Indigenous Americans have been making strides in entertainment with two shows written by and for Native Americans, Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls. Unfortunately, in doing so, they’ve also promoted hatred and racism towards white people and often use exaggerated caricatures of white people as the butt of their jokes.
Last Wednesday’s episode of Reservation Dogs on Hulu, “This Is Where the Plot Thickens,” was no exception, as white men were shown in a bizarre cult ceremony. An indigenous tribal cop and his friend attempt to break up the scene, complete with racist slurs, such as “cracker.”
In the episode, the tribal officer (Zahn McClarnon), who goes by the name “Big,” accidentally ingests hallucinogenic drugs along with his friend “Kenny Boy” (Kirk Fox).
As they stumble through the forest and experience hallucinations, they stumble upon a disturbing initiation ceremony involving white men being intimate with beheaded catfish. Because, as the show so often says, “white people" (click "expand"):
Men: Ours! Ours! Ours!
Kenny Boy: I hear it, too, if you were wondering.
Men: Ours! Ours! Ours!
Grand Catfish: We are here. Sons of grandsons. The old ones who settled this land. This land, our birthright, our land!
Men: Ours! Ours! Ours!
Big: Holy f*ck, these some strong a** drugs.
Kenny Boy: No. This is real. This is as real as it gets.
Grand Catfish: Do ye give ye seed for our land?
Big: Oh, sh*t. I know what this is.
Men: Ours! Ours! Ours!
Kenny Boy: White people.
Big: Uh... I heard about this. I didn't think it was real. It's the Order of the Midstreamers.
Kenny Boy: The Klan?
Big: No. Okies, oil execs, politicians. Secret society. Said to believe they're the rightful heirs of all Indian Territory and all the mineral rights beneath the ground. Few people went missing back in the day.
Kenny Boy: Ah. Sacrifice.
Big: Sh*t, they went dormant for decades now.
Kenny Boy: This doesn't look too dormant.
Big: It looks like some sort of initiation.
Kenny Boy: How do you know so much about this?
Big: Well, sh*t, YouTubes.
Notice they didn’t say this is just a creepy cult, born from psychopathic, extremist, and rare behavior and beliefs. No, this can all be blamed on one thing…white people.
Things devolve into a grotesque display as the initiates are made to have sex with decapitated catfish while wearing catfish masks and nothing else, as fish blood is poured over their bodies. This degenerate behavior confirms for Kenny Boy and Big that this is definitely a “f*cking white people” problem (click "expand"):
Both: Fսck*n' white people.
Big: Why just the bodies?
Kenny Boy: If you've ever put your hand down the business end of a catfish, you know to just cut that head off. Imagine what it would do to...
Big: Cover me.
Kenny Boy: Where you going?
Big: I'm pretty sure there's a law against f*ck¡ng fish carcasses. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Light horse man! Take the masks off and put your hands in the air. Now you four, get on the ground, you nasty f*ckers. Everyone, masks off!
Kenny Boy: That's right, you degenerates. This is Indian Territory. The Muscogee reservation.
Big: The f*ck is wrong with you guys?
Man: Is this part of the initiation?
Priest: No, sh*t ass. This is real life. And that's a tribal cop.
Grand Catfish: Which is barely a real cop. Sort of a kind of a cop.
Big: I'm gonna put my real foot up your ass if you're not careful.
Kenny Boy: That's a burn right there.
Grand Catfish: You...are making a big mistake.
Kenny Boy: Holy sh*t. Governor Wilson.
Big: Oh, this some real Scooby-Doo sh*t. You nasty f*ckеr.
Wilson: You don't know what you're dealing with here.
Kenny Boy: Fish f*ck¡ng. Is what it looks like, scumbags. Don't you have any reverence for nature and its peoples? Water and land? The four-leggeds and the no-leggeds?
Priest: Our God has given us this land to do with as we will, because the Native will not! He's too precious and too reverent. The earth is a whοre, and it is our will to take her.
Kenny Boy: Shut your mouth, filthy fish f*ckеr. Earth is not a whοre!
Big: Chill out, Kenny.
Kenny Boy: And if it was, you guys are paying for that. And we're the p¡mp and you're going down!
Of course, the old, white, male governor with a cross on his robe is the grand catfish, and of course, a priest is one of the other leaders. Might as well sprinkle in some anti-Christian bigotry while they’re at it.
The cult’s security ends up getting a jump on Big and Kenny Boy, and they wind up tied to a tree and blindfolded. They’re eventually rescued by the Deer Lady (Kaniehtiio Horn), who has hooves for feet. And believe it or not, she’s actually real and not a figment of their drug-induced hallucinations.
Kenny Boy and Big call for police back-up and once again apprehend the group who try inviting them to their potluck since they believe they’ve likely never been invited to a white event before. This leads to the most racist slur of all, as Big calls them “nasty crackers":
Men: Ours! Ours! Ours! Ours!
Big: Masks off, hands up! You're all under arrest! Get your sick a** over there. Back it up. Go, go.
Kenny Boy: Back it up, back it up. You see what you get, fish f*ckers? See what you get when you mess with Shik'is and I?
Wilson: Seriously? We were almost done. Potluck after this.
Kenny Boy: Potluck's cancelled, boys.
Grand Catfish: Come on. When was the last time you were invited to a white people's party?
Kenny Boy: Do I look white to you?
Wilson: Yes.
Big: You kind of do, Kenny Boy.
Kenny Boy: F*ck off, bilagáanas. Arrest these nasty crackers.
Poor Kenny Boy. Such bad luck for him to look like a white person. What fate could be worse than that? /sarcasm
This isn’t the first time the show has so brazenly and unapologetically displayed such racism towards white people, and unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last.
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