Seems Too Shawnee Of Herself

(I am in tenth grade, taking AP U.S. History with a rather sub-par teacher. She is very conservative and dislikes any figure who isn’t a white Christian. We are doing a sort of brackets where you pick one out of two historic people until you get to the most important.)

Teacher: “[My Name], what’s up with your bracket?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Teacher: “You advanced Tecumseh–” *a Shawnee Indian leader from the 1800s* “–three places forward until he was beat out by Harriet Tubman. Why did he place so far up? Why not Andrew Jackson?”

Me: *confused* “Um, he did a great deal for Native American tribes during their war against the U.S. and Andrew Jackson is a genocidal racist who—”

Teacher: *scoffing* “Yes, but he was just an Indian chief! Not very important since they were pretty much wiped out. Jackson was a president who actually supported the United States.”

Me: “Tecumseh is held in high standard in my family because—”

Teacher: “Still, who cares?”

(Pause.)

Me: “Uh, I’m Shawnee Indian so I do care about Tecumseh.”

Teacher: “Sure, whatever.” *goes off to praise the next boy who advanced Jackson*