An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

and Being (2016), “At stake is not recognizing antiblackness as total
climate.” 59 In other words, anti-Black racism is foundational to the US;
culture, it is everywhere, and we are all products of it. Through the words of
Baldwin, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the documentary is powerful.
But I couldn’t help but notice how Baldwin’s rhetoric and Peck’s use of
images at various points in the documentary relied on the history of
Indigenous genocide. For instance, Baldwin, at a debate with the
conservative personality William Buckley, held at Cambridge University,
stated:
In the case of the American Negro, born in that glittering republic,
and the moment you are born, since you don’t know any better, every
stick and stone, and every face is white. And since you have not yet
seen a mirror, you suppose that you are too. It comes as a great shock,
around the age of five, or six, or seven, to discover that the flag to
which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has
not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to discover
that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for
Gary Cooper, the Indians were you. It comes as a great shock to
discover that the country which is your birthplace and to which you
owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole system of reality,
evolved any place for you. 60
Here Baldwin uses the history of Indigenous genocide to describe how
race was constructed, and how Black Americans should be cautious about
what could ultimately be their own demise: genocide. The issue here is that
Baldwin, like other activists during the time, described Indigenous genocide
as an afterthought, ignoring Native resistance. Baldwin used the history of
settler colonialism as a prophetic tool, a prop to Black Americans to say
this: if you don’t resist white supremacy and racism, if you don’t fight
oppression, you will be treated just like the “Indians,” and killed off.
Peck blended Baldwin’s words with images of Native genocide,
including old westerns where white men were shooting Native people.
Perhaps the most egregious example was a scene from Soldier Blue (1970),
directed by Ralph Nelson, which was a rendition of the Sand Creek
Massacre in 1864. In this scene, four soldiers, holding a Native woman at
gunpoint, ripped off her clothing, leaving her naked for the audience’s gaze.