Native American academic proves indigenous people burned more forests
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 3 talks
A Native American academic in Missoula showed Žižek a text proving that Native Americans destroyed more forests and killed more buffalos than all white people combined, to expose the 'angelic other' stereotype as refined racism.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“'We Native Americans ruined, burned more forests and killed more buffalos than all white people combined.' He wanted to say how to paint the other as angelic... is a refined version of racism.”
“We burned more forest than you stupid white men ever did. We killed more buffaloes, we brought more violence, destruction to nature.”
“We Indians burned more forest and killed more buffaloes than you ever will do.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais1Hardt and Negri1Pippa Malmgren1Aung San Suu Kyi1Laura Poitras1Roger Waters1Heinrich Heine1Mustafa Kemal Atatürk1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
A Native American academic in Missoula showed Žižek a text proving that Native Americans destroyed more forests and killed more buffalos than all white people combined, to expose the 'angelic other' stereotype as refined racism., illustrating political correctness as patronizing racism,ideology of the noble savage
Žižek's Native American friends in Missoula rejected the myth of their organic relationship with nature by boasting that they burned more forests and killed more buffaloes than white men, exposing the patronizing Western projection of ecological purity., illustrating inverted racism,primitivism and cultural authenticity
An Indian American tells Žižek they prefer 'Indian' to 'Native American' (which implies they are nature, whites culture), and asserts: 'We Indians burned more forest and killed more buffaloes than you ever will', against the patronizing myth of the harmonious ecological native., illustrating nature doesn't exist