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Redskin, a film based around the concept of Native American boarding schools, involves the idea that schooling natives with the thought to assimilate them into a white society causes more harm than good. The film shows to two very specific examples, through the characters Corn Blossom and Little Wing. The movie begins with Little Wing, the son of the Navajo Chief being taken to boarding school. As he arrives he is instructed to salute the U.S. flag, but devoutly refuses to do so. As a result he is whipped, and taunted about this situation for the remainder of the movie. As he is sitting aside from the other children crying he meets a younger pueblo girl named Corn Blossom and a bond is formed. Initially it seems that this will be a love story tat unfolds, but ultimately parlays into a pair that can help to show this clash of worlds in two ways. Little Wing is granted a scholarship to a university (the first “Redskin” to get one) and turns out to be a star on the track team. Quickly he realizes he is simply a novelty and is being used for his speed and that he is looked down upon by the whites. Disgusted he returns to his tribe, only to be scorned for his dress and seeming full change to white society. He is shunned when he does not fully except the sole ways of the tribe. His struggle here is that although he does not desire to be white, but understand that the advances in medicine and philosophy prove the natives to be ignorant. He is exiled and stuck as he will not join the whites and cannot rejoin the tribe. Little Wing’s struggle shows what it was like for many natives. Educated enough to realize their primitive ways are not for the benefit of their people, but are not socially accepted into a racist society.
Corn Blossoms story is nearly opposite, well educated and assimilated into white society, she is led to believe her mother is dying and races back to the tribe to find this was a lie. Unlike Little Wing’s experience she is forced back into the native way when this is not what she wanted, but could not return to white society because she was being forced to marry.
The two cultures had such conflicting ideologies; seemingly polar opposites, but neither were accepting of a person in the middle of the two cultures.

blog 1

Within Our Gates, by Ocsar Micheaux (1919) is a film in response to the D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation (1915). The movie follows an African American woman Sylvia Landry in her struggle to raise money for a poor black school in the south. The movie’s major themes are class struggle emphasizing on race as a whole, breaking it into multiple aspects. Race amongst whites towards blacks show to be dominant, for example; near the end of the movie when Alma tells to Dr. Vivian the story of Sylvia and the Landry’s, how they were framed and lynched, based off of false information. The idea of race goes further, however, within this scenario; when Mr. Gridlestone’s butler, a gossiper runs and tells as many white people as he can that Mr. Landry killed Mr. Gridlestone for his own gain. Micheaux depicts here the tensions within race and society, what some with do for their own personal gain, despite the consequences to those of their own.
Micheaux also shows through Mrs. Warwick and in a small aspect the white police officer the closing of the racial gap. Mrs. Warwick, a philanthropists offer to donate the needed $5,000 to Sylvia, and upon talking to Mrs. Stratton, a racist southerner for advise on the best way to go about it, she tells her not to bother and rather donate to the black church which will keep them in their place. Mrs. Warwick upon hearing this decides rather to donate $50,000 to the school. The police officer who aids Sylvia and Dr. Vivian after her purse was stolen shows how in the north racism is much less of an issue and that the police officer will help everyone, easing what could be beliefs hen as they are now that the police do not care to help African Americans.
The closing moments of the film wrap up the all lose ends, when Dr. Vivian is sitting with Sylvia describing to her that we must be proud of our country, talking of the heroics of African Americans in recent military campaigns and closes telling Sylvia that “we were never immigrants”.