High repartee is difficult enough to achieve in miniature – the quip, the snappy comeback, or the one-liner. To sustain it through an entire speech is a notable achievement.

One of the best examples I know of is a speech by Cherokee scholar Dr. Rayna Green in 1981. Dr. Green was speaking to a national meeting of Native American women educators and political activists. She devoted her remarks to expounding on the need for a "Museum of the Plains White Person."

In her view, the need for such a museum was urgent: "We are deeply concerned that White Culture appears to be dying out … The once elegant and distinguished language of White People has deteriorated so severely that almost none of those remaining speak it well; furthermore, they seem to share no mutually intelligible language. Their religion is in a virtual state of collapse. And their traditional art forms have been devastated, of course."

That was for openers. Dr. Green's satire grows more wickedly funny with each succeeding paragraph. In due course, she informs her audience that through eminent domain, Indian authorities have acquired at least 80 percent of the white cemeteries in this country.

This, she continues with a straight face, is only the beginning: "We have begun our national campaign to acquire the bones of famous white people, since they themselves insisted for centuries that we can all learn so much from studying and displaying such remains. And, accepting their notions of reverence for the exhibition of the dead and goods from graves, White People will be honored to have the remains of their grandmothers and grandfathers on display. We have just acquired what I think is quite an important and moving find, the bones of John Wayne, the White Culture Hero, and we plan to acquire the remains of many other famous white persons. You might guess who we have our sights on."

(John Wayne, who died in 1979, was buried in an unmarked grave, precisely because his relations feared vandals or grave robbers.)

In any event, Dr. Green's witty address makes a serious point. It forces White Americans to reconsider their attitudes toward Native Americans, and achieves this object without lecturing or scolding. Dr. Green merely invites White Americans to trade places with Native Americans for a moment, and see if we would like our own attitudes toward Native Americans and their culture to be applied to us.

The complete text of Dr. Green's speech can be found in that excellent anthology, In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century, edited by former Senator Robert Torricelli and Andrew Carroll. (Kodansha International, 1999).