In Greeley, Colo., two billboards have triggered a debate about what it means to be an American for a specific ethnic group. Two black-and-white roadside billboards — featuring three men dressed in traditional Great Plains Native American dress — bearing the caption, “Turn in your arms/ The government will take care of you,” were recently installed in the northern Colorado town.
Matt Well, an accountant for the billboards’ owner, Lamar Advertising, told the Associated Press that a group of local residents purchased the space. They wish to remain anonymous.
“I think it’s a little bit extreme, of course, but I think… people are really worried about their gun rights and what liberties are going to be taken away,” Wells said to the Greeley Tribune. The advertising campaign is limited to Greeley, according to Wells.
The billboards have drawn polarized reactions. On Tuesday’s FOX News’ “The Five,” co-host Eric Bolling stated about the billboards, “I can’t find what’s insensitive … others think it was accurate.” Fellow co-host Dana Perino echoed, “I am not offended by this at all, I think it’s effective advertising.”
However, Greeley resident Kerri Salazar, as reported by FOXNews.com, stated, “I think we all get that [Second Amendment] message. What I don’t understand is how an organization can post something like that and not think about the ripple effect that it’s gonna have through the community.” Salazar is a Native American.
Salazar is not alone. On the Denver Post website, a large number of commenters expressed their frustration with the billboards. Joe C. posted, “The billboard is an important reminder that the United States Government is responsible for one of the worst genocides in history.” A user named PlainThinker commented, “This is only fair that [Native Americans] are ‘incensed.’ Because I, personally, am ‘incensed’ about every single anti gun advertisement showing a middle aged, white, Protestant male, implying all of us are in favor of gun control, without my consent.”
One comment asked, “If you feel you are putting out a strong message about gun control, why use a Native American image to make your gun-rights argument and then dastardly ask to remain anonymous?”
Commonly-accepted racism
Many who posted to the comment section at the Denver Post believed that the imagery and comparison made in the billboard with regard to broken promises from the federal government were apropo, and in light of the current debate, that the argument is relevant. This may all be true, but for others, one point remains, which many commenters overlooked:
The billboard is racially provocative.
For many non-Native Americans, the image on the billboard is what comes to mind when they think of Native Americans — the proud, feathered war dress-clad chief. For many Native Americans, the war dress is reflective of a time before forced assimilation, reservations and “Americanization.” In modern Native American life, the war dress-clad chief is a stereotype — a reflection of how little is known about North America’s Indigenous people.
The sad truth of the matter is that most Americans will go their entire life without meeting a Native American; according to the 2010 U.S. Census, Native Americans constitute 0.9 percent (2,475,956 individuals) of the American population, excluding the Hispanic population. 2.8 percent of the non-Hispanic population can claim at least partial Native American ancestry (greater than 25 percent of a person’s complete genetic profile). Twenty-two percent of all self-described Native Americans currently live on reservations or trust lands.
In U.S. media and popular culture, there are no or few references to modern Native Americans. For most Americans, the only references to Native Americans they regularly see come from team names, such as the Kansas City Chiefs, the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Cleveland Indians.
Native Americans today
The Native American community today is a community of extremes. The 1990, 2000 and 2010 Censuses reflect that Native Americans have the highest poverty and unemployment levels and lowest incomes per capita of any racial group in the United States. As of 2012, the poverty rate among Native Americans is 25 percent. In the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana, the unemployment rate is 69 percent. More than 20 percent of all Native American households have an annual income of less than $5,000, compared with 6 percent of the general population.
Native Americans today must deal with the consequences of past national policy. Of the 52 million acres of land that were allocated as reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has classified 12 million acres as “crucially endangered” by erosion, 17 million “gravely endanger,” and 24 million “gently affected” by erosion. This was land that no settler wanted: it is not suitable for farming or animal husbandry, cannot support major infrastructure and is bare of mineable resources. Most of the reservation lands are significantly separated from urban areas, making it difficult or almost impossible to commute for jobs or to tap into existing infrastructure. The federal government even took advantage of this in the 1990s by offering the tribes economic support for storing radioactive and toxic waste on their lands.
Until 1976, the U.S. government carried out a policy of assimilation with regard to Native Americans — denying sovereignty to tribes, cutting back or eliminating race-based aid and defunding the BIA. Despite a return to local sovereignty among the tribes, the legacy of discriminatory policies have left their mark: high levels of illiteracy, low levels of educational attainment, high levels of crime and drug abuse and low health levels.
While some may dismiss the image of the “proud chief” as being stereotypical and non-reflective of modern-day realities, it is far from the first example of racial generalization in advertisements. For nearly a century, the Quaker Oats Company presented the Aunt Jemima image — the idealized “Mammy” stereotype — as the “spokeswoman” for its pancake mix. In 1989, Aunt Jemima was revamped to reflect a more contemporary homemaker in light of overwhelming protest from the African American community.