Playing Indians? Playing Whites?

"An unparalleled national identity crisis swirled around two related dilemmas: First, Americans had an awkward tendency to define themselves by what they were not.. Second, Americans (and he did not hesitate to generalize) had been continually haunted by the fatal dilemma of “ wanting to have their cake and eat it too,” of wanting to savor both civilized order and savage freedom at the same time."
Philip J. Deloria Introduction Playing Indian (pp5)

Deloria explores the Indian identity by examining the "white American's" desire his book "Playing Indian." The quote above is D.H.Lawrence's definition and criticism of the American identity.I found it interesting because the way Deloria describe how we play the Indians using their lifestyles, clothing and customs has changed the original images of the Native Americans and thus redefines the national identity. I wrote a blog at the beginning of the semester saying that I think the American identity is that we don't have an identity. I still agree with my preview thought but now after my reading I realized how hard is it to find an identity for a country, a group of people. Imagining Indians has helped us define and evade paradox raising from "playing Indians". And in Deloria's book, he made a point that the Native Americans believed that the English were the colonist, and for the Europeans, the Indians are the Americans.I think this it summarizes the idea that not only the Europeans had a mistaken concepts on the Indians. Maybe they are "playing Whites" too.