| By far the most severe oppression that the women | | | | their cattle on reservation land for a mere pittance, |
| faced comes from the dominant culture. This | | | | by using [Indians] as colorful props to attract the |
| oppression is shown in numerous ways, such as | | | | Eastern tourists" (Crow Dog 81). Mary discovered |
| degradation, exploitation, and murder. As a result, the | | | | that her people were being cheated by the |
| women have an understandable fear and hatred of | | | | reservation trading post when she was in New York. |
| white people. Maya describes an errand into the | | | | According to Mary, "everything was so much cheaper |
| white section of town like this: "We were explorers | | | | than on the reservation where the trading posts |
| walking without weapons into man-eating animals' | | | | have no competition and charge what they please" |
| territory" (Angelou 25). Likewise, because of Mary's | | | | (Crow Dog 112).African Americans suffer from this |
| beatings by Catholic nuns at the Indian Boarding | | | | exploitation also. Since they were segregated, African |
| School, she "hated and mistrusted every white | | | | Americans were only allowed to attend certain |
| person on sight, because [she] met only one kind" | | | | schools and colleges. These colleges trained "Negro |
| (Crow Dog 34).One example of whites' degradation | | | | youth to be carpenters, farmers, handymen, masons, |
| of minority peoples is the changing of their names. | | | | maids, cooks, and baby nurses" (Angelou 170). They |
| Native American peoples were forced to adopt | | | | were not given the opportunity to become "Galileos |
| Christian first names. Mary writes that her husband's | | | | and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gaugins" |
| family name should have been Crow Coyote, but due | | | | (Angelou 179). As with the Indians, whites cheated |
| to a white interpreter's misunderstanding, they ended | | | | the black cotton pickers out of their earned wages. |
| up with the name Crow Dog (Crow Dog 10). Maya | | | | Maya reported that "no matter how much they had |
| also had her name changed by her white employer. | | | | picked, it wasn't enough" to pay the "staggering bill |
| Her given name is Marguerite, but the white woman | | | | that waited on them at the white commissary |
| called her Margaret. Then a friend of the white | | | | downtown" (Angelou 8).The most severe oppression |
| woman told her the name Margaret was too long | | | | suffered by minorities is the physical violence and |
| and she would "call her Mary if I was you" (Angelou | | | | unjustified murder committed by white people. Maya |
| 107). Maya said that "every person she knew had a | | | | describes a gruesome scene in which she and her |
| hellish horror of being 'called out of his name'" and | | | | brother learn about the murder of a black man:And |
| that "it was a dangerous practice to call a Negro | | | | once, we found out about a man who had been killed |
| anything that could be loosely construed as insulting | | | | by whitefolks and thrown into the pond. Bailey said |
| because of the centuries of their having been called | | | | the man's things had been cut off and put in his |
| niggers, jigs, dinges, blackbirds, crows, boots, and | | | | pocket and he had been shot in the head, all because |
| spooks" (Angelou 109).Another element of oppression | | | | the whitefolks said he did 'it' to a white woman |
| by whites is how minority peoples are exploited for | | | | (Angelou 37).Mary also recounts numerous times |
| their labor and cheated out of what is owed to them. | | | | Indians were murdered by white men. The following |
| Native and African Americans were relegated to the | | | | account is particularly inhuman:Not long before that a |
| lowest and worst paying jobs by whites. Mary | | | | Sioux, Raymond Yellow Thunder, a humble, |
| claimed that all the whites living near the reservation | | | | hard-working man, had been stripped naked and |
| "made their living in some way by exploiting [the | | | | forced at gunpoint to dance in an American Legion |
| Indians], by using Indians as cheap labor, by running | | | | Hall at Gordon, Nebraska. |