Sherman Alexie, author of Flight and a biracial Native American, is quoted as saying “don’t live up to your expectations.” The history of Native Americans is one of genocide, violence, and a battle for equality that still stands in the way of many people even today. Past events in American history have shaped prejudices against American Indians, which continue to affect members of this ethnicity. In Sherman Alexie's Flight, Zits uses stereotypes formed by historical events and scenarios to understand and identify with himself, to situate his own life within a larger history of conflict. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay When Europeans began settling in the Americas, many Europeans were afraid of the darker-skinned tribes, who were in turn angered by the reckless lack of respect they had been shown; with attempts to remove them from their lands, began “their perception of the indigenous threat”. This expectation of violence and anger on the part of Native Americans was "heavily dependent on European perceptions of the origins and malleability of [their] presumed backwardness" and is still present in modern society. Drawing on the perspective of Gus, an Indian hunter working for the U.S. government, Zits remembers "when he, [Gus], came upon these slaughtered, stripped, mutilated, ruined white bodies" (86). ). This horrific imagery of violence and anger, although not fictional, was not true for the entire Indian race, although it became a generalization expected of all. In colonial times, “captivity stories were often presented as evidence of the type of indigenous barbarity.” who deserved violence,” and white militias would go with Indian hunters, like Gus, to seek out and massacre entire tribes. Throughout the life of the United States, many of those who feared the Native Americans wanted to "wipe these wild and untamable creatures from the face of the earth." » In the face of such aggression, it is not surprising that many American Indians fought against their oppressors in hopes of survival. When he sees a psychiatrist, Zits learns that he is simply "programmed for violence" and accepts the diagnosis as simply a mark of his Native American heritage (27). In recent years, it has become common for many Native American families to be “broken” or “damaged,” and this unhappiness has become a stereotype, if not an expectation. Although "virtually non-existent in traditional Native American communities, Native American women and children today experience domestic violence at rates similar to those of "families of European and Caucasian descent" (source a). This growth of conflict-affected Native American families has been attributed to a trait "learned from the white man" during events such as forced assimilation, which continue to plague the culture today. During his time in the foster system, Zits lives with “two Indian adoptive fathers, [but finds that] they . were bigger assholes than any of [his] eighteen white adoptive fathers” (9). This mutilated sense of family for many Native Americans has created a division between those who choose to live in traditional ways and those who choose to live as “Americans.” The conflict is similar to the past when "a permanent demarcation between 'good Indians' and 'bad Indians' [was formed], either as tribes or as individuals,...based on their will to assimilate or cooperate. » Historically,..