SOC 100 - Discussion Posts Day One

The next assignment we had in our Sociology 100 class was a discussion post. It was series of five posts answering some questions about a video we saw. The video is "Children of the Plains" and was a 20/20 special on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. A very good 20/20 video. Here is the link and I reccommend it:
http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/VD55148316/2020-1014-children-of-the-plains
Day one:  How do the six myths and reality play out in this video? The six myths come from the textbook and I didn't quite get all of them.

Here's my post:

The first myth I see played out in this video is the myth of pure races. As we read in our text, this is myth. The video portrays the Lakota here as being unlike any other people. In our text it states that even though we have many visible differences, we humans are strikingly very homogeneous (same or similar nature). The second myth I see from our text is the myth of fixed number of races and I don’t see this played out in the video other than there are just two large groupings of people mentioned and that’s, Indian and White.  Either you’re Indian or White, but I don’t believe that’s the real message they intend, but I think that’s all that is mentioned.  I think this video shows a good deal about the culture of the Lakota and this breaks the myth that race is fixed by biology. As stated in our text, “race” depends more on the society in which we live than on biological characteristics.  I particularly like the powwow scenes and the dress of the dancers in this video.  Probably the biggest one that stands out for me is the myth of racial superiority. When the video told of how in as late as the 1940’s these Lakota children were being sent to western schools and sent there to be westernized, that myth just popped out. The federal government believed that they (Lakota) had to be westernized as if the Lakota were inferior. The children had their hair cut, and their clothes changed.
The reality is that no race is superior and even biologists can’t decide how people should be classified into races. People act on beliefs and not always the facts. Alcoholism and drug abused was shown in the video, but the fact is these problems plaque all people. I don’t think it was the intent of the video to suggest it’s only a problem on the reservation, but I can see how some people may get the idea that it’s because of race that it’s such a problem there. As the book said, people will act on perceptions and beliefs, not facts.