Standing Silent Nation Summary

The documentary Standing Silent Nation: A Native American Family Seeking Economic Independence portrays the constant and permanent struggles that Native Americans, specifically the Oglala Lakota tribe, face daily. The documentary focused primarily on the economic inequality and underrepresentation that Native Americans experience due to the persistent prejudice that remains against this specific group. In other words, the Oglala Lakota tribe, and other Native American tribes, express their worry of the inequality committed against them by asking the viewer to take their situations into consideration by discussing their issues with the United States court system public. The Oglala Tribe can illustrate to the reader constant dedication and hard work to simply meet their financial needs, despite common belief that Native Americans just want handouts from the government. The documentary attempts to eliminate the negative stereotypes of Native Americans. …show more content…
I believe that Courtney Hermann and Suree Towfighnia, the filmmakers, purposely included these statistics on plain backgrounds to make viewers aware of how the constant discrimination committed against Native Americans have negatively affected their entire population. For example, the unemployment rates in Pine Ridge Reservation is 85% in contrast to 5% to the United States (Hermann and Towfighnia, 2007). Secondly, substandard housing is at 66% in Pine Ridge Reservation while it is only 4% for the United States (Hermann and Towfighnia, 2007. Lastly, life expectancy in Pine Ridge Reservation varies between 47-56 years in contrast to the 75-80 average life years in the United States (Hermann and Towfighnia, 2007. It is astonishing to see how certain living conditions can affect a group of people so