Indian Stereotypes

“I’m not the Indian you had in mind” challenges the widely accepted image held by society of what an Indian should look, act, and essentially be like. The short video starts out with a man dressed in casual business attire carting out a life size statue of the stereotypical Indian. He takes the statue, dressed head to toe in what society expects an Indian to look like including a traditional headdress, tomahawk, long hair and clothing then places it next to a television. The man, along with a woman dressed in a blazer and pencil skirt and another man in what society would define as casual clothing, go on to tell the stories of what society believes true Indians are. Stereotypes are essentially preconceived notions or ideas about groups of

Already, just by watching the short video and reading Thomas King’s essay I already have a better understanding of what it is to be considered an Indian. I know that in the future I will not hesitate to inform someone when they are overgeneralizing about Aboriginal peoples. Too often I hear stereotypes such as: “They’re alcoholics”, “They’re all wise”, “They’re all lazy” and as the video explains, this is not fair and not true. I think it is also very important to share what we learn with children and the next generations coming after us. If we continue combatting stereotypes and teaching our younger generations to fight them as well, hopefully, one day there will be no stereotypes and people will be viewed as individuals who have their own thoughts, beliefs, style and value system. Thomas King wrote an essay titled “Not the Indian I had in Mind”. The title for King’s essay contains meaning and really gives the reader an idea of what the essay will discuss. In this essay King writes about his experiences of being an Indian and tells various stories that he experienced in his life that involve people of non-Indian descent providing him with details of what they think he should look like as an aboriginal person. Most of which are likely derived from stereotypes and mass media representations of Indian people and what we see and hear in pop