Sticking to the same narrative?

American Fiction (2023)

Screenplay & Direction: Cord Jefferson

It seems that we have not changed much since our days as cavemen. Imagine living exposed in a world so hostile we would have tried to understand the unusual things around us. We continued compartmentalising the living and non-living things amongst us even when we became hunter-gatherers, farmers or city dwellers. By compartmentalising everyone in boxes, we thought we had our defences up to remind us which one of them was friends and which were potentially harmful. Gone are club-carrying or sabre-rattling days, but these classifications helped somewhat.

The Chinese viewed anyone non-Huns as barbaric. So did the Greeks, Persians and Arabs. During the mercantile era, the dark-skinned were labelled as God-sanctioned slaves. 

In the USA, post-Civil War America assumed that the emancipated slaves were ill-prepared to fit into modern society. They expected them to remain the subservient ones. They were prevented from getting into mainstream business, education and even usage of common public amnesties. In their own stride, the Blacks did prosper. Records showed the presence of significant numbers of black entrepreneurs and millionaires all through the late 19th century. There were pockets of prosperous descendants of slaves. Such a vicinity was Tulsa in Oklahoma. Like the Osage Nation, there were abundant automobile-owning, well-suited professionals there. Tulsa was fondly called ‘The Black Wall Street’ because of the burgeoning business activity there. 

Resentment was building up there. They could not fathom a subjugated community doing well. So when a white shop assistant cried foul when a black man allegedly pulled her hand. There were many versions of what transpired there, from a lover’s quarrel to miscommunication. Before the due legal process could take its course, the mob decided that he should be lynched and the black residents needed to be torched. It resulted in much property damage and about 600 lives lost. 

It is a cognitive dissonance. The majority wants to continually stereotypically paint the marginalised as the downtrodden, irreparable group of people forever trapped in the loop of melancholy, tragedy and hopelessness. They assume the marginalised groups will be stuck in the muck forever without recourse for improvement. Well, there is news for them. Collectively, many have leapfrogged from their Sisyphus-like struggles and bootstrapped themselves to prosperity. 

But the world is stuck in its own ways. By adhering to their old narratives, the non-marginalised ones give a pat to themselves, thinking that they are serving the marginalised by bringing their plight to the fore. The truth is that that is a fiction, The American Fiction. The liberals believe that representation among minorities is only valid if the narrative follows a preset traditional stereotype. Any deviation from this would nullify the voice of the majority. The reality is that the world has changed, but not the thinking of some. 

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A tinderbox waiting to be ignited, the world over!

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Based on David Grann's book (2017)
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

The narration is always the same. Again and again, history has repeatedly shown the same narration. The local population would live in harmony, in sync with their environment. The rambunctious mavericks from outside, with both eyes fixed on the wealth, would trickle in, peddle their snake oil elixirs and promise the moons and the stars. They would bulldoze their thinking into the local populace. The host would be cordial enough to accommodate the newcomers' wisdom, too. Once the shields are lowered, when the host treats the visitors as equals and gives them due recognition, they would zap. 

The bottom line is all about wealth, money and control. 

The Native Indians were nicely tugged into the New World, as 'discovered' by Europeans. The areas around Missouri and Kansas were occupied by a group that later became known as the Osage (Middle River) people. As the 13 original states of the USA expanded westwards, winning over the West, the Osage people were relocated to present-day Oklahoma. Even though their new land was hilly and barren, devoid of hunting grounds, they took it as they told themselves that at least they got the White men off their backs. 

Life works in mysterious tangents. Behind every prosperous find, there lies a catch. The discovery of black gold, aka petroleum, aka devil's excrement* is no different. 

Petroleum wells started welling up in their backyards, and their family coffers started bulging. The Osage proudly displayed their newfound wealth, buying the latest edition of the early 1920s post-WW1 prosperity automobiles, shopping the latest designs of luxurious Parisian outfits and basically living the life. Many were living the white men's lives, embracing the high life and the white men's religion. The Osage Elders realised the tide change would not last forever and decided that the deed of the Osage land would be collectively held as communal head rights. Leasing of land for oil earned them much royalty. It could not be sold to outsiders. 

Meanwhile, the US government decreed (Burke Act, 1906) that the Osage were not smart enough to manage their money. An act was passed to make them appoint a white guardian to manage their finances. This led to much exploitation. It became a legitimate means to cheat the Osage blind. The Osage had to obtain approval for their expenditure and were often over-billed through the roof by their guardians. Soon, there was a trend for white men to marry wealthy Osage women to manage their affairs. Pretty soon, a spade of deaths emerged amongst the Osage Indians in Oklahoma.

David Grann did his own research to write about the 20 Osage people murdered probably because of their ties to oil. The newly formed precursor to the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), was assigned to investigate. The local rancher, politician and philanthropist was charged with murder. This book shows the ugly side of the self-proclaimed defender of the Truth, one who introduced culture to the Natives and a Christian to stoop so low as to wilfully bully, cheat and kill the people who invited them to their homes. The local white leader, who was seen as a do-gooder and a philanthropist with his nephew, had masterminded the killing of many Osage people. The nephew had even married an Osage lady but had conspired in her death and, probably, her sisters and mother, too. 

This episode is just an example of the numerous atrocities that white Americans have inflicted upon their brethren. In 1897, 300-400 unarmed immigrant miners at the Lattimer Mines, who marched peacefully for better wages and better living conditions, were gunned down by the Deputies. The Deputies would not acted like that if the miners were English-speaking Anglo-Saxons. 

Around the time of the Osage murders, in another part of Oklahoma, which was dubbed as one of the wealthiest black communities in the USA, colloquially known as 'Black Wall Street', the worst racial massacre in US history took place. A 19-year-old black man was accused of assaulting a 17-year-old white woman. Rumours spread that whites were going to lynch the accused. The blacks gathered around the jail to protect the accused. In that tense situation, a gunshot went off, and mayhem ensued.

There had been many Native American-related movies from Hollywood before. 'The Last Mohican' and 'Dances of Wolves' are some shining examples. Unlike the earlier films that stand guilty of having been 'whitewashed' to suit the narrative of the day, this movie tells the story from the Osage's point of view. The 3.5-hour-long film is worth the indulgence. 

*Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, a Venezuelan diplomat and one of the two founders of OPEC was the first to use this phrase in 1975: "I call petroleum the devil's excrement. It brings trouble. Look at this locura (madness in Spanish), waste, corruption, consumption, and our public services falling apart. And debt, debt we shall have for years. We are all drowning in devil's excrement!"

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.