Jeff Lemire Quotes

Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible.

The biggest of all Indian problems is the white man.

American popular culture has long been marked by an absence of empathy for American Indians. Westerns doubled as a campaign against so-called savages in a way that desensitized us to the savages we'd become.

When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness.

When I first came out to L.A., Hollywood's idea of a Latina was Mexican. It was almost like they had never seen or heard of an Afro-Latina before.

We’re [Native Americans] portrayed as either the noble savage or the ignoble savage. In most people’s minds, we only exist in the 19th century.

Millions of dollars have been expended to excavate and transport to museums the tools, weapons, and other artifacts of Indians--but scarcely a penny has been spent to save the living descendants of those who made them

The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. the history of the capsulize era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed...denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows.

Slowly but surely, little by little, many different groups of vulnerable bodies and people have been targeted from since the beginning of time, from since the beginning of the construction of America and all the civilizations from around the world pre-colonially.

Systemically, there hasn't been an oppression more overt and long-lasting than economic oppression against black people and minorities in this country.

The relative lack of power of certain minority groups, and the fear they're feeling in the wake of Donald Trump's election, is something I think we really need to take a look at.

American history is not clean.

Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.

I've been told that I wasn't Latino enough, which was code for 'street' enough.

Mr. Trump, like too much of the church, offers little more than an excuse to project complex problems onto simple villains. Yet the white working class needs neither more finger-pointing nor more fiery sermons.

Indigenous peoples was messed over. It was like a tradition here. We broke every treaty with them that ever was written. I think Andrew Jackson wanted to wipe them out.

Different identity groups hold specific levels of power over others when their battles play out in the media. To wit: Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.

Indians are first class people suffering from third class governance.

Things like putting around a list and having your name on a list that objectifies you, that's a big deal, and it can have big consequences.

As a black woman of trans experience, my position in this society leaves me really no choice but to stand for the intersectional identities I hold.

As long as you are in that white privilege bubble, you don't need to see the world differently. You don't need to see the world through the eyes of minorities or women.

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll.

Issues that have relevance to the tribal community have routinely been minimized and ignored.

As a woman of color, I've come to rely on straight white men telling me my experience of the world has nothing to do with my gender, race or class. (Unless something good happens to me, in which case they tell me my gender, race and/or class is exactly why that thing happened).

I think when people talk about race relations in America, they talk about African-American and white people. Asians are not often brought into the conversation. But there's a historical legacy of issues between them. It's hard to be like, 'What about us?' But we are a little underrepresented.