You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged Native America.
When White People Discovered America..
“ A significant number of people believe tribal people still live and dress as they did 300 years ago. During my tenure as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, national news agencies requesting interviews sometimes asked if they could film a tribal dance or if I would wear traditional tribal clothing for the interview. I doubt they asked the president of the United States to dress like a pilgrim for an interview. More than one visitor to the Cherokee Nation capitol in Tahlequah, Oklahoma has expressed disappointment when they see no tipis or tribal people dressed up in buckskin. When these crestfallen tourists ask, ‘Where are all the Indians?’ I sometimes place my tongue in cheek and respond, quite truthfully, ‘They are probably at Wal-Mart.’
—
Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010), the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation
Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women
(via coolchicksfromhistory)
“Sure you can trust the US Government. Just ask an Indian. Every treaty made was broken. 80% Unemployment. Highest suicide % on the planet. Lowest life expectancy amongst men in the western hemisphere”
I love this. #StandUP for #indigenous rights. #AIM #pineridge #lakota #firstnations
“ Appreciation works here as appropriation not just by taking Native culture out of context, but by failing to note that settler colonialism is what makes inspiration by Native culture possible and desirable for non-Natives inheriting life on stolen land.
— Scott Morgensen (via nitanahkohe)
“
The problem with cultural appropriation is that it replaces the original with a copy created by the dominant culture. It dilutes the original, removes all symbolic value from it and replaces it with a ready to consume product devoid of context and meaning.
Cultural appropriation, at its most extreme, is a violent form of colonization because it removes the original group behind the culture and reinforces stereotypes about that group (i.e. ALL First Nation folks are reduced to “war bonnets”, whether their culture uses them or not; all Latin@s are reduced to a stylized version of Catholicism regardless of their spirituality; etc.). The mechanism of commodifying a culture ends up being a tool to re-inforce [sic] racism as it reduces the people behind those cultures to a mere cartoon like representation of their realities. It’s a great way to ultimately Other and objectify entire groups of people by taking something that is dynamic and ever evolving and freezing it for a marketing photo opportunity.
— Flavia Dzodan (via ablueberrynight)
1890
This is the first known photograph ever taken of a surfer. Surfing was banned in Hawaii by missionaries in the 1700s for its “ungodliness,” but fortunately the natives didn’t pay much heed to that decree.
And this is an example of why it is offensive to appropriate Hawaiian culture. I’m not talking about surfing, I’m talking about the caption. This is why it isn’t okay for non-Hawaiians to have luaus, wear grass skirts and leis, have tiki bars, and get hula dancer tattoos.
Hawaiians were essentially banned from their own culture. The things you appropriate were things the Hawaiians were told were sins. My ancestors were told they were going to hell for their religion. The missionaries didn’t just bring protestantism to the islands, they also brought suicide. People felt so guilty about how they lived that they killed themselves.
The things Hawaiians were made to feel ashamed of, the things they had to atone for are now thought of as “kitsch” and “exotic” by non-natives.
This excerpt from a zine is quite fitting (even though it is about Native Americans, it applies here too): “Spiritual practices of Native peoples are particularly prone to appropriation by the dominant culture. It is exceptionally ironic, given that a!er colonization, it was not until the passage of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act that Native people in the United States were legally permitted to practice their traditional spirituality. Since the colonization of this continent by white settlers, Native people have faced monumental obstacles to the free exercise of their spiritual practices, including boarding schools, forced relocation, endless broken treaties, “kill the Indian, save the man” policies, and forced assimilation. So it is particularly insensitive for white people to attempt to justify their/our use of Native spiritual practices when Native people themselves have often been brutally persecuted for the same.”-Cultural Appreciation or Cultural appropriation
But anyway, this photo rules.
So while combing through the interwebs for .pdf books on unrelated subjects, I happened upon zinelibrary.info- an anarchist collective dedicated to the free distribution of radical literature. They have a lot of titles by authors mentioned in this post, as well as…
Attn white people who hate thanksgiving:
posting gifs/photos from the Addams Family with Wednesday Addams ~playing Indian~ is not subversive, it is still cultural appropriation that perpetuates stereotypes.
So, like, if you’re pissed at the genocide of Native people and a holiday that celebrates that, using images of a white person appropriating Native culture while talking about scalping folks isn’t really the best way to to criticize the holiday.
Just throwing that out there.
