Module 5 Journal Blog-Challenges

The video that I watched is the Challenges Facing 21^st Century Indigenous Peoples and featured as the guest speaker, Wilma Mankiller. Wilma is the former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and the first woman to serve as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee peoples. The source of the video is the Arizona State University Library (ASU) and the web source can be found at: lib.asu.edu/librarychannel. The perspective that I think the video is meant to convey is being seen in the eyes of the Cherokee people and that the Cherokee people have survived so much in their past that it will be of such importance that they have what tit will take to continue to survive and will successfully face what ever the future holds.

One of the most important messages that I had learned from watching the video is that when Mankiller stated “this sounds all too familiar- Take the land, discredit the leaders, ridicule the traditional healers and the medicine men, take the children and send them off to distant boarding schools, a very familiar story”. This video also addresses an important issue that is true especially today, it is important to remember that the roots of many contemporary social, economic, and political problems can be found in colonial policies and that these policies continue today across the globe. Mankiller then goes on to tell that her own family members were subjected to being taken at a very young age and sent off to these boarding schools.

I think that the purpose of making a Native American focused journal into a blog is that it uses a more well known forum that can be used for so many more things that just a course project. It has shown us that the journal blogs can be a very useful way of communicating and presenting information in a more flexible manner. The use of graphics and pictures gives the information presented a more appealing view of what we are discussing and gives a different avenue in which to present the information that we wish to share.

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