It's a typical defense of said books and their ilk, but I want to push us all to think carefully about that statement. There's a range of possibilities. Here's three:
Some people said that Indians were savages, blood-thirsty murderers, etc, but did they believe it?
Some people believe it.
Some people did not believe it.
Let's fast forward to today and think about the war in Iraq. Certain segments of the media, and certain political leaders give us overly broad statements about Iraqi's. They collapse a lot of people into a single frame. Or they use fear in an attempt to convince us of the need for a certain action. They repeat these things again and again, enough so that polls tell us that, for example, most Americans believe things about the Iraq war that are not true.
Now let's skip ahead 50 years. What will 'historical fiction' of the present time look like in 50 years? How are writers going to tell children about the war with Iraq? Are they going to create American characters who say that all Iraqi's were brutal killers?
Maybe the placement of these two moments side-by-side doesn't work. I invite your comments.
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