“Killers of the Flower Moon” Whitewashes Racism Against Native Americans here ♦ Leave the World Behind—Or Leave Capitalism Behind here ♦
NEW YORK CITY, October 2023—Indigenous youths join climate protest as US President Biden addresses United Nations
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Whitewashes Capitalism’s Systemic Racist Attacks on Native Americans
“This was as bad as Mississippi Burning (1988),” said Lucy. “The FBI is the hero. No wonder it’s being promoted.”
“The big oil companies like Phillips Petroleum were let off the hook,” said Gloria. “It’s all about one bad guy.”
“About two white bad guys,” said Tina. “It should have focused on Mollie, the Indigenous woman who was the real hero. The focus is always on white people.”
Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon has ten Oscar nominations. It’s a long piece of ruling-class propaganda wrapped in amazing production values.
It distorts the true story of the Indigenous victims of an evil white “pillar of the community” (Hale) and his gutless nephew (Ernest). They conspire to murder a whole family to get Osage people’s oil rights and are stopped by the FBI.
As Tina suggested, this is a deeply racist movie. Native women appear as dehumanized victims. Mollie is mainly shown as passive and foolishly trusting. Scorsese concentrates instead on Mollie’s murderous husband Ernest’s “moral dilemma.”
The book behind the movie tells a broader story. Dozens of Indigenous Osage people were murdered for their rights to the oil beneath the ground in Osage County. Dozens more were murdered by their white “guardians.” The FBI solved one set of murders, locked up two bad guys, and made themselves heroes. They left the rest of the murders uninvestigated, and of course the racist social relations that set the Osage up for this massacre.
Ruling Class Media Don’t Expose Bloody Capitalist Social Relationships
The real story of the Osage isn’t about a few greedy individuals. It’s about the violent imposition of a new set of capitalist social relationships. These were based on money, commodities, property rights, and competition.
Capitalism itself paved the way for this murder and theft. The Osage tragedy is the same tragedy that capitalism has inflicted on people around the world over and over.
The Osage, like many North American Indigenous groups, had long lived communally. Land was held in common and worked to benefit their common wellbeing. Native Americans were violently evicted from their land and forced onto land less valuable for capitalist agriculture.
The Dawes Act (1887) attacked their communal lifestyle by dividing these “reservations” into private property, much of which was then sold to capitalist farmers. The Osage resisted until 1907. When they finally agreed, they made it illegal to buy or sell the rights to the oil and other minerals underground.
Oil was just then becoming a valuable commodity. The rush to drill on Osage land resulted, by the 1920s, with the Osage reaping tremendous short-term wealth from rental of oil rights.
But this made Osage people a target. Each person listed on the Osage roll in 1906 had a share of the mineral rights (“headrights”) and the profits it generated. Osage individuals could not sell or give their “headrights” to anyone. They could only be inherited. This set Osage people up for the murders shown in the film.
In addition, the federal government appointed white “guardians” to most Native Americans, including the Osage, supposedly to protect them from exploitation. This system, started in the 1830s, was justified by the racist lie that Native Americans were not competent to make their own decisions.
Many “guardians,” lawyers and businessmen like Hale, used these positions to exploit their “wards.” They approved payment of gouged prices for things their Osage “wards” bought, receiving kickbacks from crooked merchants. They found ways to become the designated heirs to their wards’ headrights, and then set them up for murder.
Opposing the Osage: Forces Much Bigger than Hale, the FBI, or Scorsese Could Imagine
The Getty family (George and his son J Paul) became millionaires from Osage County oil. Phillips Oil and Petroleum did too. All the power was in the hands of the oil companies, the “guardians,” and local politicians who made deals with the oil companies.
The movie shows the murder of one family but ignores the other deaths of Osage people in what the Osage call the 1920s reign of terror.
And more fundamentally, it completely ignores the destruction of the communal society of Indigenous people in the service of capitalism.
Hollywood will never expose the bloody and inhumane birth of capitalism and its murderous reality today. That’s our task. Along with building the fight for a communist society – based on comradely social relationships, not money – that can recreate communal property and cooperation on an even stronger basis.
“Leave the World Behind” … Or Leave Capitalism Behind?
The disaster movie “Leave the World Behind” quickly became the #1 streaming film on Netflix late last year. The story focuses on two families who find themselves stranded together in a luxurious country house during a catastrophic hodgepodge of events. At times, these events don’t even seem linked, though they are apparently from a cyber-attack. As confusing threats grow, both families must decide how best to survive the growing crisis with no internet or means of communication.
After over two hours, the movie finally gets to its point: That humans are, by nature, individualistic, greedy, and selfish and will turn on each other in times of chaos. The movie seems to make this political lie, frequently promoted by capitalist media, its main task rather than creating a coherent story line.
It does make perfect sense that Barack Obama was a co-producer of this movie.
As we near World War III, workers are increasingly uneasy. The ruling class would much rather have workers turn on each other rather than uniting to destroy the capitalist system of chaos and destruction. However, capitalist propaganda will not trump our innate instinct to unite during a crisis. Our first instinct after an earthquake, fire, or bombing is to run in and help! We simply could not have survived as a species without this.
This deep-seated connection is why communism is the best system for us and for the planet. This planet can provide for human need, but not for human greed. Capitalism’s profit motive divides us and foments selfishness and greed.
Communism will set up a system that has us work simply according to ability and commitment. Commitment to having society function. We will work to make sure nobody is left homeless, starving, without healthcare, etc. We’ll work to provide for our collective needs and not to sell our labor while a few live extravagant lives off our labor!
—Comrade in California (USA)