(I know you just want to look as cool as this guy. He’s SO COOL. ::eyeroll::)
Hey. It’s me again. It’s that time of year. You might be like, “Hey! What should I wear for Halloween this year?!?!” and some of you might be like, “OMG, I’ll be an INDIAN.”
No.
Don’t know why? I’ve got 8 posts about why. Detailing every angle and possibility of why you might think it’s ok. It’s not. Feel free to peruse/browse/read/repost, and hopefully learn!
2013:
- The one stop for all your “Indian costumes are racist” needs!: Revisits a 2012 post that showed the racist descriptions of the Indian costumes on the Spirit website, as well as talks about Tonto costumes, and links to many of these posts below. Yay.
- So your friend dressed up as an Indian, now what? : A play-by-play description of how I approach folks dressed as Indians, includes references to pumpkin cookies and a nice long ranty-rant at the end once the angry comments got to me.
- Open Letter to the Pocahotties: Annotated version: Every year the original letter (see 2011) gets reposted, so I felt the need to deconstruct why people get so up in arms about this post in particular. I did a rhetorical analysis on myself, because nerd.
2012:
- So You Wanna be an Indian for Halloween?: I took the liberty of doctoring up the Spirit Halloween Store description of “Indian” costumes (see below)
2011:
- Open Letter to the Pocahotties and Indian Warriors on Halloween: Always a classic. Great way to receive hate comments on your FB, if you’re interested.
- Halloween Costume Shopping: A Sampling of the Racism for Sale: Written in response to the Pocahottie letter. I went to the actual source to show how in-your-face the racism is.
- We are not a Costume: Early form of #positiverepresentations on the blog. Letting Native folks push back agains the negative representations
2010:
- Paris Hilton as a “Sexy Indian”: The halloween fallout begins: Before I felt comfortable laying it all out, but links to lots of other halloween resources that are still relevant!
TL;DR: Native peoples are a contemporary, LIVING group of people, not a costume. Seriously. Stop putting us in the same category as wizards and clowns. Don’t believe me? come to a Native event dressed like that, and see how many friends you make! Fun for everyone!
Comments
then dont go as s Viking, a German an Irish person a dutch girl….get it grow up honey you can go as a douche bagit aint no thang
Being a Viking, German, or Irish is not the same thing as being a Native American, so shut the f*ck up, idiot.
Being a Viking, German, Irish, or Dutch is not the same thing as being a Native American. Study some history and shut the f*ck up, “honey”.
There is a cultural significance to the war bonnet that does not exist for the kilt or “Dutch” attire. There is also no history of cultural erasure and subjugation of those cultures by the white majority as there is to the Native American. No laws banned us white guys from practicing our cultural heritage. We also don’t place any cultural or spiritual limitations on those articles. You can choose not to respect the cultural beliefs of a culture that’s not your own, but if you don’t claim that you’re not being racist, xenophobic, and disrespectful
Dr. K.,
I’ve been trying to figure out how to contact you more privately to share an article I wrote in which I linked to your blog, and to thank you for giving me reason to spend a year thinking about costuming and identity and what it might mean to be an advocate or an ally. Or, at least, to try. Here is what I wrote: http://tcjewfolk.com/halloween-time-reflection/. It is far from perfect, but it’s a start. I’m open to constructive reflections and comments and criticism, of course. I’m also starting to think about a Thanksgiving article based on an experience a Jewish colleague of mine had last year when her 5 year old was invited to come to school dressed either as a “Pilgrim” or an “Indian” for a Thanksgiving event. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t sure what to do about it. I want to give people the motivation to do something and some ideas about what to do.
I haven’t figured out how to contact you privately, but with Halloween at the end of the week I want to be sure to say thank you before it gets here.