Native American Stereotypes

Suppose you are the scriptwriter of this television show that has requested your world-renowned writing skills to entertain the public. There is one problem; how are you going to do it? Just as you scrunch up that sheet of paper (probably while swearing under your breath), you see an Indian man walking across the street and then… a light bulb goes off in your head. You’ve spotted an oddity, and with a little exaggeration and a tinge of humor, you might just have the story of the century! This simple anecdote reveals how the image of Indians could easily be transformed into something ‘entertaining’. Unfortunately, the Western media have become influential back in Malaysia that Indians are being taken as the stereotypes depicted in television …show more content…
So stop believing everything you see on the TV screen. Skin color was never in favor of me when I was in boarding school, where unfortunately, the Indians were oppressed into obeying the rules of ‘birds of a feather, flock together’. As uncanny as it may seem, I lived, as Brent Staples says in “Black Men and Public Space,” “to remain a shadow – timid, but a survivor” (22). I stayed in the midst of a small Indian community, distinguished by our dark skin and therefore, submitting to the race-by-race rule. All those years in high school and the school faculty was kept in the dark. Imagine that! No one but the students enforced those rules. Regrettably, rules of that nature still flourish to this very day in certain boarding schools, but I think the time has come for all that to …show more content…
As you read and realize the truth of the Indian race in Malaysia, and how haunting stereotypes must be for us when it comes to religion and skin color, it is up to you to change your way of thinking. Bear in mind that there is nothing wrong with frames. Since birth, we have learnt to frame the phenomena occurring around us daily in order to interpret and understand these events as they unfold. However, we should avoid limiting those frames as we are always discovering something new everyday. As we grow, we have to learn to occasionally adjust our mental frames while committing to memory that we see on the TV is but for the sake of fiction. We are at a point in time where we should all stand as a united front and heed the true makings of a Malaysian society. If I can believe that there is hope yet for our country, you can too. For better or for worse, let’s make a

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