Dance Me Outside

The video, “Dance Me Outside”, did a great job of portraying the gross disregard for a Native American’s life in the case of Little Margaret as well as the biases within the judicial system and restorative justice. The director also emphasizes how Native American’s take care of “their own” in many instances throughout the film. In the video, a Native American girl, Little Margaret is murdered after a night out at the bar. Little Margaret’s body was carelessly tossed next to the river where two of the main characters, Silas and Frank, find her. The two are stunned with how recklessly someone just left her. Clearly, this murder was not treated with equal justice because the murderer, Clarence, a white man only spent a small amount of time in prison and returned to the reservation without restorative justice working. He came back a hero to his white friends and acted as if he were superior to the Native Americans because he only got a small sentence for the murder. The Native American community was stunned by the lack of justice for the murder of Little Margaret and even brought in a Native American activist, Hobart, from Montana to talk about how unjust the punishment was for the crime that was committed. Hobart was treated as if he were a criminal rather than a Native American trying to seek justice. He was followed by white Federal law officers under the premise that he may start some sort of revolt or riot because of the unjust sentence that was imposed on Clarence for murdering Little Margaret. Reversing the roles, if it had been a white person that was the murder victim and a Native American was convicted of the murder, the sentence would be much harsher, at least 20 years to life in prison rather than the short sentence that Clarence served for the murder of Little Margaret. There is definitely reverse bias in this situation. Throughout the film, the Native American’s “take care of their own” from the dilemma of a Native American girl