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Summary Of Museum Of The Plains White Person By Rayna Green

598 Words3 Pages

In this excerpt from a work of satire, Dr. Rayna Green proposes the establishment of a “Museum of the Plains White Person” and goes on to explain how, where, and why it should be built and what the museum will include. Dr. Green wrote this speech so that white people could experience the disrespect the Native Americans receive when they are talked about.
Dr. Green effectively satirizes the beliefs of white people about Native American through the use of an insensitive and ignorant tone which is emphasized by assumptious diction and syntax. The location of the museum is over an “abandoned ceremonial ball court” which is extremely disrespectful to the ceremonies held on it and to those who performed them. Dr. Green ignores the fact that it is ceremonial ground that holds importance to other people. She calls the ceremonial group …show more content…

Dr. Green could have called it a religious group instead, which is more respectful. Calling the group a cult is the equivalent of calling Christianity a cult. Dr. Green goes on to explain how they are collecting all the artifacts by excavating the “sadly abandoned” white cemeteries. This ties back to the abandoned ball court. They are disregarding the importance of those cemeteries and assuming that they are abandoned. Dr. Green mentioned that the white people “insisted” that so much would be learned through studying them and putting their remains on display. She also claims that white people would be “honored to have the remains of their grandmothers and grandfathers on display”. These are not facts, these are just offensive assumptions. White peoples courting songs are called “meaningless vocables” but they are may be very important to white people. By calling them “meaningless” she is calling their culture unimportant, further

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