Bill Maher's instructions for keeping the fun in Halloween.

[Shad]

Dressing up as an "Indian" by putting on a headdress and dressing in what idiots think native people dressed like several centuries ago, is racist.

Ummm you realize Natives wear a headdress in ceremonies depending on rank or role in said ceremony right? Are they making caricatures of themselves?

 

[dianaiad]

Say to who, when, and in what situation? And how does "the media" represent random, regular citizens?
Both "sides" can pummel and flog generalizations, stereotypes, and straw men all day long and it will never accomplish anything.

this is true, but the media is SUPPOSED to represent facts, when dealing with news, and is SUPPOSED to deal with what people actually think when analyzing what people think. I don't see that happening. Especially in today's more noticeable "news" sources, opinion tends to be very far to the left. "Mainstream media," if the stats given by Bill Maher are correct, are anything but mainstream, evidently, and in spite if everything, Bill Maher is pretty far to the left, mostly.

I do know that unless an opinion piece or opinion reporter/anchor/whatever is willing to work for Fox News or other conservative group, s/he will not be allowed to express any opinion right of Marx.

The trend is very far to the left, no matter where you look, in spite of what is claimed for 'what everybody really thinks.' And the media sets the agenda. We all talk about what the media tells us to talk about.

Censorship...not government censorship (though I see it there too) but private censorship by powerful private organizations, is very real and very prevalent. I wasn't kidding when I mentioned that people are being kicked off of KNITTING sites because they won't toe the 'Trump is a white supremacist' line. It's astounding. And troubling. I have no problem with far left opinions being expressed anywhere....I just have a problem with NOT allowing far right opinions being expressed right along side of them.

 

[Skwim]

This video is funny, yet useful in our "I've been offended" society. Let em have it, Bill! (warning; some bad language)

There is no such thing as bad language, just bad ears.

.​

 

[Shad]

The presence of a headress is not a caricature. I didn't insinuate it was.
But settler Americans don't understand the cultural significance of headdresses and do not portray them correctly.

Depends on use. Halloween for example, children I mean.

Look at the image used by Bill Maher to represent an"indian" costume. Native people in the all of North America have never dressed like that. Unless of course some of them bought the costumes as a joke.

Looks like a Pocahontas costume children ie Disney, ie Hollywood, ie liberals.

Do you know what Halloween is? Just checking.... Are you expecting an accurate reenactment for Halloween?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

We're gonna have to disagree here. What's the problem if kids think that native american garb from 150 years ago is cool? What's the problem if they think ninjas are cool.

We have to make a distinction between these sorts of things and the wearing of blackface.

Do you mind if I quote and answer you in the thread I made just to reduce the amount of debate here?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Oh, good grief.

You can't possibly be serious.

I am. I even took the time to make a big thread about it.
On my phone.
Up hill.
Both ways.
In the snow.

A liberal's view on cultural appropriation.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Dressing up as an "Indian" by putting on a headdress and dressing in what idiots think native people dressed like several centuries ago, is racist.

Even if you're singing YMCA?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Ummm you realize Natives wear a headdress in ceremonies depending on rank or role in said ceremony right? Are they making caricatures of themselves?

A lot of times they dress up as the animals they hunt and tell the story through dance as well as paying homage to the animal.

It's really pretty cool.

God I missed "The Turtle" in my area.

 

[icehorse]

Let's go through those costumes he's talking about in the section on cultural apropriation:
-American indian cariacture
-Caricature of Hawaiian women
-"Indian Chiefs"
All of these are costumes perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Indigenous people in the US. This is really common sense to most people who've interacted with Indigenous nations in Canada, I imagine it's similar in the US. The harmful stereotype is perpetuated no matter the intent, because the costumes themselves are colonial imagery which resemble racial caricatures, rather than actually "appreciating" anything.

While there certainly ARE racists in the world, a kid dressed up like a member of a different or historic culture doesn't qualify as racism. Further, these are kids we're talking about. They certainly don't have the negative associations of "caricature" in mind when they go trick or treating.

As was said earlier in this thread, INTENT is everything. You seem to be conflating kids pretending and learning about the world, with racism.

 

[icehorse]

All of these are costumes perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Indigenous people in the US. This is really common sense to most people who've interacted with Indigenous nations in Canada, I imagine it's similar in the US. The harmful stereotype is perpetuated no matter the intent, because the costumes themselves are colonial imagery which resemble racial caricatures, rather than actually "appreciating" anything.

Let's say a kid appreciates and respects a different culture, and wants to do a little pretending on halloween. How would you have them do that? Again, it seems like you're lumping everyone into your "that's racist" bucket. Is cooking Italian food racist? How about taking a siesta? How about installing a sauna? How about taking the mindset of considering an action's impact on the next seven generations? Are those all "cultural appropriation"?

 

[icehorse]

Do you mind if I quote and answer you in the thread I made just to reduce the amount of debate here?

That's great!

 

[Guitar's Cry]

It's not black and white; I wouldn't place a kid dressing as a ninja on the same level as black face. Intent and context are important.

Yes! There's a difference between dressing as an Native American that stereotypes or uses traditional sacred garb in order to get laughs and respectfully recreating traditional everyday wear because it speaks to you.

 

[Shad]

This may as well be a concession that your earlier position was incorrect.

Nope. The context is different.

The film is idolized by some because it was so unprecedented for media at it's time to attempt a positive representation of native women. Many indigenous people who had never seen themselves portrayed like this in the mass-media loved the film, but it had a huge amount of genuine, well thought out criticism.

It is a cartoon...

Pocahontas is full of colonial tropes, because the Disney film is based in false stories of John Smith, who kidnapped Matoaka (AKA Pocahontas) and held for ransom. When the ransom was paid, he kept her captive nonetheless and forced her to be his wife, before going on to present her to others as a civilized savage. The film was produced, drawn and written by a lot of people who either A) knew personally that they were presenting a false story which presents colonizers in a positive light or B) didn't do enough historical examination to present native people and their history authentically, instead drawing on propaganda from colonization.

Kidnapping and forced marriage is a positive light? You are babbling or merely copying someone else's babble. Again it was a cartoon. You have unrealistic expectation for cartoons for children.

If you want to learn about the Disney movie specifically:

Here's a scholarly article written in 1975 about the presentation of Pocahontas and what it says about American views of Indigenous Women.

Again it was a cartoon.

"This essay argues that Disney's animated film Pocahontas is a neocolonialist text that rewrites the history of American colonial encounters with Native Americans, replacing the history of mass slaughter with a cute tale that functions to “civilize” and relegitimate colonialism. The essay demonstrates how the film's romantic narrative appropriates contemporary social issues of feminism, environmentalism, and human freedom in order to make racial domination appear innocent and pure." -Civilized Colonialism: Pocahontas as Neocolonial Rhetoric by Derek T. Buescher & Kent A. Ono.

More babble from emotional wrecks that do not know what a cartoon is and have unrealistic expectations.

Let's look at how it was received by young girls (the target audience):

"This study analyzed girls' reactions to Disney's animated feature film "Pocahontas" in light of conclusions drawn from a previous critical textual analysis of the movie.

Useless study as again..... it is a cartoon for children.
...
Participants, ages 9 to 13, were middle-class Euro-American girls from a midwestern university town, urban working-class Native American girls from a large midwestern city, and girls of working-class families from a rural reservation in the southwest with one Native American parent and one Euro-American parent.
...
Results from the focus groups with participants indicated that although there were points of agreement, in general, the girls' responses and attitudes toward the movie varied widely both between the groups and with respect to the researcher's conclusions about the movie. While the Euro-American girls produced a reading that could be labeled as "negotiated" in some respects, they appeared to accept the colonialist lessons learned about U.S. history and to view the movie as somewhat comical. [/quote]

Appeared? Garbage study.
..."

The study goes on to say that focus group 2 saw the movie as important and related with it, however focus group 3 which were more connected with their native culture, were "not enthusiastic". I think the conclusions this study drew about focus group 3 are uncritical, but nonetheless this is a useful analysis.

Again it is a cartoon.

 

[Shad]

I'm going to make a series of posts because there are a lot of important things you've said that should be addressed.

Accuracy isn't a big deal in many instances, but in this instance the issue is not just "inaccuracy". The costumes are portraying racist colonial tropes that have been reinforced since colonization very accurately. These tropes actively reinforce false ideas and perspectives of non-natives looking in at native cultures and communities.

It is a cartoon made by liberals....

If you're presenting a marginalized culture which has been violated in just about every possible way and you have an obligation to make sure you are not presenting them in a way which reinforces harmful misinformation. The issue is not offense. The issue is not the material costume itself but what that costume says about the wearers views and what kind of ideas it reinforces.

Fake obligation and projection.