Vine Deloria, Jr. Critical Essay | Critical Essay by James A. Phillips

Critical Essay by James A. Phillips

If ["Custer Died for your Sins: an Indian Manifesto"] is indicative of Deloria's methods, he's more interested in results than in being tactful.

Nauseated by the traditional Indian image, he asserts the worth if not the dignity of the redman and blasts the political, social, and religious forces that perpetuate the Little Big Horn and wigwam stereotyping of his people. Admittedly and intentionally he offends the people from whom help might come—Congress, anthropologists, and churches. When he's not specifically attacking these groups, he's vituperative about the general society that allows other groups to have predicaments, problems, or troubles, but insists that Indians have a "plight."… The threat of Indian insurrection is more latent than tacit, and understandably so if we can believe his lengthy discussion of how Indians have been neglected, cheated, and starved in a society so concerned with improving the lot of minority groups such as the Blacks….