Indigenous Holocaust video

"Not Ready to Make Nice":  Indigenous Music Video and Lessons of History

by Michelle RahejaMissy Whiteman’s music video “Indigenous Holocaust” (2008), featuring the work of hip hop artist Wahwahtay Benais and the Dixie Chicks (“Not Ready to Make Nice”), exemplifies how Indigenous media creates “virtual reservations.” These spaces open up imaginative sites where Indigenous people can contest, reconfigure, and revisit media representations. The clip opens with a blurry, ghostly figure that gradually focuses to reveal Benais, an Anishinabe musician. This shot reverses the dominant trope of the “vanishing Indian.” Benais emerges out of the shadows to narrate the story of Indigenous genocide and survival at federal boarding school in the U.S. and residential schools in Canada, a traumatic history that shapes contemporary Native American existence.

Benais utilizes the idioms of hip hop to Indigenous ends—his bling is an oversized handmade beaded and fringed medallion that features a black bear paw and his name against a white background and he’s accompanied by young men and women jogging in First Nations United t-shirts rather than in skimpy outfits. The lyrics of the song narrate the history of forcibly removing Native American children from the homes from the 18th through the 20th centuries and the kinds of physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual violence they endured (what Benais and Whiteman, an Arapaho/Kickapoo filmmaker and visual artist, refer to as an “Indigenous holocaust”). Contemporary, vibrant images of Benais are juxtaposed with archival photographs of children at schools such as Hampton and Carlisle, demonstrating how events that took place a hundred or more years ago still affect Native communities.


Comment:  Call me an old fogey, but I can't understand half of what this rapper is saying. If others agree, that suggests this video isn't likely to reach many people besides its core audience.

For more on the subject, see Native Videos and Cartoons.