halloween 2010: i am not your halloween costume

feminist hulk's costume sounds pretty awesome.

i'm sick in bed, catching up some reading, in books and online. i've been fighting a cold for about a week now, but decided to get dressed up for halloween simply because i knew i would have regretted it had i stayed in bed. i'll share more pictures of my other costume plus some more ones i took of being the shining twins, but in the meantime i wanted to talk a bit about halloween some more.

i went out to two or three parties over the course of the weekend, and yes, of course, i encountered some truly problematic costumes. i counted a good four white girls in bastardized headdresses and warpaint, and had to share the same space as a stranger dressed as a blackface. to top it off, a party i attended awarded a man wearing a turban as "best costume," and was yelling obnoxiously about being a terrorist the entire time i was there. i felt uncomfortable the entire time, but was too sick and tired to engage with him. so, i left.

and that's what most of us do, i think. we leave. if we feel up to it, we try to challenge these people and at the very least ask them why they chose their costume. if they even notice that they are engaging in race-drag, blackface, etc.

I am a human being.

I am not your Halloween costume.

I am not your party theme.

I am not your mascot.

I am not your costume.

this has been making the rounds on tumblr, originally posted by kkeilhauer. i wish there was more information out there about the context, the people in the photo, where it was taken, etc. but the message behind it is pretty simple and great: other people's cultures are not fair game for halloween costumes, theme parties, etc. the dehumanizing effect these kinds of actions have on actual human beings is something we all too often lose sight of.

sheresists is a really intelligent and amazing activist based in guelph, and she shared her thoughts on racist costumes. on the note of halloween costumes, she argues that these costumes can be worse than culturally appropriative acts.

You’re not just taking one thing (for example, a war bonnet) from another culture, you’re trying to mimic an entire group’s racial identity when you ‘dress up’ as them. These costumes are often borrowed from pre-set stereotypes about what another culture “looks like,” how they dress, and how they act. What people fail to understand is that these stereotypes are not benign. They have real, material effects on people's lives and their ability to move throughout the world. They both reinforce and are embedded in relationships and histories of power.

...When you put on a racist costume (especially sexy ‘ethnic’ costumes like the sexy Asian girl costume), you’re speaking back to histories of colonization and exploitation and you’re reinforcing the ideologies that legitimize violent institutions that abuse and sexually exploit women of colour (though, racist costumes speak to a history of colonizing and othering people of colour in general). Whatever your intentions, by sexualizing a different ethnic group, you are saying that it’s okay to fetishize certain groups of people and you’re reaffirming that they are, in fact sexualized and consumable beings. You may think it’s fun, funny, or even ironic, but you probably haven’t experienced the effects of these stereotypes.

she goes on to describe her experiences with these stereotypes, and it's difficult (but important) to read. unfortunately it's not the first time i've heard stories like hers... and i love that she challenges these actions, wants to move forward, and foster change.

now, i thought long and hard before sharing these thoughts and links. did i really want to hold a magnifying glass to racist halloween costumes? is it even worth my time, or my readers time for that matter, to point out that paris hilton - privilege personified - is wearing a racist costume? and i'm not alone in feeling this way. this year, angry asian man asked his readers to share good costumes, instead of railing about the terrible ones:

every year, I write about all the obnoxious, awful racist Asian-themed costumes that are out there. I'm tired of that. I'd like to write about some of the cool ones.

i'm going to take a page from his book. to end on a happy note, i want to share some costumes that made me smile really big. share your favourites in the comments, too!

seriously baby yoda, you are KILLING me!


janelle monae

Natalie as an Inappropriate Unicorn and her friend Heather as Rosie Ritcher from Scott Pilgrim


Pixel Girl wins points for massive creativity and amazing execution


bra-burning second wavers! radical lesbian separatists

ingrid, a friend of a friend of mine, had the most amazing ursula costume!

so, what did you get dressed up as this year for halloween? what are the best costumes you've seen, in person and online? share links in the comments!

LINKS:
One Woman's Costume is another woman's nightmare by Whitney Teal at Change.org
My thoughts on racist costumes by sheresists
The Halloween fallout begins by Native Appropriations
Offensive or Awesome Halloween costumes? at I Am KoreAm
Why you (or your dog) shouldn't dress up as Antoine Dodson for Halloween at Shameless
Great costumes from angry asian man readers

cultural appropriation: still refusing to see the truth

[a polaroid of a person outdoors, with long brown hair wearing a colourful native american inspired "war bonnet" and bright red lipstick. they are covering their eyes with the back of their hands and is expressionless. the text underneath the polaroid reads "Until mainstream society takes Natives seriously, it won't take Native issues seriously. Carticatures, mascots, costumes and cartoons don't need running water, after all." Sheena Rotman (The Signal)]
a page from kate burch's zine, head dress

in the year since i started this blog, the issue that has generated the most debate and discussion had easily been the critical fashion lover's guide to cultural appropriation. now that halloween is just around the corner, seeing images of white women in hypersexualized racist "indian princess" costumes is sadly serving as a reminder that this is issue will not go away without a fight. but we can keep the conversations going. sadly, today i feel disappointed, disenchanted, exhausted. it sucks that we still have to keep defending the very basics of why we think people should be thinking about cultural appropriation in the first place. here i go again.

[cartoon: in the first panel, a girl sits in a judge's stall with a gavel. a cat wearing glasses is dressed as a mariachi holding a bag that reads "taco taco." the judge rules "cultural appropriation." this continues with many foods, pizza, "hot stuff," "der very wurst," and a 3 potato salad. the last three panels are as follows: the judge watches patiently as cat sighs and reaches into a mcdonald's bag. in the next panel, the judge is eating fries and cat is eating a burger. the judge says, "it's so sad that the whole world eats mcdonalds." ]

my first reminder that the spirit of cultural appropriation is alive and well was when i was looking for a laugh: this week, i was disappointed with the latest cat & girl comic. i used to really enjoy their sardonic sense of humour, but this... it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. it almost seems to propogate this attitude of "you can't win" if you think critically about cultural appropriation. at the same time, i think i could understand why it would be funny to some people (perhaps it is a jab at the imposed dominance of american fast food culture on a global scale?).

but in the end, the imagery of the judge ruling wether or not a food item can be considered cultural appropriation only serves to remind me that it is really annoying/emotionally exhausting to constantly have to be on the defensive. to constantly have to explain the reasons why cultural appropriation, whether it be happening in a mall food court or on a fashion runaway, is potentially problematic and needs to be challenged. a common reaction when the subject comes up is "who made you the judge of everyone?" sigh. contrary to what many naysayers may believe, no, i don't sit in front of my computer actively searching for white girls wearing headdresses to argue with and judge.

created by elusis

rather, it's that images of models, of clothing catalogues, and of white girls in headdresses at concerts that attack and offend us: those of us who feel like these conversations are important to be having, that we have to ask these questions. i am fed up with it. fed up with seeing "Othered" cultures reduced to shitty stereotypes for uncritical (mostly) white people to buy into, as a product, and then to attack me when i ask them to think about what they are wearing, when i ask them why they choose to wear what they wear. is that such an offensive question? is it really us who are so hypersensitive and who take things "too seriously," or is it you who just wants to refuse to think for two seconds?

which leads me to katrina richardson's amazing article, Accosted by racist costumes. in it, she writes frankly and honestly about getting upset at an art festival after not only seeing two girls wearing headdresses, but walking into an art gallery called "The Eskimo Sisters." unsurprisingly, the gallery is not in fact run by Inuit women, or have any attachment or relevance to Inuit culture whatsoever (which is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Eskimo, which for the record has been frowned upon by Inuit communities and was largely removed from popular nomenclature in Canada and Greenland since the 1970s but is still used in Alaska). rather, according to their facebook page,

Eskimo Sisters is a new space in Providence for music, art, delicious treats, sparklers, general silliness, general seriousness, kittens, puppies, and magical unicorns.

oh, and i suppose the magical northern "Eskimo" people fall right into that category, too! what a perfect name! /bitchy sarcasm. to top it off, the term "Eskimo Sisters" supposedly refers to two women who have slept with the same man. we all know how much we love our racial naivety with a side order of hypersexualization, don't we?

richardson ends up confronting the two girls wearing a headdress, and asking them why they are wearing them. her article is definitely worth taking the time to read it in its entireity, but here are two important quotes:

I understood why the headdresses seemed like an attractive accessory. People want something closer to the ethereal and the spiritual. To look ethnic and feel closer to nature. But is their whim to play earthy mystic for a night greater than mine to enjoy an evening without feeling accosted by racist costume?

she concludes her powerful article with this statement:

I may grow wiser and regret my actions, but even if those women do remain clueless and forget everything I said, I at least made them uncomfortable for five minutes of their night, and right now, that's worth it, to me.

for her sake, mine, and other people who have been taking up this fight, i hope she is right. her experience reminds me of a lot of my own, of my internalized racism as a mixed race french-canadian/abenaki kid growing up. of playing cowboys and indians and always being relegated to the role of the "indian." of my own family's erasure and active denial of our native roots.

image courtesy of native appropriations

mainly, it reminds me last night. i went to see xiu xiu, a free concert organized by the city's university radio station CHYZ 94,3 and i was sadly reminded why i have stopped going to live shows. the entire night, i was distracted by this blonde girl wearing a headband with a few feathers sticking out, and blue paint smeared underneath her cheeks. all her friends had the same paint across their face, and at different points they were passing around the "native" headband.

it reminds me of last halloween, when i spent a half an hour in the bathroom calming myself down after a teenage girl i'd met a few times through mutual friends jumped up on stage to dance with we are wolves dressed as an "indian princess."

it reminds me of all of these times i end up feeling like shit, and have to convince myself that this is just me overreacting. all of these times i overthink the entire situation, wondering what i should do, what i could say, to simply encourage people to maybe think twice before they leave the house dressed up as an outdated racist stereotype.

so i'm trying to think of productive ways we can confront these issues, have these conversations with strangers, without emotionally exhausting ourselves or decreeing ourselves the Official Judge and Jury of all things Cultural Appropriating. here's my first idea.

this week, i got a lovely gift in the mail from kate burch: a zine called Head Dress. earlier this summer, kate asked me if she could quote me in it and i was very curious to see how it would turn out. now that i have a copy to myself, i'm really happy to have been a small part of what is a very informative yet simple to-the-point zine. when i asked her where i could suggest my readers buy it, she simply said that she wanted it to be more of a "public service announcement" than making money. so! print out a bunch of your own copies and drop them off where you think they might be most thought-provoking. a few ideas:

• thrift stores where you regularly see "hipsters"
• coffee shops in urban areas
• music venues/festivals where you have seen aforementioned cultural appropriating hipsters
  
• offending stores that sell clothes labelled "tribal" or "native" or "cherokee" (urban outfitters, forever21, bluefly, etc)

an urban outfitters totem pole jewelry stand. i shit you not.

• hell, you could even mail copies to offending designers if you wanted! at fashion design schools.

suggest more places in the comments!

as for distribution, i've got québec city covered (going to translate it this weekend), and kate dropped a bunch around nyc, so readers everywhere else! arm your photocopiers! spread the word. it's nice to think these conversations can leave the blogosphere and can perhaps influence critical thinking. where do you guys live? can someone promise to cover kensington market in toronto? mile end in montreal? bushwick in brooklyn? portland?

so that's what's on my mind lately... i'll leave you with an few excerpts from the most recent post at my culture is not a trend in response to hate mail they've been receiving.

Stop being angry about the distant past. The people who colonized you are dead. Get over it.

Okay, I’ll play your game.

Lets pretend, and put aside the past, the genocide, the theft of land, peoples and language - all things deemed to have happened “long ago.” I’m not going to address these at all.

So here we are- modern day, new slate.

The act of cultural drag is still a problem. This is because systematic racism of Native American people still exists, and is overwhelmingly aggressive. We are still encountering it every day of our lives - in textbooks, at school, going shopping, using government facilities, interacting with the police, with health care systems, with our religious freedom, with the colour of our skin - we are met with derision and antagonism for our mere existence. With words used to keep us in our place. This is not ancient history, it is the every-day existence of a people who are still alive.

...When you choose to dress up like one of us, you erase us. You transform a group of doctors, writers, trades people, teenagers, mothers, fathers, singers — individuals, into one absurd caricature unworthy of respect, identity - autonomy.

...If our countries start to think of us as human beings, then our deeper issues may one day come to resolution as well. Just because my mission seems trivial - what impact could fashion possibly have?- doesn’t mean I’m not actively fighting the system that imposed the ideologies in the first place.

LINKS:

Kate Burch's tumblr

Download at zine library here.

Accosted by racist costumes: Expressing displeasure with something no one else has a problem with means revealing yourself as "the other" by Katrina Richardson

"Eskimo Sisters" in Indian headdresses by Newspaper Rock: Where Native America meets pop culture

Eskimo on Wikipedia

Ohnotheydidn't's feminist livejournal community is currently having a discussion aboutcultural appropriation.

my culture is not a trend

OFFENSIVE HALLOWEEN SHIT I RECOMMEND NOT LOOKING AT:

Adult Indian Squaw Wig with Braids

Love Letters and Cultural Appropriation: Gala Darling

i'm very excited to present my first guest contributor, and long-time super awesome friend, iris . she's currently completing her masters in philosophy. her research focusses on connecting disability theory to feminist philosophical frameworks. in her free time, she volunteers at Out on the Shelf, OOTS, a queer bookstore in Guelph, Ontario, drinks lots of tea, and longs for folks to have dance parties with.
Fashion blogger extraordinaire Gala Darling knows a thing about creating a signature style: in some parts of the Internet, her cotton-candy hairstyle, positivity-inducing attitude, and recovering-Goth-meets-Sex-and-the-City outfit posts make her an icon. And Darling makes her money precisely because she is so fabulous: readers of her blog shell out extra cash for installments of her e-book, which promises to teach her acolytes the secrets to attaining her magical, glitter-infused lifestyle for themselves.

Gala Darling is so into personal branding that she has a signature signature: she signs off her posts, “Love Letters and Feather Headdresses, Gala xx”.

Yep, feather headdresses. Gala has been a fan of this hipster-hyped accessory for the latest year or so. Every post, she wishes her reader “feather headdresses” as her parting words. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but after months of this, when it finally sunk in that, indeed, she was doing it on purpose, and she wasn’t going to realize that this was Classic Cultural Appropriation Fail, I left a comment on her blog asking what was up with the phrase.

Gala’s response was even more cringe-inducing:

So many things I love are from cultures foreign to my own (hip hop, Indian music, Buddhist concepts, etc.), should I ignore those things because I’m a white girl from New Zealand? My life would be much less fabulous if I did! I absolutely believe that culture is something to be shared, delighted in, learned about & cherished…

Rather than engage with the many reasons that Indigenous peoples might not want to have affluent white women wearing their traditional regalia, Darling speaks to the reasons that her own, very privileged lifestyle would lose some of its lustre if she felt she needed to limit her style choices to things that come solely from her own culture.

In doing so, she basically justifies her use of the headdress as part of her own personal branding by saying that it benefits her to do so. And since Darling bases her income on selling the desirability of her own fabulous lifestyle, and in influencing other young women to find that lifestyle desirable, she is literally appropriating Indigenous culture to benefit her own bottom line.

Last week, in a post promoting the latest instalment of her book, Darling describes the transmission of the electronic copies as “whizzing around our heads right now, landing with a splash in the inboxes of international playgirls, glamorous savages & doll-faced geniuses all over the world!” (emphasis mine).

We know that Darling thinks that (at least some) “savages” are glamorous, as we can see from the style inspiration on her blog. But now, she has portrayed herself as selling her own fashion-forward, magical lifestyle back to the folks she stole it from in the first place. I left an admittedly-frustrated comment on her post calling her out on her language, and so did a few other folks I know, but they have all been deleted.

Back on that original post in February, I responded that the problem with cultural appropriation, as I saw it, is that Indigenous folks face discrimination and in some cases have a history of being legally barred from wearing things like headdresses. The hipster headdress is perceived by others as being “fierce” or “exotic” or “creative” or “bohemian” at the same time that Indigenous people who might want to dress similarly would be perceived negatively for doing so. I said that when you are a person who has not invested any time in understanding the widespread racism that Indigenous people and communities face, or the continuing effects of colonialism on those communities, it is especially insensitive and can be straight-up racist to align yourself with those communities by taking something you think is fashionable and using it to make yourself look cool. I asked Gala to think about how “you are taking from that culture and giving nothing back, not even your constructive support.”

But this most recent comment about “savages” shows that, obviously, she hasn’t thought about it. And the fact that Darling is deleting comments that call her out means that she isn’t willing to publicly discuss it, either.

And that’s bullshit. It is time for Darling to have to publicly discuss her Cultural Appropriation beyond a pithy comment about her fabulous lifestyle. And it is time for her to be asked to answer to similar criticisms being made by other bloggers. Why does her blog depict mainly white women? Why, when she talks so much about self-love and body acceptance, does she post photos of thin women almost exclusively?

I love a good fashion blog. I love talking about outfits. But we have no business allowing the representatives of the fashion blog community to be oppressive. Gala Darling needs to be called out. And we need to step up and do it.

There are lots of resources out there already that talk about cultural appropriation and the hipster headdress. Namely, this post at the Cultural Appropriations blog called “But Why Can’t I Wear a Hipster Headdress?”

There are lotsa reasons why, of course, including this one:

By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you're standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally so your ancestor who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to you. Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? yes. absolutely. but by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.

Two years ago now, Jessica Yee wrote a post about Juliette Lewis’s hipster-headdress appropriation:

But it’s not like this all isn’t a usual occurrence. We in the Native community have to witness this with every kid who dresses up like Pocahontas on Halloween, or every time we turn on the TV to watch the Redskins, Braves, or Indians play. In fact it’s been going on for so damn long that we’re kinda the only race who it’s still happening to on this extreme, public level, to the point where the fight has basically died down. Or has it?

What I find most interesting though about all this imagery, and in particular Lewis’s choice of dress with her band, is actually coming from my raging feminist point of view. In an attempt to appear strong, raw, and unapologetic, people, and in this case, a woman, feels like she has to appropriate Native culture to a pretty extreme extent in order to do a good job of it.

• This post, called, “When Non-Native Appropriation Goes Terribly Wrong” identifies and dissects exactly what I fear is happening when young women internalize Darling’s sexy-exoticizing message.
• And here’s a recent Threadbared post about appropriation, More Native Appropriations, Heritage Capitalism and Fashion on Antiques Roadshow.
• Finally, this tumblr, My Culture is Not a Trend, is a nausea-inducing roundup of problematic hipster fashion.

the critical fashion lover's (basic) guide to cultural appropriation

writing about cultural appropriation and racism in fashion is potentially the most controversial topic for fashion writers, with body politics (which isn't completely divorced from these issues) following close behind. those of us who identify as critical, progressive or liberal minded want to think these things will just go away, but cannot ignore all the signs say otherwise; in fact, racism and cultural appropriation seems to be selling more than ever as of late. just look at the fact that white models are still the standard on runways and in magazines, and that outdated, undeniably racist things like blackface will come back and rear their ugly heads in the pages of vogue even in our supposed "post-racial" era.

to be honest, even i have hesistated touching this issue. it is the one that infuriates, perplexes and inspires me most, not only as a fan of fashion but as an activist, ally and writer. in fact, one of the first pieces i ever wrote about fashion was in 2005 about the problematic increasing trend of mocassin or "mocassin inspired" boots for winter. i've tried to write about it since, but there is so much ground to cover that it becomes intimidating (brevity has never been my strong point). with so many visceral and bewildering responses to the issue, it has sadly only lead to a half-dozen unfinished pieces tucked away on my harddrive.

but i can't hold my tongue any longer. i am an avid reader and (generally speaking) fan of jezebel, and with the discussions going on there triggered by adrienne's post at Native Appropriations entitled "Feathers and Fashion: Native Americans Is [sic] In Style" i think it is time for me to put pen to paper and give a sort of "the critical fashion lover's guide to cultural appropriation."

let's begin with the original article in question: while i don't necessarily think Adrienne's article is very clear with its specific criticisms of cultural appropriation, and a lot of her points muddy (i strongly disagree that Outkast is at the very root of this trend, influencing bands like Juliette and the Licks, Bat for Lashes, and Ke$ha, and am prepared to defend that stance) i am excited by the conversations it has triggered. i do think she raises questions that need to be addressed by fans of fashion and participants in hipster culture as of late, questions that i hope to elaborate on here.

what i mainly want to address here are the responses to adrienne's article when it was posted on jezebel, which range from deeply insightful to downright naive and ignorant. instead of taking this opportunity to engage in discussions about the history of colonization in north america, native american resistance/response to these issues, white privilege, or the political power that many different kinds of clothing possess, a lot of people often end up reacting in predictably defensive ways. but don't take my word for it. here are a sampling of comments:

"So... should I not wear minnetonka shoes or feather earrings anymore?" sydbarretsaves

"Am I gonna go to liberal-PC-prison for wearing silver and turquoise jewelry?"

"Really? I'm not allowed to wear a FEATHER IN MY HAIR? Come on" ferociacoutura

"now I feel guilty for loving Adam Ant when I was 12 yo."

as one of my wisest university professors Molly Blyth once said, "guilt is useless unless it leads to action." what does it say about this contentious issue that these are the first questions people are asking themselves, instead of trying to get a more complex understanding of why someone might challenge their choice to wear these things? the fact that these commentors are asking themselves these questions is, yes, a step in the right direction, but the fact that it is happening in a guilt-ridden, dismissive way is pretty disappointing.

unfortunately, for me, they are hardly surprising responses. my very first internet flame-war happened back in 2004 or 2005 on newestwrinkle (for those of you unfamiliar with this community, generally young girls would post pictures of what they wore that week/month and ask for opinions/flattery). a popular (a stylish ((white blonde skinny*)) american girl) and frequent contributor to the community posted pictures from a "cowboys and indians" party she attended. the pictures showed this white-blonde freckled girl with two lines of blue and red smeared across her cheeks, a little headband with a single feather, and of course the (ever popular at the time) mocassins. when commentors like myself and others asked her what the point of this party was and why she thought this was a representation of an "indian," the reaction was astounding. the post ended up generating nearly 200 comments debating issues ranging from racism, stereotypes, cultural appropriation but resoundingly the conclusion was that "fashion is just for fun! you guys take this way too seriously."

the moderators decided to freeze comments on the post, and soon after the original poster deleted the entry altogether. the resounding lesson i, and the handful of other people openly criticizing this costume as (at the very least) problematic and (at the worst) blatantly racist, was that our criticisms were simply not welcome.

in other similar situations, largely framed around "ethnic" or racial stereotype halloween costumes, i have raised these questions to little or no reaction. fashion communities online, and as far as i have seen in real life as well, simply seem to not want to address this important issue at all.

to me, these situations are more than enough reasons for me to try and express why i think cultural appropriation is an important issue for any fashion lover to address, understand, and deconstruct. cultural appropriation can be a very useful tool for critical fashion lovers to navigate these perilous waters of privilege, erasure and ignorance.

my favourite aspect of cultural appropriation is that it can help us begin to deconstruct our sartorial choices and acknowledges the power of clothing as a means of shaping (racial, national, sexual, gender) identity. the exact same piece of clothing can mean very different things to different people (take any politically charged piece of clothing: the hijab, high-heel shoes, doc martens, the keffiyeh, etc) and acknowledging this fact is a very important first step. the very basis of cultural appropriation gets people thinking about questions like, can one piece of clothing "belong" to one culture? what do certain pieces of clothing signify? it moves us away from basic discussions of colour palettes and cuts and styles and trends and moves us towards a more complex theorizing of fashion.

the first time i found cultural appropriation helpful as a framework was deconstructing what makes me uncomfortable in fashion and why. while in my second year of studies at trent university, taking a few native studies classes, i was learning more and more about the long-term effects of colonization on native people in canada. watching documentaries about residential schools, the bureaucratic hurdles communities encounter in struggles for land claims, the third world conditions on reserves in canada, as well as various other institutional forms of racism opened my eyes to the fact that we live in a country that is blind. a country that relegates native people to outdated stereotypes we can tokenize when it suits our government's purposes, but likes to keep its dirty laundry (which in this case could very literally be small-pox ridden hudson's bay blankets) out of sight.

so what does this have to do with the fact that i am uncomfortable when i see a young white girl in a high fashion magazine draped in turquoise jewelry, wearing mocassins and prancing around the desert? because this is the only image we see of native people in north america these days. native american culture is reduced to a trend that can be packaged and sold to profit the fashion industry. native american people are reduced to one dimensional outdated stereotypes, or worse, as an extinct exotic race that once roamed the land, but who no longer live and breathe and resist today.

i have heard a lot of arguments that there are way more important things we could be debating instead of cultural appropriation; that native people themselves don't give a shit if a severely intoxicated white hipster decides to tattoo pocahontas on his leg or if some magazine decides their next nude photoshoot should feature blonde women wearing headdresses. who knows! maybe the jingle dress will be the next hot thing in haute couture, but it doesn't impact the quality of life of the people who make, wear and perform in those dresses.

my response to this is clear and simple; i don't think the issue of institutional racism and discrimination can be completely divorced from the question of cultural appropration. they feed into one another. one would not exist (at least not in the same way) without the other. if we lived in a culture that acknowledged the fact that most of us live on stolen land in north america and that recognized native people as complex, diverse, intelligent people without romanticizing or glamourizing them, i'd like to think that it would put an end to these sorts of reductive stereotypes popping up in fashion, film, music scenes. reducing an entire culture to a simple "inspiration" for your outfit, art project, fashion collection, or photoshoot is disrespectful and unhelpful, especially when we look at the bigger picture.

to keep things brief, i will address two last important issues: context and the fear of the "politically correct" police. in all of the examples given in adrienne's article, they were largely stripped of their context. are all of the examples given equally and explicitly examples of cultural appropriation? in my opinion, not necessarily. many commentors on jezebel pointed out the fact that andre 3000 of outkast is part native and african american, but does this excuse his use of neon-outfitted headdress wearing backup dancers? not really. these are questions i'm still exploring, but it is incredibly important to think about questions of context and intent.

a dangerous thing that can happen in discussions about cultural appropriation is, yes, becoming overly politically correct. when this happens, people end up being silenced and any potential productive discussion ends. everyone ends up getting defensive, but just as bad is becoming righteous. if you identify as an ally, it is fine to give your own personal opinion, but to claim to speak for all native people (as though they compose one homogenous group) is just as problematic as dismissing this as an issue altogether. as with any issue, i highly encourage the critical fashion lover to enter this discussion with an open mind and to be prepared to unlearn a lot of the things you thought you knew.

the biggest problem with the concept of cultural appropriation, in my opinion, is that it doesn't set out any explicit black and white rules for people to follow. as you can see based on the comments on jezebel, people are genuinely confused as to what the "right thing" to do in these situations are, and there's nothing wrong with that. you can't get answers if you aren't asking questions. my advice in these situations is largely about context, intention, and education.

let's say you bought a cute pair of feather earrings and you like how they look. you're white. is this cultural appropriation?

• are you going to pair them with a pair of mocassins and skimpy dress in an attempt to channel outdated romanticized stereotypes of native women? then yes, i would say that's pretty shitty.
• are you going to ask who made them and where they come from? are they made in a factory with terrible working conditions? are they synthetic? are they from an endangered bird?
• how are they marketed/sold to you? are they tagged as "navajo spirit eagle feather" yet made in china and sold by a capitalist chain?
• you can claim you like them simply for their aesthetic appearance, but why do you like this particular aethestic?

as you can see, there are a lot of questions you can ask yourself about a single pair of earrings, not all of which relate specifically to cultural appropriation. i like to think of myself as a conscious consumer and like to know where my clothes are from, how/when they were made, that sort of thing.

(for the record, i own two pairs of feather earrings; one i received as a gift from six nations while i was in caledonia at a peace and friendship gathering which i unfortunately lost, the other i purchased at a thrift store for 50 cents)

these aforementioned questions can apply to any number of garments for any person who thinks of themselves as a critical consumer of fashion. ask yourself if you're simply wearing it "because you like it" or because it is trendy, and ask if that is enough for you. everyone has different reasons for what they choose to wear and why, and as long as you're prepared to discuss your reasons without engaging in fucked up discussions ignoring your own white privilege, i say go for it.

phew! so, that about covers some of the basics. to end, here are some comments that popped up on jezebel that gave me some hope:

Dressing up as "a Native American" furthers the already popular notion that they aren't real, diverse, complex human beings. There's a reason that dressing up as a white guy isn't nearly as effective on Halloween; there's no homogenous vision of what White Guy looks like. If you've developed a homogenous vision of a particular race, enough that you could conceive of a good costume, then just fucking stay home for the evening. - choppery

and

if you are a white person who waltzed in here to give your opinion and it was based entirely on how it affects you and your fashion choices, YOUR WHITE PRIVILEGE IS SHOWING. Me, personally, I'm ashamed at how our country was built on the literal and cultural genocide of Native people. It doesn't matter that my ancestors didn't personally do it or that it was like a really long time ago. As an American, I find it shameful. And all I really want to know is, what can I do to show respect to people who are my equals but who are rarely treated that way? Last I checked, appropriating a culture that that has been systematically denigrated is NOT respect. - thesciencegirl wields the

i'm hoping to take some time to speak very specifically about this trend in respect to hipster culture (think roma/"gypsy" people being romanticized in music/fashion) in the last year or two, so this definitely isn't the last you'll hear me talking about this. i look forward to hearing your thoughts! if you're interested in learning more about cultural appropriation from a much more informed source, here are some things you might like to check out.

recommended reading:
black looks: race and representation by bell hooks
national disgrace: canadian government and the residential school system 1879-1986 by john milloy
unpacking the white privilege knapsack by peggy macintosh
me funny and me sexy by drew hayden taylor
"real" indians and others by bonita lawrence
various racialicious posts by jessica yee

recommended viewing:
yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes the cool on vimeo
genocide, assimilation or incorporation: Indigenous Identity and Modes of Resistance lecture by bonita lawrence on vimeo

an "aboriginal friendly" canadian winter olympics: inclusion, tokenism and cultural appropriation

the olympics are almost wrapping up, thank goodness, because they are grating on my nerves more than ever. i've talked about it elsewhere how i really need to take a break from facebook because as much connection as it can offer me with faraway loved ones, it also fills me with violent urges thanks to the newsfeed. lately the status updates have been getting to me: everyone congratulating olympic athletes as if they are on a first name basis with them, as if another gold medal really means anything for "canada" or whichever country you belong to and are proud of because it produced good athletes. is that what people want to believe the olympics are really about? athletic performance, point finale? don't think so.

part of my reluctance to write about this is that i know the common reaction is that i'm an uppity lefty who just likes to tear down anything fun. "it's just sports! don't take it so seriously!" but then i realized that that is the main reason why i started this blog; in reaction to those who constantly say "it's just clothing! don't take it so seriously!" so read on at your own risk: i am going to try and make you hate the olympics.

okay, i'm sorry, i'm grumpy. let me begin by saying that there are many, many reasons why the olympics piss me off, but namely what has really been aggravating me these days is what is getting talked about and what isn't. i normally listen to cbc radio quite often, but my radio's been turned off almost constantly for the past week and a half. the only decent mainstream news reporting i heard was on the current when anna maria tremonti talked about what a post-olympics vancouver might look like. click the link to listen for yourself.

i tried to find a way to write about the olympics that i felt would suit the feminist fashion stance of this blog way back in october, but never ended up finishing it. today, triggered by a great article entitled "an indigenous olympics" by toban black my friend iris showed me, i'll just put it out there for you. it originally felt unfinished and disjointed, more of a rant than a cohesive essay of sorts, but i think if you read black's article first, it will put you in the right mindset to see where i am coming from. without further ado,

an "aboriginal friendly" canadian winter olympics: inclusion, tokenism and cultural appropriation

The first time I wrote about cultural appropriation and fashion was in 2005, when mocassin-style boots were appearing as a major trend for winter footwear. I wish I could dig up that article, but it seems to be lost somewhere in the archives of the newspaper I wrote it for. I wish I could find it since it would be a good starting point for what I think will be a recurring topic on this blog, as it is something of a touchy subject within the fashion community.

Unveiled earlier this month (October 2009), the Hudson Bay Company's 2010 Olympic clothing line is coming under criticism from Cowichan tribes who accuse them of producing "knock-offs" of the genuine Cowichan sweater.

According to Coast Salish artist Joe Jack, the Cowichan sweater emerged thousands of years ago as a way to battle the harshness of the North American coastal winters. The Coast Salish women had established a strong tradition of weaving woolen and cedar clothing for their families.

"Pre-European, and primarily before the easy access to domestic sheep wool, the Salish women wove clothing and blankets using the hair of a now extinct breed of small wool dog, mixed with mainland mountain goat wool, and goose down."

Over time, starting largely in the 1860s due to the extinction of the small wool dog, the style evolved into what we commonly know today as the Cowichan sweater. Practical and beautiful, the garment itself shows an incredible amount of skill and talent. Today, however, the Hudson's Bay Company is attempting to appropriate this rich cultural history of this garment and make a profit of it, with none of the proceeds going to the Coast Salish people it is appropriated from.

This is a perfect example of one of Black's points in his article; Black argues that the image that the Olympics present of the Native community is one that is muddled and watered-down. Yes, it is including native people in its clothing wear by borrowing from the cultural history and traditions, but it needs to do more than that. Who will be making these sweaters? Who will profit from them? And who will be able to afford to buy them and wear them?

Passing theatrical gestures to native peoples during the open ceremonies could be considered to be more respectful, but Olympics marketers otherwise have been mixing up North American native traditions into a soup-like caricature.

Theatrical gestures is right. Like Black says, by simply addressing the fact that the logo of the Vancouver Winter Olympics is from northern, Inuit communities while the games take place in a temperate climate where those people never lived shows us that this is tokenism. And let's not even touch the fact that most of the designs for the games that are "native inspired" weren't even done by First Nations artists!

It seems more and more like the "inclusion" of Native communities and organizations in the Vancouver Winter Olympics is nothing more than tokenism or branding. In this case the situation is pretty clear: Yes, we want to sell sweaters that look as though they were made by Native people, but we won't get Native people to make them or let them profit from them.

Often, people dismiss claims of cultural appropriation as trivial and unimportant; "there are bigger problems to address here" or "relax, it's just clothing" are the most common responses I've encountered. However, the cultural appropriation in and of itself does not exist in a vacuum. In this situation, I would argue that the attempted cultural appropriation of the Cowichan sweaters is indicative of larger, more important systems of oppression that are at work. The fact that the Vancouver Olympics Committee thinks it would be okay to take something that is specific to the Coast Salish people, find people who could make it cheaper, and sell it for more money illustrates very clearly that VANOC has very little respect for the host nations it claims to be working with.

WHY THE OLYMPICS ALREADY SUCK

For most people, it is not surprising that the style choices made by HBC and the VanOc comittee are controversial ones; ever since Vancouver won the games in 2002, nearly every decision that has been made (various censorship issues, the debate around female skiers, the Sea to Sky highway, development that displaces the homeless, the Native communities who are against hosting the Olympics on stolen land, the increasing corporate sponsorship, to name a few) has resulted in public outcry.

In my post-colonial theory class two years ago, we discussed the problematic nature of the mascots which are awkward mishmashes of various traditional Native mythological creatures: a half-whale half-bear hybrid (Miga), a whale-thunderbird-bear hybrid (Sumi), and a sasquatch (Quatchi). None of these characters are taken directly from First Nations people. Rather, a designer just threw a bunch together and this is what we are left with.

But back to the Cowichan sweaters. At this point, it almost seems like they are trying to piss off as many people as possible in as many different ways they can think up. Of course, even the clothing they chose for the Olympics would have to be controversial as well. (For more information about why so many people are opposed to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, check out No2010.ca)

How ironic that it is the Hudson Bay Company who is responsible for the appropriation of the Cowichan sweater. A brief brief primer for those of you who aren't Canadian: the Hudson Bay Company was established in the 1600s, when French and English colonizers/settlers arrived in Canada, or what was soon to be established as Upper and Lower Canada (today, the provinces of Ontario and Québec, with a little bit of power in the Maritime provinces). The Hudson Bay Company established formal fur trade between the trappers, who were often Métis (French and Native American mixed-blood) who hunted animals in difficult to access areas and sold the pelts back to the HBC who would use them to keep the colonizers warm in the harsh climate. There is a much longer history but that's just a brief bit of context for you.

For some more good 'ol fashioned racism courtesy of the Hudson's Bay Company, watch (and cringe) at this commercial.



It is so easy to deconstruct as this idea that white people arrived to this uninhabited land and worked hard and conquered it. We see a glimpse for maybe two seconds at the beginning of the commercial of native people with the Cowichan sweaters hanging; it seems as thought it was shown more for product placement than an acknowledgement of the fact that Native people were here first. All we see are these white pioneer men conquering the empty land and "thriving" in the elements... but that's a whole blog post to itself if I go on.

To end, then, my point is namely that like with any international event that puts a country's history on stage, we have to be critical of what we are being presented with. We have to ask questions that dig deeper. Who is being talked about, and who isn't? What happens before and after said event?

In response to the public outcry around the Cowichan sweaters, the HBC released a statement saying that the hand-knit sweater is a "nod towards this icon of Canadian fashion, while adding our own contemporary twists including type of wool, colour, pattern complexity and logos." Basically, to me, this reads as "We like the look and style of your sweater, so we are going to steal the basic idea of it, get white people to make it even though your ancestors are the ones who created this style of sweater, get them to make it for cheaper and sell it for more money. Oh yeah, and you won't get any money out of it either."

This is my main point of contention with a lot of fashion items, accessories and styles that have a deep cultural history. The idea that one culture can potentially claim "ownership" and can then be stolen from is a very large debate and one that cannot be fully taken up here. But, in this case, I feel like the official Olympic line of clothing is indicative of much larger problems that unfortunately aren't being talked about.

If you're interested in more writing on the topic of cultural appropriation in the Vancouver Winter Olympics, i highly recommend checking out the Urban Native Girl's blog as well as Racialicious.com. for more discussions about feminism and the olympics, check out the pursuit of harpyness. Thanks for reading.

Sources: Cowichan fakes won't win gold from the Victoria Times Colonist

Olympic sweater not a Cowichan, Hudson's Bay Company says by Bruce Constantineau

The history and artistry of the Coast Salish Indian Knitting by Joe Jack.

Podcast of the Cost of the games for Aboriginal communities by Anna Maria Tremonti.

Podcast of the Olympics and Civil Liberties on the Current

The Olympic Resistance Network