Sarah Sunshine Manning: Even toys carry harmful messages

A "Wild West" play set from Safari Ltd. Image from Amazon.com

We exist in a time and space where issues of race and identity are at a boiling point. In this very moment, conversations matter. We have work to do.

For those folks courageously facing the uncomfortable and transformative conversations, it can be exhausting. I get it. It is exhausting speaking about racism, tragedy, controversy, and our pains. It is exhausting explaining why Indian mascots or the Confederate flag are degrading and harmful to our children.

And it is even more exhausting enduring the pain in every day messages around us that attack our identity as people of color, and in my own experience, as a Native American. There are many exhausting experiences that Native people endure, be it biased history books, degrading Indian mascots, Halloween costumes of the Indian princess, poverty, societal ills, and debilitating stereotypes.

Our children and youth endure the painful messages even in toys on store shelves today.

This toy set was just plucked off the shelf by a young relative yesterday, and again, I am incensed. My young relative found the toy set and immediately noticed what was wrong.

The set consists of several pieces, all representing the American West at the peak of westward expansion, highlighting a glorified and white washed narrative, which has shaped a distorted consciousness about history and Native Americans today. I should not have to explain how wrong this is, but I will.