Journal Entry #1B

Never before had I watched or heard about the “Lone Ranger” , therefore I was able to learn about him in a completely open minded way. But quickly I learned that I would soon resent his character and the entire series as a whole for depicting the “savior-savage” image, the white man being the savior and the “Indians” being the savages. From the start of the episode the theme song talked about burnings and massacres, peace pipes being smoked, the “Great White father” and red man vs. white. I found all these terms problematic from the get go because it was evident that the oppression that the Native Americans went through was so clearly depicted and was being used for entertainment purposes. The struggle of having their homes, land, customs robbed from them through colonization was clear even in the relationship of the Lone Ranger and Tonto.  Tonto was under the command of the Ranger as his sidekick, this mirrors the relationship between social classes, whites had the upper hand and people of color fell under them.. Halfway through the episode I began to get extremely irritated with the ways in which the Native Americans were being shown to be inferior to the white man, they were constantly being talked down to. While watching the episode I was shocked to see so many resemblances of the struggles the Latino/a community face today, as far as immigration, deportation, borderlands, and language barriers. The way that the Native Americans were blamed for taking food and medical resources by robbing the trains reminded me a lot about the most resent and continuous struggle that the Latino Community faces as far as being blamed for the U.S economy.