported.
Remember what I said about why Natives participate in illegal activity? How it’s to draw attention to injustice? And how we are warriors?
Yeah, I’m siding with Cyrus, here. This criminal fraction tapping into hatred and frustration is, for me, driving on creating positive change via “negative” emotions. The whole point of Idle No More— the single biggest activism movement in the Native community, supported by countless tribes— was to get angry and frustrated. To take hatred and to turn it into social change. These are not negative emotions that automatically make somebody evil for tapping into.
Jacob finds Cyrus one fateful day and can’t bring himself to arrest him, instead wanting to talk it over and let go of his hatred.
Arresting a criminal making Jacob be heroic will only work if you’ve brought Cyrus into extremist anti-villain territory very firmly through a moral event horizon. If he’s going more towards “public disruption to draw attention to the fact restorative justice and healing needs to take place”… he might be breaking the law, but he sure isn’t doing anything unsympathetic. He’s doing exactly the same thing as the water protectors stopping DPAL, from my view, and Jacob is the police officer violating tribe rights.
All in all, the angle is meant to show Jacob there are some people who don’t want to be saved, that saving everyone is impossible, but he comes to conclusion it’s a beautiful thing to try anyway.
No it’s not. Saving people is a very toxic mindset, and the more I read of this submission, the less sympathetic Jacob is. There’s a reason “saviour” is involved in so many toxic tropes that are meant to make members of the dominant group feel good, but end up deeply harming the communities they’re supposedly “saving.”
You don’t try to save somebody. You try to give them the resources they need and provide the restorative justice their situation requires, which sometimes means realizing the law they’re fighting against is a bad, hurtful law, and you’re wrong for enforcing it. You give them dignity back and go from there.
My question is “Are the responses and beliefs of the RST members in-line with their real-world culture and/or beliefs?” If not, anything that needs to be changed, added, or removed?
Read the above and you tell me. My personal suggestion is to start from absolute scratch because this is so far removed from Native life, I’m under the distinct impression you only consumed a single tribe’s material and assumed that because they had similar trappings, terms, and organizational structures to Western society, they worked under the same values as Western society when that is absolutely not the case, and more often than not were imposed on us, instead.
Even if you were to change this to a white individual, you still have the exceptionally toxic mindset of a white saviour “hero” who is trying to stamp out hatred and bitterness without even trying to understand that the hatred and bitterness might be justified, and they’re enforcing harmful laws in the name of hollow peace.
Also, is “Rosebud Sioux Tribe” just the Federal designation with “Sicangu Oyate” being what they really call themselves?
A very quick glance at their website, where they refer to the Rosebud Sioux reservation as the home of the Sicangu Oyate, indicates that yes, the Sicangu Oyate is what they “really” call themselves.
Learn how colonialism and activism work before revisiting any of this. Learn what traits are part of Native culture to survive for generations. Learn why sometimes the “peacekeepers” are the single biggest antithesis to peace. Adjust your characters accordingly. Right now this is a typical white politician plot with a saviour son, instead of anything that resembles a story that would come from us. And even if you remove it from us, your “hero” isn’t an ounce sympathetic to me, because the peacekeepers are too authoritarian to be kind.
