More Than Frybread

I think it is necessary to make frybread appreciation blog official. I've posted enough pictures, the class has talked about it enough, we've drooled over it at during Washington DC. Let's do this. I'm free all of next week after monday and I need people to make frybread with. I found a recipe, although I'm not sure what the best recipe would be. You know, we could even have a "More Than Frybread" competition.

Speaking of which, I contacted the producers of the movie and in August we are going to figure out a way to bring the movie to campus. I'll keep everybody updated.

Back on the real topic: Frybread. That golden, yummy, funnel-cake consistency is just so desirable. We can be creative, make tacos, make vegan frybread, anything. I also make jam in my spare time so we can definitely do that too. I'm sure we're bound to mess this all up, it seems pretty easy to make, though.

Navajo Fry Bread Recipe - Indian Fry Bread Recipe by Cynthia Detterick-Pineda

Fry bread is wonderfully lumpy (puffed here and there). It can be served as a dessert or used as a main dish bread. Our family will often take them and stuff them, much like one might use bread or tortilla to dip into their food. 

Recipe Type: Quick Bread, Native American
Yields: 4 servings
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 8 min
 

Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon powdered milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup water
Vegetable oil for frying
Extra flour to flour your hands

Preparation:

Sift together the flour, salt, powdered milk, and baking powder into a large bowl. Pour the water over the flour mixture all at once and stir the dough with a fork until it starts to form one big clump. 

Flour your hands well. Using your hands, begin to mix the dough, trying to get all the flour into the mixture to form a ball. You want to mix this well, but you do NOT want to knead it. Kneading it will make for a heavy Fry Bread when cooked. The inside of the dough ball should still be sticky after it is formed, while the outside will be well floured.

Cut the dough into four (4) pieces. Using your floured hands, shape, stretch, pat, and form a disk of about 5 to 7 inches in diameter.  Don’t worry about it being round. As Grandma Felipa would say “it doesn’t roll into your mouth.” 

In a deep heavy pot, heat the vegetable oil to about 350 degrees F. You can check if you oil is hot enough by either dropping a small piece of dough in the hot oil and seeing if it begins to fry, or by dipping the end of a wooden spoon in and seeing if that bubbles. Your oil should be about 1-inch deep in a large cast-iron skillet or other large heavy pot. 

Take the formed dough and gently place it into the oil, being careful not to splatter the hot oil. Press down on the dough as it fries so the top is submersed into the hot oil. Fry until brown, and then flip to fry the other side. Each side will take approximately 3 to 4 minutes to cook.  Place the cooked Fry Bread on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Indian Fry Bread can be kept warm in a 200 degree F. oven for up to 1 hour. They refrigerate well and can be reheated in a 350 degree F. oven for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

SOURCE

Native American Museum in Washington DC

My First Frybread

 Frybread with honey and powdered sugar

 Same I think?

 Frybread with just powedered sugar

Indian taco: Frybread with lettuce,tomato, cheese, buffalo chili

Ashton Kutcher and White Privlege

Dave Chappelle has always been one to take things over the top and not care about what anybody thinks. That's why he's great. As an African American comic, he realizes that he, himself, is African American and his audience is as well. He brings up the idea of white privilege, how white people can get away with such racist things and not have anybody question it. The idea of the comedy ladder comes into play, where white people are at the top majority, while it is okay for comics like Dave Chappelle to make jokes of any nature. If Dave Chappelle wasn't white, these jokes would not be okay at all. Though, because he is not white, his jokes are clever, funny, and appropriate.

Woody Allen Metaphor... and More!

 This brings up the issue of majority opinion. Native American's numbers are much lower than African Americans. This is also much lower, of course, than White Americans. The amount of publicity, opinion, and thought going towards a certain race, religion, ect. is all based on how many people will complain if you do something against their group. For example, if all the people that looked like Woody Allen were formed into a group and then another majority group started bashing their dashing looks, impeccable sense of style, and fashionable glasses and then made them a mascot of a football team, then all 5 of Woody Allen's look alikes would get angry. The fact that there would be thousands of people bashing these 5 people would outweigh any voice that the 5 look alikes had. There would be nothing that they could do about it, because nobody would listen.

 Disobey: When oppressed, it is your duty to rise against the oppressors and fight until your rights are achieved.

Obama being like-able and stuff

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/if-obama-is-serious-about-american-indians-hell-offer-more-than-eagle-feathers/249311/

A pretty cool article.

Sure You Can Trust Your Government... Just Ask a Native American!

I was watching American Pickers the other day, and I was reminded that before this class I didn't realize Native Americans are in EVERYTHING. For example, I've noticed my friends talking about Native Americans at least once a week either positively, negatively, or just middle-ground ignorance. I've started picking battles.

Anyways, the American Pickers crew came to this guy's house and he had all of those stereotypical signs like "Stick to your guns" and "If you value your life, don't cross my fence" and all of that. There were maybe 20 of them all over his yard, fence, and property. One of them stuck out to me, though. It was a sign that said this, and I quickly realized that this was an actual slogan(and a pretty valid one) This, mind you, was in the middle of nowhere swamp-land where there was absolutely no Native American culture, reference, or anything.

The slogan itself shows that if you can look at what the government has done to Native Americans and not have any reprimands, then they are probably doing some absolutely disgusting stuff behind the American people's backs. Look at the Keystone pipeline, for example. Flip-flopping and lying got that up and going. Learning about Native Americans makes you question nearly everything. If I was lied to about Thanksgiving for all these years, what else in history doesn't hold valid? The south still learns that slavery "wasn't that bad" and civil rights was peaceful and orderly.

Education is all about the frame that you are put in. Every school, every classroom, every book has a frame. As a student, it is your job to take what you learn, and question it. Question everything, because in some cases, you might not be getting the whole picture.

Indian Summer

I was trying to research the correlation I was trying to tie with Native Americans and 7up(Somebody fill me in here in what I'm thinking or tell me I'm crazy) and I found this awesome comic. It highlights the idea of "Indian summer" and the fact that Native American season are just like everybody else's. Well, except for the fact that all year 'round they are on reservations, mis-treated, forced into poverty, segregated, and all of that.

On the forum that I found it on(which is a forum to talk about music and stuff, not sure why this is on there), I found this hilarious quote.
"

Originally Posted by adidasss

the reality of the native americans is that life in the reservations in below the american average and that it made a lot of native americans alcoholics...no?

well yes for the most part lot of them do live on reservation other just try to say the are not native americans, acually white make up the highest percentage of drunk and alcoholics in the US but they do for the most part live below stands.

Read more: http://www.musicbanter.com/lounge/10868-international-cultural-exchange-quote-artist-lute-6.html#ixzz1tnAjTjnL

Every comment on this topic is pretty much interesting in it's own way. A bunch of people roasting each other. I could probably make a blog post about each of their posts, but that would get repetitive fast.

This is my friend Elyse holding up a sign I found at the farmers market right here in Kutztown, PA. It brought up a good point that I've been thinking about during the class. While we could say "This is bad, this only shows the past and not contemporary Native American people", this is an artifact of the time, a true vintage. If these were being churned out by the thousand to this day, that would be a different story. While we have to focus on the future, the past did exist. I'm not sure what kind of person would buy this and hang it over their fireplace proudly, but this is a pretty cool piece of art that shows the morality of perhaps the 1960s(?) This brings up the reminiscence that didn't 7Up or something sponsor the Native American occupation of Alcatraz(or did I make that up and remember something wrong) Regardless, this sign shows the past of what used to be acceptable(and probably would be somewhat acceptable today, and thankfully would have some sort of outcry). I'm not sure what a soda product would want with an "Indian Warrior" representing them either, but that's besides the point.

 

I'm not sure what this is trying to convey, perhaps Native Americans burning down the ones that chopped down all of the trees. Still, the clash of traditional Native attire alongside a modern gasoline can worries me. I leave it open to discussion and interpretation.

Native American Burial Grounds in Horror

As an avid horror movie fan, I pride myself in barely getting scared when sitting down the a gore-filled murder-fest in my free time. There's nothing like getting your adrenaline pumping late at night with all the lights out. Recently, while watching the movie Mask Maker on Netflix, something got my adrenaline racing more than the foul-mouthed crude jokes and masked murderers ripping people's faces off. In shot expressing the setting(whatever that is called in actual movie terms, I can't think of it now), the protagonist finds a falcon-head staff. I got this screen-cap of his immediate reaction to this finding.

This leads me to my point, a common theme that is seen in horror many times. Whenever you need to portray an "evil" setting, just put a Native American Burial ground. Not only does this further enforce the idea that Native Americans are not alive today, literally buried in the ground, not in the movie, haunting the characters(ooohhh spooky!), but the idea that the ghosts would be Native Americans makes them scarier.

In reality, movies like this that start off with a Native American burial ground humors me the most when the ghosts turn up. They are almost always white. Okay, so Native Americans can be buried in the ground, but when they actually are in the movie, they are white? I don't understand this, but I guess horror movies will continue to reinforce these stereotypes along with various other things that they do wrong(like most of them sucking, like this one)