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Is It Racist For A Non Native American To Don A Feathered Headdress?

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anotheoldgit | 12:21 Thu 06th Nov 2014 | News
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2821242/Ellie-Goulding-s-Halloween-fancy-dress-sets-race-row-critics-saying-Native-American-costume-no-different-wearing-black-face.html

This just about sums them up, one has to ask, why do they continue to be so offended?

/// 'I never cease to be amazed at how easily people will take offence – and usually this is white, middle-class, Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing, politically correct do-gooders who are offended on someone else’s behalf. ///

/// The row comes just weeks after it was announced that Glastonbury will no longer allow Native American headdresses to be sold at festival outlets, in response to a petition. ///






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Thank you Clanad.

It's nice to have someone with a little inside knowledge join one of these threads.

Y'see - earlier someone intimated that you don't have to be of Native American descent to discuss whether this is racist, but in one post you've already made me aware of things I had no idea of..

Please make yourself available for further questioning.

;-)
Clanad

What are the rules of tribal enrolment?
Question Author
Gromit

/// In tend to think that wearing an headdress wore in fun is not at all offensive. The inappropriateness would only occur if the wearer was trying to pass themselves off as a genuine Red Indian and wasn't one. ///

Now you are beginning to put some sense into your argument, although i would have thought anyone wearing a feathered bonnet and going around trying to pass themselves off as a genuine Red Indian, would soon be gathered up by gentlemen in white coats.

/// Like wise, people wraring medals on uniforms for fancy dress is not offensive. It would become offensive if they were trying to pass themsrlves off as a real veteran. ///

That is correct and in certain circumstances it would be totally illegal.
Question Author
/// Please make yourself available for further questioning. ///

Blimey Clanad, look what you have done now, you can't leave the country, DC sp1814 says so. :0)
Question Author
sp1814

/// What are the rules of tribal enrolment? ///

Crikey, that could open up yet another whole can of worms.
Your question about Tribal enrollment is a complicated one sp1814. I've been fortunate enough, here in the western U.S. to do a lot of historical study with the TsiTsiTas (northern Cheyenne) of southeastern Montana. Using them as an example, (there are nearly 600 tribes throughout the U.S.) the person would have to be no less than 1/8 "blood". This would be shown to the Tribal government by way of attestations from family members as well as a ancestral chart depicting lineage.
One of the problems is that one could become a tribal member by way of marriage, meaning a person with no "blood" could become a member as well as the children of that marriage.

Additionally, using the Northern Cheyenne as an example, there are about 10,000 enrolled members, but only around 4,500 actually live on the nearly 500,000 acre reservation (or more accurately know to them as Tribal Lands). So, as you can see, active participation in the Tribal affairs is quite limited.

The TsiTsiTas were a prominent Plains Indian tribe, but always numerically small, especially compared to the Dakota-Lakota, whom we know as the Sioux. (Is that your young son? Yes, responded the man on the streets of Rapid City, South Dakota. What's his name? Young Bear Walks Upright, responded the father... Unusual name no? Well, actually not, since the mother and I are both Lakota. Oh, you don't look Siouxish...)

I'll get my coat...
Do i think it is racist? No.

Cher was a bad example to cite as a 'pop star wearing a headress' since she is of Native American descent.

I do think that people have taken the notion of offence to an extreme here - and as advised, it is people who are a world away from the people who may actually be offended.

Apparently there is no hard and fast rule about wearing a headress - but I would suggest that if there were, it would not be calling down the approbation that Ms. Goulding has suffered.

It's a penalty for being a 'celebrity' - anyone turnng up at the office party would attrack no comment at all, but a celebrity is seen as fair game, which really cannot be fair.

I would certainly not equiate a headress with black face - a different concent altogether in my view.

Clanad

Thank you for a) introducing me to my first ever Native American joke and b) introducing me to my first ever Native American joke that I won't be able to repeat because no-one I know will get it.
Question Author
Clanad

Is that tumble weed I see rolling down the deserted street? :0)
No more than foreigners wearing trousers & dresses
sp1814 - allow me to introduce you to your second NA joke -

We asked the last remaining pure blood Native Americans if they were offended by pop stars wearing headresses - both of them said No.
I see AOG is going overboard with his reactions, nothing unusual there, or is that deemed by him as being racist to sailors....
SP, //acknowledge that the polite thing to do is to leave people unattended.//

I presume that means don't dress up as anyone for fear of causing offence. How very dull. So long Vicars and Tarts.
No more white collars for naomi, what a shame.....

What about dressing up as Charles Dodgson's Queen of Tarts or would that be offensive to Wonderland's royal family - or the Royal Family?
Lol, some crazies on twitter call her racist and it makes a thread in news with Aug getting as frothy as the people his thread is about. Classic.
naomi24

Honest - I can think of literally hundreds of costumes that wouldn't possibly cause offence. Clever costumes...

But then again, as I said earlier - I would not bother, because I think that for the most part, fancy dress is just plain awful.
Little boys and girls playing Cowboys and Indians and dressing up. Racist?
DT, haha! All I need is a set of Dick Emery teeth - or would that be teethist?

SP, ah, come on! It’s just fun!
And the source is the Daily Mail. How can they be so sacrilegious by dressing up like this when they aren't real? It's just not kosher to pick on a minority sect. We need AOG to protest on AB.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/04/07/article-1264009-0030A95D00000258-820_468x318.jpg

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