It's a shame that the plight of the Native American bores you seeing that they were there long before the white colonialists .As always it was the priveledge ol the vicors of war to by means of propaganda to dehumanise a race rightfully defending their lands to ruthless invaders.I'm by no means an expert on the subject but my understanding is that the indigenous Americans were destroyed as a direct result of written and broken treaties, warfare, and of forced assimilation,a tactic readily employed by other nations throughout history and well into the following century.
I am not necessarily disagreeing (or agreeing) with your historical assertions about the Indians. All I am saying is that it is not a story that interests me in a movie. The words "bores me," when it comes to movies, means that I am not very interested in seeing the subject matter portrayed in a movie.
There are many other very important topics in the world, that don't interest me as movie subjects: One example is RELIGION. Another example is CHEMISTRY. And BIOLOGY. And the TRAINING OF ARMED FORCES TO GO TO WAR. The list could go on and on. The point is that there are certain issues in the world that interest me as a
movie topic, and other issues in the world that do not interest me
as a movie topic. By no means does that indicate that one issue is more important than another issue--------------------------------------------------------------------------
and as for the spat between
Groggy and Banjo: this uneducated 3rd generation Yank will say that it is probably safe to say that atrocities were committed by both sides: "The Indians" (ie. various individuals in various Indian tribes) had barbaric rituals of their own; attacked and slaughtered, and scalped each other, and were barbarians; and committed atrocities as well as suffered atrocities at the hands of "The Whites" (ie. various individuals from European ancestry); who committed atrocities against Indians, both in terms of stealing land, killing, and violating treaties, and suffered atrocities at the hands of the Indians as well).
My very uneducated point here is the issue is much more complicated than the "White=Good, Indian=Evil" of the 1940's Western; but it's also much more complicated than the "White=Evil, Indian=Good" in any and all situations of the jackasses like Roger Ebert. There were many different actions, treaties, wars, dealings, discussions, attacks, killings, kidnappings, etc. across the numerous individual instances that have come to collectively be known as "The Indian Wars." And I am sure that each side had people who did things wrong and people who did things right.
But the way things went down, it's sort of the opposite of "victors write the history books." Rather, since the victors (ie. the whites) had so much more sophisticated weaponry and were able to (justified or unjustified) deliver such a resounding defeat, perhaps it appears as if the Whites are the bad guys cuz they were so successful in getting rid of Indians -- while the very same Indians would have done the same thing if they'd had the numbers and weapons to do so.....
My point is, it's a very, very complicated issue, and unless and until I get a PhD in History of the Indian Wars, I really can't say anything for sure; but I do feel comfortable saying that if you put all Indians to one side and all Whites to the other, there will be blood on both sides, atrocities on both sides, and no one side will be perfectly correct in all disputes related to land or anything else....
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With that said, if I do come across a time that Americans did commit an atrocity, or whites did commit an atrocity in the Indian Wars, I have no dumbass "white guilt" about that. I was not there (nor were my parents or grandparents or great grandparents -- who either weren't alive or were living elsewhere). Nor do I have any "white guilt" over what happened to the blacks in America: I never held any slaves or mistreated slaves, nor did anyone in my family, none of whom lived in America during slavery; nor did they live in the South during Jim Crow; nor did they ever discriminate against anyone.
White Guilt essentially means that because once upon a time, people who have nothing in common with me except my skin color, harmed people of another skin color; somehow now I, who had zero to do with this, should feel guilt and feel like I owe something to those who have the same skin color as the people who were discriminated against 100 years ago.
Yeah, this sort of lunacy is of the sort promulgated (in one way or another) by idiots like Ebert.
And if I lived in Britain, I'd never say I "feel embarrassed" for Being British or feel like I have to apologize for all their colonization: you had nothing to do with it. The country isn't you. The King, the Parliament, the Army, they are not you. You happen to live in the country in which they rule, but you should feel no more responsible to apologize for their actions than you'd feel responsible if a stray dog took a shit on your neighbor's yard
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