Elsewhere... 05/10/2010

[urocyon]

I got a couple of post up, having been pretty busy writing while the distraction of the ADSL was down yesterday. *g*

Wannabeness

Playing dress-up

Comments

[sanguinity]

From the Wannabeness post,

:: yeah, that’s really what the average Wannabe does. ::

I'm having trouble following the antecedents right through there, I'm sorry. What is it that the average Wannabe does?

[urocyon]

Sorry about that. I've added some clarification now: "going to some trouble to learn about the more sickening bits of North American history".

[sanguinity]

Ah, so you're using "Wannabe" in a defiant/reclaimed sense? To describe white-assimilated but Native-identified people who are trying to reclaim/relearn their histories, as opposed to those who Rayna Green referred to as "The Tribe Called Wannabee"?

Or are you doing something else, and I'm just having a failure of reading comprehension?

[urocyon]

I am not so much reclaiming the word as trying to clarify the apparently easily blurred distinction there, and point out that the blurring can be very convenient for dismissing people who are not members of the "The Tribe Called Wannabee". I am tempted to tack this on, as well. :)

It's more likely that I was having a failure of writing clarity.

[sanguinity]

You were being sarcastic!

...can I blame my slowness on my cold? Please?

[urocyon]

Well, I was trying to, but this doesn't always work out as planned. *wry smile* I was blaming it on my brain being half-fried today.

[ivy]

Heh, relatedly, I'm going to Cherokee this weekend and I'll be working EMS there for my clinicals. So, if there's anything local that you would like for me to pick up for you at the shops (particular books?), let me know and I'll keep an eye out for you while I'm there.

[urocyon]

Thanks for the offer. :) I haven't been there since I was a kid, but at least judging by this video (from 5:30), they've got even more tacky tourist stuff going now--and it was pretty impressive then! At least there are a lot of good artists who are able to make a living out of it these days, besides the people running shops. Especially the more contrived, plastic tomahawk end of the cultural tourism is kinda depressing, though.

Enjoy the sorta-break!

[feliscorvus]

Heh, I read both of those posts this AM (and a bunch of links from them). Then I went to the local seasonal Halloween store (because I wanted a few small decorative thingies and just because I love Halloween and costumes, etc.). And they had this whole display labeled "Native American", which of course was filled with packaged polyester "Indian Princess" outfits and the like. :/ (And while I know it's not always evident at first glance what someone's ancestry is, I'd be willing to bet a tidy sum that the models on the packages were white).

So, yeah, that was definitely kind of an "ugh" moment. On one level I was kind of vaguely surprised to see that display...it seemed really anachronistic somehow. Like we ought to be past that ridiculous level of appropriation by now. But then again, seeing as I really don't get out much, I get the sense that the people I surround myself with online by choice are probably just much less likely to see a display like that and take it like it's okay.

[urocyon]

Yeah, it's frustrating the way this is usually seen as similar to dressing up like a Roman soldier, or a Viking--or indeed a Puritan in a funny hat or a Hollywood cowboy. There's assumed to be nobody around anymore to object, besides the hoary old right of conquest angle. I get irritated at the "gypsy" costumes which are still considered OK, too, for similar reasons. (Like the Roma aren't continuing to have enough problems.) If I were, say, Ingvar, I might get irritated at the Viking thing too, though it's not really used in the same way.

Then there's the really freaking hideous Highlander mascot for the university in the town where I grew up, supposedly "in honor of the region's Scots-Irish heritage". Yeah, this Mullins-McCraw feels really, really honored. Especially with the amount of overt hillbilly-sneering and discrimination coming out of the university. (At least WVU shows some in-group humor with their Mountaineer.) One horribly apt description of it looking like "Chuck Norris dressed up as Braveheart" struck me as amusing in an unintentionally representative way, since Chuck Norris is Cherokee/Irish from Oklahoma. *shakes head*

Oh yeah, that was even more annoying because for at least 15 years, they switched over to a Muppet-looking thing called Rowdy Red. (I just noticed the tartan cap, which I didn't remember.) But, for some reason, they switched back to the Highlander caricature in 1995. WTG!

Sorry for the further ranting. :) I just thought of the yucky mascot.

In general, I'm thinking that if you're tempted to use any ethnic group as inspiration for a costume or mascot, you just shouldn't. That's a pretty skeezy idea in the first place.

But then again, seeing as I really don't get out much, I get the sense that the people I surround myself with online by choice are probably just much less likely to see a display like that and take it like it's okay.

*nods* I get amazed sometimes for similar reasons. Things don't seem so bad, then I venture into the outside world. ;)

[urocyon]

Sorry for all the edit notifications clogging up your inbox, BTW! I'm still pretty shaken up by witnessing the animal abuse earlier, and am having some trouble writing.

And in another feat of radial thinking, here's a Romani tie-in I remembered reading years ago somewhere, in the "really shouldn't be appropriating given the history there" files: The Mysterious Black Dutch, including "locals kept mixing them up with natives because of
their dark skin and habit of wearing feathers in their hair".