When Hill was a younger comedian within the Seventies, he refused to deign to racist stereotypes of Native People. Reasonably, his materials addressed bigotry towards Native People all through historical past, taking intention at White viewers, the compelled displacement of indigenous individuals and even the dangerous historical past of Christopher Columbus and Plymouth Rock Pilgrims.
In 1977, 26-year-old Hill appeared on “The Richard Pryor Present,” the primary time a Native American stand-up carried out on a program that aired throughout the US. Per Google’s caption of the Doodle tribute, the present’s writers requested him to painting a racist caricature of a Native American individual, however Hill declined.
“For thus lengthy, you [White viewers] most likely thought that Indians by no means had a humorousness,” he stated in his set on Pryor’s present. “We by no means thought you have been too humorous both.”
Hill, who belonged to the Oneida Nation and in addition had Mohawk and Cree heritage, moved to the Wisconsin’s Oneida Nation as a toddler and finally made a reputation for himself on the famend Comedy Retailer in California, the place he made connections that will land him a number of nationwide TV spots.
As his star grew, he nonetheless refused to seem in works that would cut back him to a stereotype. He was impressed by the Black comedian Dick Gregory, whose materials usually focused racism.
“That is what I am doing from a Native American viewpoint to defuse that conventional John Wayne mentality,” Hill stated within the ebook “We Had a Little Actual Property Downside,” a historical past of Hill and different Native American comedians who defied stereotypes.
Hill died in 2013 from lymphoma at 62, however the legacy he is left is immense, stated Kliph Nesteroff, the writer of “We Had a Little Actual Property Downside.”
“He was simply essential to all indigenous communities in North America as this unimaginable consultant who by no means offered himself out, who by no means engaged in stereotypes,” Nesterhoff stated in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio final yr.
The Google Doodle of Hill was drawn by an indigenous creator — Alanah Astehtsi Otsistohkwa (Morningstar) Jewell, a French-First Nations artist from Thames, an Oneida Nation in Canada.