dressing up like native americans for thanksgiving...feels icky to me

[Mergath]

Wearing blackface has always been a way to lampoon and ridicule black people. Children dressing for Thanksgiving have aways done so as a way of honoring American Indians. Not remotely similar circumstances.

 

Bill

 

Explain to me how kids cutting out a pretend "war bonnet" out of construction paper or whatever honors Native Americans. Because that's what people generally do when they dress up for Thanksgiving. 

 

I don't understand how you guys can think blackface is horrible, but dressing up as a stereotype of a Native American is somehow okay.

 

And like someone said, if your kids want to dress up as a Native American, they can pretty much just wear jeans and a t-shirt. 

 

If your kids are dressing up in some homemade version of powwow regalia, that's still not cool. Those outfits are sacred, not a costume.

 

http://www.tpt.org/powwow/regalia.html

 

"The dance outfits worn in the circle during the Powwow are called regalia or outfits. Though highly decorative, these outfits are never referred to as "costumes". The term costume denotes artificiality and wear that is donned for an event that is not a part of one's ongoing life. To the contrary, these Native American outfits are very personal and artistic expressions of the dancers' lives, feelings, interests, family and spiritual quest. Often elements of the regalia are gifts from elders or treasured people in the dancers' lives and are honorings to be worn with pride and responsibility."

[Guest]

It doesn't bother me at all. I'm good with it. Given how many natives there are up here it is actually kind of a non-issue if the content is accurate and respectful. The textbooks being skewed one way or the other (I've seen both) is a much bigger issue.

[Mergath]

I disagree. I think it is time to stop feeding "the culture of outrage." 

 

Nations are bound together by cultural myths, and Thanksgiving celebrates positive ideals. Not the least of which was the native population aiding the salvation of the colonists. 

 

It is a holiday about gratitude.

 

Bill

 

I'm really sick of people whining about "the culture of outrage" as a way to excuse being a jerk. 

 

Turning an entire ethnic group into a child's costume isn't cool, no matter which ethnic group it is. I don't know why people have trouble with that. 

[Spy Car]

Explain to me how kids cutting out a pretend "war bonnet" out of construction paper or whatever honors Native Americans. Because that's what people generally do when they dress up for Thanksgiving. 

 

I don't understand how you guys can think blackface is horrible, but dressing up as a stereotype of a Native American is somehow okay.

 

And like someone said, if your kids want to dress up as a Native American, they can pretty much just wear jeans and a t-shirt. 

 

If your kids are dressing up in some homemade version of powwow regalia, that's still not cool. Those outfits are sacred, not a costume.

 

http://www.tpt.org/powwow/regalia.html

 

"The dance outfits worn in the circle during the Powwow are called regalia or outfits. Though highly decorative, these outfits are never referred to as "costumes". The term costume denotes artificiality and wear that is donned for an event that is not a part of one's ongoing life. To the contrary, these Native American outfits are very personal and artistic expressions of the dancers' lives, feelings, interests, family and spiritual quest. Often elements of the regalia are gifts from elders or treasured people in the dancers' lives and are honorings to be worn with pride and responsibility."

 

I think it is about intent. If the Pilgrim hats or Indian outfits fashioned from paper-bags and construction paper aren't perfect in their historicity, who cares? They are kids celebrating a holiday of brotherhood, peace, and gratitude. 

 

Blll

[Mergath]

I think it is about intent. If the Pilgrim hats or Indian outfits fashioned from paper-bags and construction paper aren't perfect in their historicity, who cares? They are kids celebrating a holiday of brotherhood, peace, and gratitude. 

 

Blll

 

They don't need to turn an ethnic group into a costume to celebrate Thanksgiving. I've never once dressed dd as a NA, and yet we manage to have a wonderful Thanksgiving every year.

 

Let me ask you this, then. If a white kid wanted to go as, let's say, a black man from Detroit for Halloween, would you find it icky? No blackface, just the stereotypical clothing and mannerisms that you might assume a black man from Detroit would wear and have.  I don't know about you, but that would seriously ick me out. 

 

For those of you who would find that to be not okay, that's the same way I feel about a kid dressing up in some kind of Native American costume for a holiday.

[Mergath]

And let me bring up another point for those of you who think it's okay because you did this in school, or have kids who have done so. Did you ever stop to think about how awkward and uncomfortable it probably makes any NA kids in the class? Not kids who have some distant ancestor who was a NA, but kids who are fully NA and were raised in a specific tribal culture. Would it be okay with you if your kid came home and said, "Hey mom, we dressed up like white people in school today! I wore yoga pants and carried around a pink camo bible and a pumpkin spice latte." 

[Tanaqui]

No.  The intention behind something means everything.

 

Intent isn't magic. If you know that I am allergic to nuts, and you give me a cookie which you know has peanuts in it because you just don't think it's important, the fact that you didn't intend to send me to the hospital doesn't mean that you didn't cause harm.

 

If you are walking through a crowd with your umbrella out, and you turn quickly and thwack me in the shins, the fact that you didn't intend to bruise me doesn't mean that you didn't hurt me.

 

If you step on my foot, the fact that you didn't mean to do that doesn't mean that my toes aren't hurting.

 

If you are used to cursing and using the f-word all the time and lots of racist slurs, and I ask you to refrain from that language around my three year old because goodness knows I don't need grandma or daycare questioning my parenting, and you say "It's okay, I don't intend to harm her" and then keep on using that language around my small child, then the end result is on you, no matter what your stated intent was. (And by acting like that, after I made a reasonable request, you're showing that you don't really intend to minimize harm.)

 

Intent isn't magic.

 

I think it is about intent. If the Pilgrim hats or Indian outfits fashioned from paper-bags and construction paper aren't perfect in their historicity, who cares? They are kids celebrating a holiday of brotherhood, peace, and gratitude.

 

How much brotherhood, peace, and gratitude are they showing by doing something that is widely condemned as insulting and disrespectful?

 

If you want to celebrate brotherhood, peace, and gratitude, go sort cans at the food bank, or rake your elderly neighbor's yard, or eat a meal together.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Tanaqui

[EmseB]

And let me bring up another point for those of you who think it's okay because you did this in school, or have kids who have done so. Did you ever stop to think about how awkward and uncomfortable it probably makes any NA kids in the class? Not kids who have some distant ancestor who was a NA, but kids who are fully NA and were raised in a specific tribal culture. Would it be okay with you if your kid came home and said, "Hey mom, we dressed up like white people in school today! I wore yoga pants and carried around a pink camo bible and a pumpkin spice latte." 

 

If they were trying to make fun of white people to teach them a lesson about being basic it probably wouldn't go over well.  On the other hand, it sounds pretty hilarious, to be honest.

 

Most kids I see dressing up as NA's in elementary classes are trying to celebrate what NA's did for the early colonists.  As in, they aren't doing it to make any other point than colonists were grateful for what NA's had done in helping them survive.  Myth or not, it's not about denigrating NA's and it's not about any specific NA cultural tradition.

[Mergath]

If they were trying to make fun of white people to teach them a lesson about being basic it probably wouldn't go over well.  On the other hand, it sounds pretty hilarious, to be honest.

 

Most kids I see dressing up as NA's in elementary classes are trying to celebrate what NA's did for the early colonists.  As in, they aren't doing it to make any other point than colonists were grateful for what NA's had done in helping them survive.  Myth or not, it's not about denigrating NA's and it's not about any specific NA cultural tradition.

 

Somewhat less hilarious, I'd imagine, if your child was the only white kid in the class. And I doubt that the teacher saying it was to honor white people would make it any less embarrassing, or make your kid feel like less of a joke. 

 

We manage to learn about and honor all kinds of cultures and ethnic groups without dressing in a cheap mockery of their sacred religious clothing. I don't know why Native Americans are different.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Mergath

[Word Nerd]

How is it mocking them?

[EmseB]

Somewhat less hilarious, I'd imagine, if your child was the only white kid in the class. And I doubt that the teacher saying it was to honor white people would make it any less embarrassing, or make your kid feel like less of a joke.

 

We manage to learn about and honor all kinds of cultures and ethnic groups without dressing in a cheap mockery of their sacred religious clothing. I don't know why Native Americans are different.

Except dressing up as anyone or anything in elementary school is always going to look cheesy. I mean, I guess you could take me dressing up as an engineer in striped overalls and cap as mocking a very serious blue collar job, but that's not ever what dressing up as something in elementary school means. I remember kids in makeshift japanese outfits, african ceremonial jewelry was a project we created for social studies, people dressed up as monks or Spanish missionaries, a guy in my middle school dressed up a a pregnant nun for Halloween in 8th grade (ha ha, right?). Another boy dressed as a girl in a stone washed mini skirt and did a caricature much like you describe. It was either for cultural heritage/honoring/educational or clearly meant to be funny. Even as kids we could tell the difference. And teachers asking us to use a paper bag to make a vest weren't asking us to mock anyone. Edited November 21, 2015 by JodiSue

[Tanaqui]

How is it mocking them?

 

A quick google search brought me here.

 

But, you know, a lot of things are arbitrarily considered offensive, and we don't say "Well, you haven't given me a good enough reason!" We don't say "the n-word" or "the b-word" indiscriminately, even though we know that logically they're just an arbitrary collection of phonemes, because we ALSO know that in our culture, those words are often inappropriate and frequently hurtful. We don't say "Give this to that fat man there", even if that man really IS fat, because we know that in our culture, referring so explicitly to somebody's weight, especially if they are above average, is generally considered rude and mocking. Logically, it's a description like any other, but in our society it isn't.

 

This is much the same principle. Even if you don't really grasp, intellectually or emotionally, why this is problematic behavior, isn't it enough to know that there are people who think it is? Is this issue of "dressing up as an indian" so important to you that you need to defend it to people who find it offensive?

 

As a general rule, I think those who consider an issue unimportant should defer to those who think it is important. I just don't see playing dress-up as crucial to my celebration of Thanksgiving. Gathering with friends and family to share a communal meal? Very important! Playing a game together? Pretty important! Watching The Sound of Music (huge historical inaccuracies notwithstanding) - probably harmless. Dressing up like an Indian? I can take it or leave it... and since a significant number of people have said they find it harmful and offensive, why would I defend something that has no benefit to my community, and which other people feel hurt by?

[Mergath]

Except dressing up as anyone or anything in elementary school is always going to look cheesy. I mean, I guess you could take me dressing up as an engineer in striped overalls and cap as mocking a very serious blue collar job, but that's not ever what dressing up as something in elementary school means. I remember kids in makeshift japanese outfits, african ceremonial jewelry was a project we created for social studies, people dressed up as monks or Spanish missionaries, a guy in my middle school dressed up a a pregnant nun for Halloween in 8th grade (ha ha, right?). Another boy dressed as a girl in a sine washed mini skirt and did a caricature much like you describe. It was either for cultural heritage/honoring or clearly meant to be funny.

 

I wouldn't allow my daughter to turn any ethnic group into a costume. It's always inappropriate.

 

When kids dress up as a firefighter or a doctor or something, they're turning a profession into a costume.  When they dress up as a Native American or wear blackface, they're turning a person into a costume. That's the difference. If you're turning a person into a costume, you should probably rethink it. Just because people have done it in the past doesn't make it okay.

[Tsuga]

No. The intention behind something means everything.

 

Imagine if I said that I find it offensive that a large number of you buy Apologia books, after their rant on LDS not being Christians. You all still do it, and would think it crazy that I would find what you think is a learning opportunity for *your* kids something *I* should insert myself in.

I think disagreeing about religion is fundamentally different than genocide.

[Tsuga]

Somewhat less hilarious, I'd imagine, if your child was the only white kid in the class. And I doubt that the teacher saying it was to honor white people would make it any less embarrassing, or make your kid feel like less of a joke.

 

We manage to learn about and honor all kinds of cultures and ethnic groups without dressing in a cheap mockery of their sacred religious clothing. I don't know why Native Americans are different.

I once actually saw this happen. There was one white child in a sea of black faces. This was in a charter school in the US. I know the family. They are wonderful. Anyway, immediately two white aunts asked "Why is she the only white child!?!?" "It's not good that she's all alone."

 

But if there is one black kid or one Indian (AHEM), that's diversity.

 

So in my experience white people don't like being singled out either.

[Mergath]

How is it mocking them?

 

You can't take something as complex as an entire people- or even a single person- and turn it into a costume without caricaturizing it. Also, did you not see the part where the clothing most people copy when they dress as a Native American is their sacred religious regalia and is never worn as a costume? It would be a bit like a person making some LDS temple garments, wearing them as a costume, and then acting confused when their Mormon friends didn't understand what a big honor it was. 

[momma2three]

FWIW, I love Thanksgiving.  It's my favorite holiday.

 

And I have a soft spot for origin myths, from any culture, and particularly from my own.

 

But unless you're researching what Wampanoag Indians were wearing in the early 17th century, and doing the best you can to celebrate that, just skip the whole dressing up as a generic "Indian" to celebrate Thanksgiving. 

[EmseB]

I wouldn't allow my daughter to turn any ethnic group into a costume. It's always inappropriate.

 

When kids dress up as a firefighter or a doctor or something, they're turning a profession into a costume. When they dress up as a Native American or wear blackface, they're turning a person into a costume. That's the difference.

Well, I really disagree with this distinction and where you're drawing the line. A ceremonial garment is a costume in and of itself. It is a type of uniform used in specific traditions. Imitating that for a play designed to honor people isn't mocking. A feathered headpiece is something someone wears. It is not that person. If what you're saying is correct then any movies or plays that depict other cultures are off limits always. Maybe the difference in our opinion is that I don't think wearing one type of outfit for a specific occasion does, in fact, represent an entire ethnic group.

 

Blackface, no matter how many times you invoke it, is not the same thing as little kids putting on a paper vest and feather hat. Blackface is imitating a person in order to make fun of their physical traits. Ceremonial garb is not. Wearing or making a robe or toga or necklace or tiara to learn about a culture (i.e. Specifically not to mock it, but to learn about its place in the world) just isn't offensive. Blackface is specifically designed to make fun of how black people look. Elementary school thanksgiving programs aren't remotely the same, especially when you're teaching little kids to honor NAs for what they did for the first Europeans to teach them to survive.

 

Funny though, the differences in this thread in how many people thought it would be awesome and appropriate for someone to make a day of the dead altar, but wearing a cheesy NA costume is completely inappropriate.

Edited November 21, 2015 by JodiSue

[Word Nerd]

A quick google search brought me here.

 

But, you know, a lot of things are arbitrarily considered offensive, and we don't say "Well, you haven't given me a good enough reason!" We don't say "the n-word" or "the b-word" indiscriminately, even though we know that logically they're just an arbitrary collection of phonemes, because we ALSO know that in our culture, those words are often inappropriate and frequently hurtful. We don't say "Give this to that fat man there", even if that man really IS fat, because we know that in our culture, referring so explicitly to somebody's weight, especially if they are above average, is generally considered rude and mocking. Logically, it's a description like any other, but in our society it isn't.

 

This is much the same principle. Even if you don't really grasp, intellectually or emotionally, why this is problematic behavior, isn't it enough to know that there are people who think it is? Is this issue of "dressing up as an indian" so important to you that you need to defend it to people who find it offensive?

 

As a general rule, I think those who consider an issue unimportant should defer to those who think it is important. I just don't see playing dress-up as crucial to my celebration of Thanksgiving. Gathering with friends and family to share a communal meal? Very important! Playing a game together? Pretty important! Watching The Sound of Music (huge historical inaccuracies notwithstanding) - probably harmless. Dressing up like an Indian? I can take it or leave it... and since a significant number of people have said they find it harmful and offensive, why would I defend something that has no benefit to my community, and which other people feel hurt by?

Excuse me? Was all that directed at me personally, or the general you? I didn't defend *any* of that.

[Word Nerd]

You can't unintentionally mock someone. Little kids dressing up and performing Thanksgiving reenactments are not mocking Native Americans or Pilgrims. Mocking someone involves teasing, ridicule, or derision by definition. I am NOT saying that you can't unintentionally be offensive.

[EmseB]

You can't take something as complex as an entire people- or even a single person- and turn it into a costume without caricaturizing it. Also, did you not see the part where the clothing most people copy when they dress as a Native American is their sacred religious regalia and is never worn as a costume? It would be a bit like a person making some LDS temple garments, wearing them as a costume, and then acting confused when their Mormon friends didn't understand what a big honor it was. 

 

Dressing up in a suit to perform any type of religious stuff is, broadly defined, using a costume.  If there was a play at a school or a reenactment of something that happened with Mormons, I wouldn't think twice about people wearing something that Mormons normally wear.  I am not Mormon, but  I go to a church where the pastor wears a robe to preach.  If someone were reenacting a scene or idea of, say, a church service in order to show how the pilgrims worshipped (this is done in colonial Williamsburg, among other places), I would expect someone would dress as a reverend and I would not think twice about it nor be offended that someone is using a ceremonial garment to portray a ceremony which I participate in.  In fact, thinking of colonial Williamsburg, there is an entire town dressing up to portray a group of people.

 

Again, by this logic, you can't make movies or reenact anything without "mocking".  People who dress up as union or confederate soldiers to do reenactments aren't mocking those people.  And no one would say that the particular outfit portrays what the individual man of that time was like, or that he never wore other clothing, or that he was hell bent on killing everyone all the time.

[Tsuga]

Wearing blackface has always been a way to lampoon and ridicule black people. Children dressing for Thanksgiving have aways done so as a way of honoring American Indians. Not remotely similar circumstances.

 

Bill

 

While I agree that in every instance the children are morally blameless due to their ignorance and the fact that they could not be expected to overcome that ignorance without adult help--with all due respect, â€‹it is not honoring American Indians to pretend that they gave everything up and that there wasn't a genocide.

 

When people used to put on blackface, they didn't think they were being unkind. They thought they were honoring black "negro" culture. They were not bad people. Most of the time they had a good intent. They thought black people didn't mind and had plenty of "yes massa"s to bolster their beliefs.

 

It was still wrong.

 

 

 

 you can't make movies or reenact anything without "mocking".

 

That's not true.

 

You can't make it happy without mocking. You can't tell a lie without mocking. You cannot whitewash it (pun not intended) without mocking. But you can represent without mocking and indeed people do it all the time.

 

You can make Schindler's List. You can even make La Vita e Bella.

 

You can't make The Day the Clown Cried.

 

http://splitsider.com/2012/05/we-laugh-so-we-dont-cry-the-humor-in-holocaust-films/

 

What is offensive to me is dress-up because it treats the genocide and ongoing discrimination against people of color as if it didn't happen. Imagine a play about WWII in which Japanese Americans are portrayed as happily tidying up their homes to run off to their new homes! But it never mentions that they're running off to internment camps. They're all happy and are saying to soldiers, "Thank you for protecting us!"

 

That would be horrible.

 

That's why Pilgrims and Indians were friends plays are horrible.

 

Not because it represents Native Americans, but because it's a lie that is perpetuated to gloss over the genocide that literally allowed the colonization of the continent, and which affects the lives of those people to this very day.

[Tanaqui]

Elementary school thanksgiving programs aren't remotely the same, especially when you're teaching little kids to honor NAs for what they did for the first Europeans to teach them to survive.

 

How can you honor people by doing something that many of them say is offensive and insulting?

 

[Tanaqui]

Elementary school thanksgiving programs aren't remotely the same, especially when you're teaching little kids to honor NAs for what they did for the first Europeans to teach them to survive.

 

How can you honor people by doing something that many of them say is offensive and insulting?

 

Wearing or making a robe or toga or necklace or tiara to learn about a culture (i.e. Specifically not to mock it, but to learn about its place in the world) just isn't offensive.

 

You're not the person who gets to decide that.

 

People who dress up as union or confederate soldiers to do reenactments aren't mocking those people.

 

People who do re-enactments don't conflate the Union and the Confederacy and Mexico and Quakers and 17th century France into one costume.

 

[Farrar]

You can't unintentionally mock someone. Little kids dressing up and performing Thanksgiving reenactments are not mocking Native Americans or Pilgrims. Mocking someone involves teasing, ridicule, or derision by definition. I am NOT saying that you can't unintentionally be offensive.

 

I don't really think this distinction is real, but let's say it is. So what? People feel mocked. They are offended. Aren't we just splitting hairs over intention some more?

 

I'm really sick of the whole "I didn't mean to be racist, therefore I wasn't racist" defense.

[Katy]

Meh.  It's politically incorrect because educated liberal white people call it cultural appropriation.   I live in Oklahoma where most Native Americans I meet still call themselves Indians and I never hear this sort of complaint around here.  The only conversation I did hear about it was a complaint that taking natives out of Thanksgiving teaching disrespects them because it implies there would have been a Thanksgiving at all if they hadn't helped. The group consensus was that all of those idiots would have died.

 

Political correctness run amok. I certainly wouldn't do something if I knew it offended someone of the particular group, but offending PhD college professors doesn't bother me in the least.

 

Full disclosure: While I technically could join two tribes due to my father's ancestry, I'm about 70% white.  Also, Oklahoma is a decidedly conservative state.

[EmseB]

While I agree that in every instance the children are morally blameless due to their ignorance and the fact that they could not be expected to overcome that ignorance without adult help--with all due respect, â€‹it is not honoring American Indians to pretend that they gave everything up and that there wasn't a genocide.

 

When people used to put on blackface, they didn't think they were being unkind. They thought they were honoring black "negro" culture. They were not bad people. Most of the time they had a good intent. They thought black people didn't mind and had plenty of "yes massa"s to bolster their beliefs.

 

It was still wrong.

 

 

That's not true.

 

You can't make it happy without mocking. You can't tell a lie without mocking. You cannot whitewash it (pun not intended) without mocking. But you can represent without mocking and indeed people do it all the time.

 

You can make Schindler's List. You can even make La Vita e Bella.

 

You can't make The Day the Clown Cried.

 

http://splitsider.com/2012/05/we-laugh-so-we-dont-cry-the-humor-in-holocaust-films/

 

What is offensive to me is dress-up because it treats the genocide and ongoing discrimination against people of color as if it didn't happen. Imagine a play about WWII in which Japanese Americans are portrayed as happily tidying up their homes to run off to their new homes! But it never mentions that they're running off to internment camps. They're all happy and are saying to soldiers, "Thank you for protecting us!"

 

That would be horrible.

 

That's why Pilgrims and Indians were friends plays are horrible.

 

Not because it represents Native Americans, but because it's a lie that is perpetuated to gloss over the genocide that literally allowed the colonization of the continent, and which affects the lives of those people to this very day.

 

Oh my goodness.  We're talking about elementary school.  Elementary school.  Or PreK  Learning about being thankful.  If they are trying to teach my kindergartner about genocide I'm nope'ing him right out of that school.  Genocide and Schindler's list is way more inappropriate (at that age) than talking about a story that portrays NAs as smart and resourceful and that pilgrims were thankful to have them around.  Was this true in every case?  Absolutely not.  But in lower elementary, do you really teach your kids about genocide and the atrocities?  Almost every historical story I've ever read or seen a play on from that age is heavily sanitized, and usually for good reason.  Even my first lessons about WWII were not on the level of Schindler's list and I learned about WWII in middle school.  Does anyone think that a 6th grader dressing up as Anne Frank and doing a book report about hiding in the attic is mocking Jews or somehow downplaying the holocaust or representing all of Jewish experience during WWII?  No.  Because kids grow up and learn about the holocaust later when it is age appropriate.  We learned good guys and bad guys and the American were the good guys and we won and that was about it.  That doesn't mean they treated the subject as if the holocaust didn't happen.  Every adult in the room knew that we would be taught about it when we were more mature.  Do we think kids are so dumb that they will simply insist for the rest of their lives that the sanitized version of the colonial landings portrayed in kindy Thanksgiving plays must be the true and only aspect of what happened?

 

I can't think of one historical atrocity that is not glossed over in elementary school.

 

I have to say, though, that every single book I've read about Thanksgiving or Squanto, even children's books, talks about death and hardship, even slavery, and that pilgrims weren't overall nice to the NAs.  It is not portrayed in the gritty detail you're talking about above, because, again, kindergarten and 1st grade, elementary school.

[SKL]

There is a story worth telling there... at least, I think there is. A story about Puritans who were basically complete idiots when it came to figuring out how to survive, who settled in a new land because they themselves had been victims, who possibly even chose to settle where they knew a plague had recently killed most of the indigenous population to make it easier for them, who survived in part because of the generosity of an indigenous man who showed them kindness even when they didn't deserve it and who helped them keep the peace with the First Peoples around them and showed them how to live in this new place. And then how two traditions - a Puritan tradition of holding thanksgivings when they say thanks to God and a Native tradition of a fall harvest come together.

 

And then, as an important part of the picture, how the Puritans and other groups who followed them years later went on to wage war against the peoples who helped them survive. Basically, they betrayed whatever lessons could have come out of such a meeting and we live with those consequences today.

 

The lie is that the story is presented as a group of people who were uncomplicatedly "good" and a group of people who were "savage." The "good" people invited the "savage" people to share with them, you know, to show how "good" they were. That's the lie. And even when it's not explicitly told that way, that's usually how it's presented, which is deeply wrong.

 

Re your final paragraph, we're talking about kids around 6yo so it's going to be uncomplicated and feel-good.  I disagree that the Native Americans in that story are presented as "savage."  Even when I was a little kid, it was presented as the "Indians" being more sophisticated than the "white men" as far as how to survive in that time and place, and the "Indians" being good guys.  The fact that wars and atrocities occurred in other times and places does not negate that.  If that were the case, we could not ever speak positively about he Brits (nor they about us) because that would be a lie since we were antagonists at times.  Taking it further, we shouldn't have any positive story about any coming together of diverse people because it's all a lie.  But I do think there's value in such stories.  And there's value in telling the good stories before kids hear all the bad stuff IMO.

Edited November 21, 2015 by SKL

[EmseB]

I don't really think this distinction is real, but let's say it is. So what? People feel mocked. They are offended. Aren't we just splitting hairs over intention some more?

 

I'm really sick of the whole "I didn't mean to be racist, therefore I wasn't racist" defense.

 

I think a lot of people are really sick of being accused of being racist when there are other reasonable ways their actions could be interpreted instead of racism (which is evil) being assumed.  Assuming someone is evil regardless of their intent isn't exactly harmless.

[Tsuga]

I disagree. I think it is time to stop feeding "the culture of outrage." 

 

 

 

 

There is a culture of outrage because of things that actually happened. Actual killings of hundreds of thousands of people to clear land. Actual genocide of the Jewish people in Europe. Actual genocide of the Kurds in Turkey. Actual movement of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Actual killings of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people. Actual enslavement of millions of Africans by Europeans and colonists.

 

Why wouldn't anyone be angry about that? I guess if it's like, historical data to you, yeah, you can get over it. But that includes people in my family. Including Germans who walked all the way across Germany to escape the Russian advancing forces which then occupied East Germany for decades.

 

There are signs all over the former USSR: Nechto zabyto, nikto zabyt. Nothing is forgotten, nobody is forgotten.

 

It honors the millions of Russians who died when Germany attacked. They aren't leaving their culture of outrage.

 

This is not a brown-person hating-on-whites thing.

 

This is what human beings do when they have been harmed especially on a genetic scale, on the scale of a people.

 

This is not manufactured hurt. It is real. And you are pretending it's about feelings.

 

It's not about feelings, it's about thousands of dead Indians and not being a jerk about it.

[Farrar]

I think a lot of people are really sick of being accused of being racist when there are other reasonable ways their actions could be interpreted instead of racism (which is evil) being assumed.  Assuming someone is evil regardless of their intent isn't exactly harmless.

 

I call white fragility on this.

[Katy]

I call white fragility on this.

 

Again, a discussion led by a white man.

[EmseB]

There is a culture of outrage because of things that actually happened. Actual killings of hundreds of thousands of people to clear land. Actual genocide of the Jewish people in Europe. Actual genocide of the Kurds in Turkey. Actual movement of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Actual killings of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people. Actual enslavement of millions of Africans by Europeans and colonists.

 

Why wouldn't anyone be angry about that? I guess if it's like, historical data to you, yeah, you can get over it. But that includes people in my family. Including Germans who walked all the way across Germany to escape the Russian advancing forces which then occupied East Germany for decades.

 

There are signs all over the former USSR: Nechto zabyto, nikto zabyt. Nothing is forgotten, nobody is forgotten.

 

It honors the millions of Russians who died when Germany attacked. They aren't leaving their culture of outrage.

 

This is not a brown-person hating-on-whites thing.

 

This is what human beings do when they have been harmed especially on a genetic scale, on the scale of a people.

 

This is not manufactured hurt. It is real. And you are pretending it's about feelings.

 

It's not about feelings, it's about thousands of dead Indians and not being a jerk about it.

 

Except portraying times when, say, people happened to get along is not being a jerk when we're talking about studying historical stories in kindergarten.  I'm perfectly ok with telling my kids about how so-and-so helped someone-else as a story in kindy and then, in middle school, going more in depth with thousands of people killed.  It's not an either/or and it's not malicious to sanitize history or even make it mythical for little kids.  No one in my high school history classes was still trying to insist that it was as simple as NAs helping the white man at Thanksgiving.  But I don't want my elementary kids taking a high school history class. 

 

And if they want to wear a traditional Japanese kimono and obi to do a report on Japan, I don't think it's mocking or horrible, even though, yes, there were times in history where Americans treated the Japanese horribly (and vice versa, for the record).  Are people saying that kids would learn some sort of life long lesson from that sort of thing that all Japanese wear kimonos all the time?  That history education can never progress beyond an elementary school costume because...the kid wore a costume and learned a sanitized version of history in kindergarten?  Or, let's say they read "Farewell to Manzanar" in middle school or high school, does that mean they will never be able to understand how American POWs were treated by the Japanese in WWII?  Or about the attack on Pearl Harbor?  I think most history classes I've seen at an age where history matters are capable of exploring the nuances and horrible things that humans have done to one another without going into great detail in elementary school.

Edited November 21, 2015 by JodiSue

[Spy Car]

There is a culture of outrage because of things that actually happened. Actual killings of hundreds of thousands of people to clear land. Actual genocide of the Jewish people in Europe. Actual genocide of the Kurds in Turkey. Actual movement of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Actual killings of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people. Actual enslavement of millions of Africans by Europeans and colonists.

 

Why wouldn't anyone be angry about that? I guess if it's like, historical data to you, yeah, you can get over it. But that includes people in my family. Including Germans who walked all the way across Germany to escape the Russian advancing forces which then occupied East Germany for decades.

 

There are signs all over the former USSR: Nechto zabyto, nikto zabyt. Nothing is forgotten, nobody is forgotten.

 

It honors the millions of Russians who died when Germany attacked. They aren't leaving their culture of outrage.

 

This is not a brown-person hating-on-whites thing.

 

This is what human beings do when they have been harmed especially on a genetic scale, on the scale of a people.

 

This is not manufactured hurt. It is real. And you are pretending it's about feelings.

 

It's not about feelings, it's about thousands of dead Indians and not being a jerk about it.

 

You've certainly managed to get yourself wound up. Bad things have happened in the world. They should not be forgotten. Ever.

 

But there have been moments of hope, good-will, and thanksgiving as well. The holiday celebrates the latter. Life is unbalanced when we focus only on the horror.

 

Bill

Edited November 21, 2015 by Spy Car

[EmseB]

I call white fragility on this.

 

It's funny to me that's a thing.  Apparently created by a white person.  Thanks, but I'm hardly "imploding".  But I guess it is a good emotional argument to make?  Like I can't deny it, right?  And if I do, then I have a bad case of white fragility.  :laugh:

[Tsuga]

Re your final paragraph, we're talking about kids around 6yo so it's going to be uncomplicated and feel-good. 

 

Suppose the Jews never got Israel.

 

Can you imagine telling a feel-good story about the holocaust that ended in the Jews living on reservations around Europe, the worst land, with the least water? "Then the Jews decided to give their bakeries and shops to the Germans because life was so hard under the Weimar republic! Wasn't it nice of them to share?"

 

I don't choose the holocaust as an example lightly. The numbers killed were similar though over a much longer period of time, and of course in the holocaust we count deaths in internment camps from disease as killings whereas deaths from displacement and disease during the American Indian wars are not counted as such by many.

 

If you must have a feel-good Thankgiving--and by the way, this is what my family does--you can always leave the Indians out of it. We talk about how people had escaped religious and political persecution and were thankful for surviving the winter. We talk about how even today people are moving around the world and unsafe and how fortunate we are to be in our nice cozy home with family.

 

Seriously, it does not diminish in any way that part of the history by not pretending the Indians were active, happy participants. Just leave it out.

 

When they are older I will tell them about how their father's grandparents were forced off their land by the USSR and moved on to a reservation in the middle of a desert, just like some of our ancestors were by the US, and how we survived by adapting to the language, the ways of the land, by pretending to be something else. Always pretending. And how now that things are better they must be thankful for that sacrifice of identity made by their great grandparents, and remember what they suffered and where they actually came from. They are 75% from tribes that have UNESCO protected languages, minorities among minorities. But for now, isn't it nice that we are here now. We made it.

[SKL]

 Would it be okay with you if your kid came home and said, "Hey mom, we dressed up like white people in school today! I wore yoga pants and carried around a pink camo bible and a pumpkin spice latte." 

 

Yes, and I would laugh my hiney off.

 

[Katy]

Serious question:  for those that are horribly offended by this, what percentage of your ancestry is native american?

[Katy]

Perhaps this should be a spin-off topic, but what's the emotional payoff for people who pick up offenses on behalf of groups who aren't offended?

 

Is it just a feeling of superiority?

[Tanaqui]

Learning about being thankful.

 

How does dressing up in costumes teach preschoolers to be thankful?

 

Almost every historical story I've ever read or seen a play on from that age is heavily sanitized, and usually for good reason.

 

Then perhaps we shouldn't teach history at that age, rather than teaching them things that are false.

 

Do we think kids are so dumb that they will simply insist for the rest of their lives that the sanitized version of the colonial landings portrayed in kindy Thanksgiving plays must be the true and only aspect of what happened?

 

I think that I frequently have had full-grown adults argue with me on precisely that point. You can interpret that fact as you wish, but really, I think the evidence speaks for itself.

 

I think a lot of people are really sick of being accused of being racist when there are other reasonable ways their actions could be interpreted instead of racism (which is evil) being assumed.  Assuming someone is evil regardless of their intent isn't exactly harmless.

 

Nobody here is saying that people who have their kids dress up are "evil". Nor is anybody claiming that the only reason you'd do this is because you are a self-aware racial bigot. And to be honest, I'm generally reluctant to call any human being "evil*". Actions can be harmful, neutral, or beneficial. Motives can be moral, amoral, or immoral, although interestingly most people will interpret their own motives through a moral lens. People are mostly complex. Words like "evil" are generally not very helpful.

 

* I reserve the right to use this term as hyperbole, or to refer to institutions that are overwhelmingly bad for society or individuals, on a case-by-case basis.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Tanaqui

[ktgrok]

Perhaps this should be a spin-off topic, but what's the emotional payoff for people who pick up offenses on behalf of groups who aren't offended?

 

Is it just a feeling of superiority?

 

Huh? I'm the OP. I said it make me feel icky. I don't think icky is another word for superiority. I just worry that by doing the traditional headress /top hat thing we are first turning Native Americans and the English Settlers into caricatures, and second we may be offending people that have been wronged enough. I try not to offend people when I can avoid it. Not because it makes me feel better than you, but because that was how I was raised to be. 

Edited November 21, 2015 by ktgrok

[marbel]

Suppose the Jews never got Israel.

 

Can you imagine telling a feel-good story about the holocaust that ended in the Jews living on reservations around Europe, the worst land, with the least water? "Then the Jews decided to give their bakeries and shops to the Germans because life was so hard under the Weimar republic! Wasn't it nice of them to share?"

 

<snip>

 

No one is suggesting that.  But we are talking about very young children.  There is no reason to talk about genocide but every reason to talk about Native Americans because they were there.  They were and are important to the story.  Kids simply don't need the whole story at age 6.  Come on. 

[Tanaqui]

Perhaps this should be a spin-off topic, but what's the emotional payoff for people who pick up offenses on behalf of groups who aren't offended?

 

Is it just a feeling of superiority?

 

Wow, passive-aggressive much?

 

No one is suggesting that.  But we are talking about very young children.  There is no reason to talk about genocide but every reason to talk about Native Americans because they were there.  They were and are important to the story.  Kids simply don't need the whole story at age 6.  Come on.

 

But does that mean we should simply fabricate a new, prettified story out of whole cloth? Why not tell them about cherry trees and honesty at the same time?

[SKL]

As the parent of kids with a very different and colorful culture of origin, I can say that my kids and I (on their behalf) and many of their countrymen feel glad when others experiment with the dress and symbols of their birth culture.  The fact that those from other backgrounds are ignorant of what they're talking about is not something to hold against them.  It is nice that they are curious and open-minded and therefore unlikely to remain completely ignorant as they mature.

 

I participate in many multicultural themed activities, as I live in a multicultural city and a multicultural household.  People from other cultures are far more likely to be pleased that others are interested in their culture than to be offended that their interest is expressed clumsily because they are still learning.  Nobody is born knowing everything about every culture, so it's kind of silly to be offended by that.

 

The Native American part of the Thanksgiving story is an introduction that will lead many kids to be interested in learning more about Native Americans.  Kids are naturally open-minded and, in our culture today, have no reason to come at this study with a negative attitude toward Native Americans.  (That was not always the case of course.)

Edited November 21, 2015 by SKL

[Tsuga]

Serious question:  for those that are horribly offended by this, what percentage of your ancestry is native american?

 

First, I don't appreciate the "horribly offended". I'm not offended as the result of an insult. I think it's morally wrong. I am mildly bemused, in terms of emotion, but I think it's just plain wrong to make fun of people.

 

Also, according to 23 and me, testing of my parents (both), between 35% (low end) and 50% though that would be extremely high. However, that is the side--because they're white--that we have an actual name with a tribal enrollment. On the southwestern side my father is more than half but it doesn't "count" because the Cherokees had to walk to Oklahoma to be enrolled way back when.

 

As for my kids, as I have said, their father is 100% protected minority in his country of origin, and they continue to be persecuted and denied political rights (and yes, protected, because protected is under the law but persecution is the reality).

 

I think I identify more as Indian because I look it. People used to come up to me on the street. I look like this girl:

 

http://lastrealindians.tumblr.com/post/32714232466/isleta-pueblo-girl-circa-1890

 

My daughter looks like that too.

 

On the other side it's Cherokee or Apache. They don't know. They are mestizo. They look Apache.

 

I didn't used to be angry.

 

But then I saw how things were happening the world over because I worked there. Everyone getting moved around, people actively being hurt and displaced. It just killed me. I don't think it's historical any more. The Muslims displaced from India. And on and on and on. And I HATE it.

 

I'm not offended at the language. I'm angry about the acts. About the language, the plays, it's so common as to be mundane. 

 

 

 

But we are talking about very young children.  There is no reason to talk about genocide but every reason to talk about Native Americans because they were there.  They were and are important to the story.

 

Sure, you can't just lie about it. If you want to tell the story, tell the truth. You may leave out the worst parts and how much to leave out is up to you but lying about the sharing, about dressing up to represent the genocide, is just mocking.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Tsuga

[Word Nerd]

I don't really think this distinction is real, but let's say it is. So what? People feel mocked. They are offended. Aren't we just splitting hairs over intention some more?

 

I'm really sick of the whole "I didn't mean to be racist, therefore I wasn't racist" defense.

I'm really sick of the whole "I'm going to totally take down this argument no one made" going on in this thread.

[Katy]

Not passive aggressive.  Cultural appropriation is an academic idea, not a personal one.  It typically angers those who are not part of the "targeted" groups in any way, for academic and political agendas.

 

Simply not wanting to offend people is a wonderful approach to life.  Passionately assuming costumes are evil appropriation equivalent to reminding the conquered they are victims of near-genocide is a completely different thing, especially when started by someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with the offended group.

[SKL]

Wow, passive-aggressive much?

 

 

But does that mean we should simply fabricate a new, prettified story out of whole cloth? Why not tell them about cherry trees and honesty at the same time?

 

Nobody is "fabricating a new story."  Just how "new" is this story that has been taught in schools for generations?

 

If you don't want to teach it to your kids, that's fine, but I don't understand the outrage over the fact that this is done by other people's very young kids in schools.  If they were being taught reasons to hate and harm Native Americans, that would be a different story.

 

[jetzmama]

Wow!  Never thought of any of this before.  Mine are too old for dress up, regardless, but I really love the idea of researching a specific NA (ie Squanto, Sacajawea, etc.) or a specific tribe and learning more about those identities.   As far as pre-schoolers dressing up in 'general' terms, so what? They are pre-schoolers. If wearing a mock deerskin vest (out of a paper bag) and a symbolic feather headband (because few preschoolers are able to create the intricate feather headdress still seen at pow-wows) helps them to better understand that, yes, there were Native Americans here during the early years of our country, then a baseline of learning has been established. Ideally, this could be representative of a character in a children's story, but if not, awareness of another people group is still being established. As the years progress, they can learn about the Cherokee, Shawnee, Lakota/Sioux, etc. and the customs of those unique tribes, both past and present. 

[Guest]

Perhaps this should be a spin-off topic, but what's the emotional payoff for people who pick up offenses on behalf of groups who aren't offended?

 

Is it just a feeling of superiority?

Don't knock it, whole degrees and professions exist just for this purpose.

 

:rofl: