Absence makes the heart grow colder: the harmful nature of invisibility of contemporary American Indians

Abstract

ABSTRACT In settler colonial societies, settlers employ various practices to eliminate, replace, and erase Indigenous Peoples. We posit that the rarity of representations of contemporary American Indians in mainstream US culture legitimates other settler colonial practices in US society. We studied whether less exposure to representations of contemporary American Indians is associated with less support for challenges to other settler colonial practices. Using survey data from 903 White Americans, we examined associations between exposure to representations of contemporary American Indians, belief that American Indians are “a people of the past”, and support for challenges to settler colonial practices. We found that less exposure to representations of contemporary American Indians was indirectly associated with less support for challenges to settler colonial practices. This association occurs via double mediation – first through belief that American Indian Peoples are not contemporary and second through belief they are “a people of the past”.