social justice league chats
Rant: on whites abusing cultural attire.
Whites, if you are going to wear outfits associated with the oppressed tonight, you will show them disrespect. You are disrespecting them because you are taking things associated with their cultures and using them carelessly. There was never an ancient American tradition to dress up as foreigners, visit other tribes, and beg them for candies made by wage slaves. People are ‘oversensitive’ because indigenous Americans have had to suffer colonization, biological warfare, eugenic policies, and even today many of them are suffering worse than whites because getting a good job is more difficult and many of their wildlife were killed by colonists, consequently leaving them with less food. Don’t try to relinquish your responsibility by going, ‘Oh, but what about starving African children’ or ‘Oh, but what about women in the Middle East.’ This isn’t about that, this is about you. Natives have suffered numerous damages over the centuries. The least you could do for them is try to show them some respect; nobody is asking for the moon.
Some readers might think that my European heritage automatically invalidates everything that I’m writing here, but I’ve seen whites try to justify their abuse of American outfits by claiming that they have a (tiny) percentage of American blood. I can easily flip around the tables by noting that my dad has a Mohawk ancestor. The crux of the matter is that you don’t pass as indigenous and don’t have any ties to their cultures. Nobody is going to see you walking down the street and think, ‘Oh look, it’s an Indian.’ (Which, by the way, is indisputably wrong by geographical definitions.) In the end, it doesn’t matter who wrote this message if people of colour still agree with it.
‘Well my Indian friend doesn’t mind!’ Not good enough. Even if he’s not imaginary, he could be afraid to speak up (I’ve argued with people over things like this and it can be surprisingly tiresome, which is one potential reason), have internalized white supremacy, or be so numb to white supremacy that he just doesn’t care. Plus, it’s improbable that he has any knowledge about sociology, so he’s essentially providing an uninformed opinion. (Though for the record, it is not necessary to have a sociology degree to consider something offensive.)
And I’ve seen whites try to justify this by using inane analogies, like comparing it to wearing costumes in the style of fictional characters, occupations, or quadrupeds, which only further cements their own racism if they think that an ethnicity is fictional, temporary, or somehow less human than they are.
If I wanted to, I could try to argue from an apolitical standpoint by asking you to go for something more original or whatever, but this issue is more complicated than that because it’s dealing with what is essentially a mockery of an oppressed (and suppressed) folk. So, whites, I don’t care what your imaginary American friends say or if you think that it’s ‘fair’ because of ‘reverse cultural appropriation’ (what a joke). If you are going to disrespect people like this, others are going to judge you for it and they’re not going to be nice about it. If that upsets you, it’ll only clarify who’s really being ‘oversensitive’.




My newest favorite: "I have xxx blood, so it's okay."
And I’m part Mohawk, but I guess that that doesn’t work for me since I’m going against the norm.
There's a scene in an older TV show, Emergency!, where one of the characters,Johnny, who grew up on a reservation is arguing with one of the white characters, Chet, about how the whites treated the native Americans.
Chet: I’ve got some Indian blood in me too, ya know.
Johnny: Wait a minute, don't tell me. On your grandmother's side.?
Chet: Yeah, that’s right.
Johnny: And she was an Indian Princess, Cherokee most likely.
Chet: Hey, that's right! How'd you know that?
Johnny: Oh, we call that white man royalty syndrome.
I'm kinda cringing a bit at the use of "whites", linguistically. Maybe because I don't want to see that re-normalized when referring to minority folks.
I don't think it'd be so bad if the person would just take the time to actually depict someone from history. It's not hard to find photographs or sketches from any era of American exploration and find what someone of the era would have actually worn, and what they would have actually carried on their person.
But instead, most 'Indian' costumes are going to be derived from racist caricatures.