As human beings, we can always look at the past, examine the present and envision the future of humanity by reading our cultural stories. But what if these stories do not represent reality? Unfortunately, this is really what is happening in Canadian Indian cultures nowadays, and what Annharte is wanting to change through her poems in Exercise in Lip pointing. She is trying to portray Indians realistically, and is fighting against the stereotypical way in …showed first 75 words of 879 total…

…showed last 75 words of 879 total…relations. As Maureen Mathew stated, stereotypes are "the ideas that power up the system. They shape bureaucracies, and they make good-hearted people into destructive puppets" and this is achieved in two ways: firstly, stereotypes provide justification to the dominant culture; secondly, they push the already battle-weakened culture further into subordination. This phenomenon is what is actually happening to the Indians. Their culture becomes stunted, frozen, unable to over forward, and to break out the stereotypes.