I remember documentaries about black people and their struggles. One thing which sometimes comes up is representation in the media, be it in the news, TV shows etc. One thing which sticks out in my mind is that there always were stereotypes of black people depicted in the various media in the early days.
They even had white people pretending to be black people (Al Jolson). The people who remember and grew up with those depictions always say that whenever a legit black person was coming on, there always was excitement in the air. Whenever, say, Nat King Cole came on, people would phone each other to make sure the others were watching. They would always do that when a black person would make a rare appearance.
Native people are no different People can remember during the old days, a film would be shown at the parish hall or something. Of course there’d be westerns. Italians in bad wigs playing Indians. To get into the depictions would be another editorial. Anyway, the Indians always ended up getting booed, cans would be thrown at the screen. There would be cheers whenever an “Injun” got killed.
We all have come a long way. Now black people, I think, can almost take it for granted. In terms of depiction. We still have yet to.
There were some decent attempts in the movies recently. Before everyone says Dances with Wolves, as beautiful as it was, it still wasn’t OUR story, through our eyes. Before everyone else says North of 60, yes, yes, I do like that show also. In some communities you can forget about bingo night on Thursdays because so many people are watching. On the Cree side we have JBCCS with its radio programming and CBC Northern Services with its radio and TV.
The inspiration for this editorial is the recent Juno Awards. They were honoring Buffy Ste. Marie for her contributions to the music industry. Tom Jackson introduced Juno winner Susan Aglukark who started with a rendition of one of her songs. Then some singers such as Sylvia Tyson got together to sing some more. Then the high point came when a drum group sang an honour song for “Native women who are like Mother Earth.”
Then the aisles filled with the Six Nations dancers dressed in their full regalia. There were people of all ages dancing. It was moving. We have only begun. Congratulations to Wapistan for last year’s Juno and to Susan for this year and of course to Buffy Ste. Marie. Also to the Juno committee for seeing the light (“…Native Canadian recordings would be eligible for an already existing Juno category— Best Roots and Traditional Album.” June 1,1990) Job well done.
