’s Native American and Indigenous Writers’ Committee are calling on Hollywood to reject stereotypical portrayals of native people and to hire native writers, showrunners, directors and actors to tell their own stories. “As America struggles with long-overdue social reckoning, we believe now is the time to make amends for inadequate representation,” they wrote in an open letter released today.
Indeed, even the Declaration of Independence refers to Native American people as “merciless Indian savages.” They are also calling on the industry to “move beyond the limiting practice of only hiring us as cultural consultants. We are not in the business of legitimizing scripts for free, or authorizing our stories for others to tell. We have seen this for more than a century, and it has only perpetuated racism toward our community by way of erasure and harmful stereotypes.
I’ll write for shows