Part of what is going on here is the romanticization of Native Americans as courageous, noble, but ultimately tragic figures of the past. Modern Native Americans, those living now and wearing blue-jeans and t-shirts and perhaps eating Wonder Bread as often as homemade fry bread, just aren’t interesting. They don’t fit into our romanticized narrative. They aren’t authentic. Authentic American Indians were culturally distinct…and disappeared about the time Geronimo became a member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. And that makes the cultural appropriation acceptable, because it’s referring to people in the past. Creating a “Plains outfit” with burlap and a stapler is no more problematic than using a sheet to create a Roman toga.
American Indians are not an ethnic group. We are not a minority culture, and we are not “people of color.” WE ARE SOVEREIGN NATIONS.
We protect the last surviving sliver of what was, and may never be again. It is heaven and we want to share it with you.
For your consideration, some photos that the Blackfeet themselves have offered to represent their nation.
some questions about portraiture and cultural appropriation
As I’ve been finding all this great vintage illustration and photography, I’ve really wanted to find depictions of Native people. I’m interested in the tension between interest in Native cultures— culture itself being profoundly and uniquely human— and the lack of interest in the individual humans who make, practice, and reproduce it. Tonight I found a photo through the Library of Congress of a Piegan man in what is presented as traditional dress. It seems typical to me that this photo is titled for the cultural artifacts this man is holding and wearing; it’s evidently a picture of those artifacts and their contextual use, and not a portrait of a man.
I wonder: is it possible to view or think about this photo as a portrait of a man anyway? I don’t know enough about individual Native American nations to evaluate whether the elements in this photograph make sense together, what they might have meant to this man, whether they are even real or an exaggeration for this photographer. It’s like trying to view a portrait of a white Canadian man in 2010 and not knowing whether he is wearing a suit or a Halloween costume. Without the basic tools to evaluate what his clothing and surroundings and the experience of being photographed in them may have meant to him, it’s impossible to move through to exhibit to the man. It’s why I haven’t posted the photo here: I don’t want to continue the photograph’s work of diminishing this man to a mannequin for the garments of my colonial interest. I don’t want to write on him.
This is hard because, no matter how inaccessible to me, there is a man in this photograph whose subjective experiences— or even existence— may be otherwise unrecorded (they are also, I have to admit, of interest to me personally). So do we just leave the whole portrait alone in the archives? I guess the answer is that, given my personal limitations, I do.
The lives of Japanese Americans were devastated — not only were their economic lives destroyed, their emotional security was shattered, but their cultural traditions were severely damaged as well. That is, their tradition of self-reliance was replaced by being forced to rely on the government for their most basic needs. In addition, the authority of Japanese parents gradually declined as their children increasingly spent more time with their friends in the camps.
As one side note, most of these prison camps were placed on Native American reservations, for which the Native Americans were never compensated, nor consulted. The Native Americans consoled themselves that they might at least get to keep any improvements that were made to their land, but at the end of the war, all the buildings and gardens that were constructed were bulldozed or sold by the government instead.
staff:
Now testing: Direct video uploads
Over the next few hours, we’ll be rolling out crazy simple native video uploading to all accounts. This is designed to be an easy alternative to full-blown video sites when all you want to do is post a quick video to your blog.
Just a few notes:
- You can upload up to 5 minutes of video every day. You can break this up across as many videos as you damn well please.
- Tumblr will immediately post most H.264-MP4-AAC videos without transcoding! That means no waiting and no quality loss. Photo Booth videos and iMovie’s “Export to iPod/iPhone” work great.
- If you’re looking to post longer videos, customize your player, or host HD videos, you’ll be much better off with a feature-rich video tool such as Vimeo.
Enjoy!
Reblogged for the delicious irony.
