Native Appropriations

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Hi, I'm Matika.
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I belong to the Swinomish and Tulalip People.
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I'm a photographer and the c reator o f Project 562.
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And I'm Adrienne, I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a scholar and the writer behind the blog, Native Appropriations.
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This is all my relations.
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We're glad you're here.
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Thanks for joining us today.
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Today we're going to be talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, something I have literally been writing about since I started writing publicly, so it's been over eight years at this point.
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So we're going to talk about cultural appropriation, about representations about native appropriations.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, I can't think of a better topic for us to talk about.
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Adrienne, you've written about it for years.
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I've uprooted my entire life and live in a van for this topic.
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We might say, you know, we feel a little passionate about this subject.
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Just slightly.
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Sorry.
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[Laughter] All My Relations[Whisper]
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The plan is we're going to start out by kind of reading some definitions of cultural appropriation and I pulled a bunch of them together from a lot of different types of writers.
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They're not just native writers to sort of get our heads around this concept and the ways that we think about it.
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So from Leonore Keeshig-Tobias in 1990"taking from a culture that is not one's own intellectual property, cultural expressions and artifacts history in ways of knowledge".
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Just as a note, that's my kind of go-to definition that I use in most of my presentations because Lenore Keeshig-Tobias is a First Nations writer and she also said this in 1990.
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A lot of folks think that this conversation on cultural appropriation happened in the last four years.
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I think it's important to note that native writers, native thinkers have been talking about this since at least the nineties and then in in terms of cultural appropriation, the phrase, but have been thinking about these issues of representations and cultural theft since contact, obviously.
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Yeah.
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Um, so this, this one comes from really great packet that's called think before you appropriate, which was created by Simon Fraser University's intellectual property issues and cultural heritage project, which the abbreviation is IPNCH.
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They say cultural appropriation"describes a one sided process where one entity benefits from another group's culture without permission and without giving something in return."
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Yeah.
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Well let's read from Wikipedia.
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"Cultural appropriation is distinguished from equal cultural exchange due to the presence of a colonial element, an imbalance of power."
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The power part is really important and we can definitely return to that too.
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This is another quote I use in my presentations all the time because I think it kind of brings everything together in a very succinct way and it comes from a writer named Sonny S ingh's"Turban's on the runway: What does it mean for Sikhs?" And it was from this cultural moment when people were literally like putting Sikh turbans down the runway.
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They say"the thing about cultural appropriation is that the appropriator does not have to face the same consequences that we do for practicing our culture or faith.
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For them it is an accessory that can be taken on or off at will, while for us it is a way of life.
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I'm not saying cultural or religious garb or practices should not be shared.
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Culture n ever exists in a vacuum and h as never pure, nor should it be.
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It is ever changing, evolving, growing.
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But in a society where immigrants and communities of color are marginalized at every level, we can't pretend that power relations do not exist.
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When we have this conversation about appropriation.
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Sharing and exchanging cultural and spiritual practices is great, but it gets more complicated when we're not all on equal footing.
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It gets more complicated when meaningful things are taken, commodified and exploited for a profit with little respect shown to the community they were taken from."
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Mmhmm.
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[Snaps]
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Yes.
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Well, okay, so I want, I do want to call it, I want to read this, this part from Ijeoma Oluo when white folks are always asking like, oh my God, how do I avoid appropriation?
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How do I avoid it?
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Like what they're actually saying and she says"When well-meaning white people say,“Help me define cultural appropriation so I know what to do and not to do,” what they are actually saying, even if they aren’t aware, is,“Help me understand how to continue in this system of privilege and oppression without feeling bad.”
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Preach.
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Yes.
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And then the last one on here, I'm not going to read because it's long, but um, Minh-Ha Pham who is an amazing, amazing scholar, who writes about fashion and about, uh, specifically Asian American communities and fashion.
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She's has coined the term"racial plagiarism" to talk about this phenomenon rather than cultural appropriation because she feels like a cultural appropriation has gotten misconstrued and sort of taken away from the original understanding of it to the point that now it's just sort of a buzzword that we don't often interrogate enough.
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So she talks about this idea of racial plagiarism, which puts in to conversation, that idea of power, that idea of stealing.
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She kind of opens the door for us to start thinking about like if cultural appropriation as a term has sort of lost its meaning and the ways that we use it, what is a term that we can use to replace it?
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And Adrian, how do you think about cultural appropriation?
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Can you, can we take a moment to think about what is culture and how we're defining that?
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And then also, you know, when we pair that with appropriation, what we're really talking about.
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If we want to talk about what is culture, I think that could be an entire other episode.
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And that's where this gets sticky, is that there's no easy boundaries on a lot of these things.
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There are some things that are super clear where it's very, it's like sacred.
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There are only a certain people who are supposed to wear it, um, or there is something that is clearly belongs to a designer or a community or whatever it is.
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But then there's a lot of gray area and there's a lot of ways that our communities interact with each other and have shared things through the years or whatever it is.
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And so, that's where it gets sticky and complicated.
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So there's no one easy answer for what is culture.
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I mean, culture is everything.
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Culture is everything that surrounds us.
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To the first part of how do I think about it?
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I take pieces from all of these definitions.
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I think the most important thing is to think about the power element to it.
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Um, and that's the thing that I want to drive home to audiences a lot when I'm doing talks is that this isn't just us hanging out and sharing things like that.
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We're all on the equal footing, equal playing field.
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This is situated in a system of power.
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And for native folks, that's a system of settler colonialism.
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So when we're talking about settlers taking from native people, it's in this entire context and history of ongoing settler colonialism.
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It's not just like we're all friends and everyone's okay.
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It's that we constantly are a position where we lack power and this continues that process.
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So what are the ways that you think about cultural appropriation in your spaces?
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Mm, well, I think of cultural appropriation first as a Stahopes person, as a person of the tide, as a person that is, my grandmother's granddaughter and as a person that is Swinomish and Tulalip.
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And so there's not an, when we talk about identity, we have to acknowledge all of those things, right?
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For me at least.
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And so I think about, um, ownership and protocols and traditional belief systems that we carry out in our own communities.
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And, and so one of the first teachings that I think about is this teachings with, with songs and the way that we carry songs and hold songs.
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And so when I was growing up and also in, in the name also, so when I was growing up, we would go to different ceremonies or to different doings as we call them in Indian country.
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And people seeing at our funerals, at our weddings, at the blessing of the fleet.
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And, and before any song is sung or after it is immediately stated whose song that belongs to, where that song came from.
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And we, we don't sing other people's songs.
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Like I wouldn't go out onto the floor and sing us, uh, Muckleshoot song or Anishinabe.
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song without saying out loud"So and so gave me this song on this date, and these were the witnesses, and I'm going to honor those people by singing this song and I'm grateful to have the ability to do so." And so there's very formal protocols in my community that we've been raised with and how to follow that.
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Same with a name.
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So when we get our Indian names, uh, we go to the eldest in our community and we ask permission to give the children a traditional name that maybe is a hereditary name that's passed down, maybe it's a place name.
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Uh, but that is, we have a very formal way of bringing gifts and asking permission.
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And so when I think of cultural appropriation, I think of a non-Indian taking those songs or taking those names, um, or even an Indian and using them without going through the proper channels and the proper protocols because they weren't raised right because they're spiritual infants.
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And that's how we think of them.
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It's like when somebody doesn't behave properly, and with those...
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in those circumstances, we don't, um, think of them.
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We're supposed to have the ability in ourselves to go, Oh that's a spiritual infant, n ot like a baby.
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So like when a baby cries, you go over and like nurse them and help them and teach them, you know?
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A nd so it's like t hey j ust, these spiritual i nfants running around that don't have any teachings, poor them, y ou k now?
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A nd, t hats how I think of cultural missappropriators and, um, and then in my own life, you know, given that my mom owned a Native American art gallery for the majority of my life and I w ould have been fielding conversations around this topic for a really long time with, before I called it cultural appropriation, we used to call people"Culture Vultures." We had a number of other different ways of describing it.
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Y eah.
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U m, but yeah, but you know, and in my work, I just want to see Brown people through Brown eyes.
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I want my children to have the opportunity to learn about themselves from themselves.
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And I would like the ownership to go back to the people.
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Like, if I take somebody's image or portrait, I want to make sure that they feel good about that, that they have ownership and agency and the way that they represent themselves and that when I go into their community or leave is stays with them.
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Y ou know, i t's, it's not mine, but there's a shared ownership and a respect and a traditional protocol followed.
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And I'd like to, to see that honored, um, outside of our longhouses.
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Yeah.
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And I think I first encountered the concept of cultural appropriation from a very academic space, which is totally different.
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Um, because I was an Undergrad who was studying anthropology and was really interested in Native art and the Native art world.
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Um, from that sort of academic place and perspective.
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Initially there were conversations in those spaces about like who the right to create Native inspired art or if we're creating, uh, exhibition, the campus museum, what are the ways that we make sure we honor Native voices rather than white folks who were collecting Native objects are collecting Native stories or whatever it was.
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But it wasn't until I had personal experiences with it directly in college or in Grad school that I finally started to make those connections between the ways that non-Natives see us and cultural appropriation.
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And that's like what I hearing your answer about wanting the youth to see themselves through others from their community, like through our own eyes, through their own understandings.
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I've often been told by folks that, um, that I'm wasting my breath or that this doesn't affect people in real life.
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Right.
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Or to get over it or j ust bigger issues or to stop being so sensitive.
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Yes.
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Um, and so to those that argument, I have a few different things I'd like to say.
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Please!
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You know, u m, so I, I very frequently give public lectures and o ftentimes, u h, when I s tart talking about misrepresentations, um, is when I s tart to get a little bit of pushback.
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One of the common experiences that I have when I talk about misrepresentation a nd I talk about the Google search.
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So if you Google an"African American", what you will get is an image of people smiling, the president of the United States, people in contemporary suits.
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If you Google"Asian American", you'll get the same sort of representation, a lot of families.
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Um, if you Google"Latinx", what's interesting to me about that is that you get, u h, only maps.
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You don't get people.
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U h, so really, yeah.
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So you Google"Hispanic" and then y ou get a bunch of families and u m, like a lot of people taking selfies and then you Google Native American and what you'll find is a one dimensional stereotype of Native people in headdresses situated in a historic past.
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And you know, with the Native...
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I'm laughing because that's my exact phrase that I use too"situated in the historic past" is like my go to line.
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Go ahead.
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Sorry.
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The thing to me about, about that representation in the way that it's so damaging and the way that I've seen it unfold in, in real life scenarios because we can talk about the statistics and the statistics are there, right like.
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Reclaiming Native Truth Project.
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Why don't you read a few of the statistics that we know for sure.
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Sure.
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Y eah.
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So Reclaiming Native Truth is a m ultiyear project to really change the narrative around the ways that we think of Native Peoples in the media and popular culture and just the national narrative.
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And Matika and I've both been involved in that project.
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Um, and part of that was they did some really upsetting but in depth research on uh, using focus groups and surveys about what non-Natives think about native p eoples.
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A ccording to a 2015 report, 95 of the first 100 Google image searches for native American or historical representations, 62% of non native Americans report not knowing a single Native person.
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Okay.
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Say that again.
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62% of Americans report not knowing a single Native American.
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Even though, everywhere you go in North America, in Turtle Island is Indian land.
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A majority of A mericans don't know a single native person.
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And then those people go on to vote, create legislation, makes Supreme Court decisions, create policies, vote on ICWA.
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T hat affects our lives.
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They also refuse to pay taxes on Indian land or illegally inhabit Indian land or misappropriate Indian imagery.
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Aaron Huey and Edward Curtis.
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Two figures that I know play in a lot with your photography work and that you're often positioned in opposition to these folks, which I think is a disservice to your work in so many ways.
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I know you've written about Edward Curtis and your relationship to him.
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Do you want to talk a little bit about that or maybe read a little from that post if there's a way?
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Well, the thing about the Edward Curtis blog post is that, uh, I'm continuously asked to represent alongside E dward C urtis.
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Curtis is a guy that photograph Native people i n the early 1900s at the turn of the century.
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And his work still sells at auction houses for some$70,000.
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$ 150,000, I think his highest grossing one was like$600,000.
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Um, the Seattle Art Museum just had an exhibition of his work and they really wanted me to participate in that show and I refused because I don't think that the 500 pieces from Curtis and five works when contemporary Natives is doing a service to the narrative.
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I, uh, when I think about what's happening with Curtis, I think about the fact that he had a New York Times bestseller, I think about the ways that he represented Native people a nd that, t hat people were nameless and that people, he'd take photographs of people, u m, and ask them to wear different artifacts.
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He has t he, one of t hem, his highest selling image t hat sold at auction was an image of these seemingly Native people walking through Monument Valley on horses.
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And they're wrapped in blankets.
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Isn't it titled"The Vanishing Race'"
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Yeah.
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But they're not Native people at all in those images.
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Those are non-Indians and those images.
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And so the problem for me is that I've created this large collection of work of Native America.
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I've been traveling throughout Indian country for six years now.
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I've been to nearly 400 tribal communities.
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I have like 1800 images that need, we need to be shown in that collection.
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Um, I don't think that the work needs to be shown in contrast to a 19th, 1900s photographer to have and deserve space in a public arena.
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Um, I also don't care for the way that those images are sold at auction and or sold through private collections or, um, shown in exhibitions.
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And that's the only time that Native artists are invited to be a part of that conversation.
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I think that there's photographers like Ryan RedCorn and Will Wilson and Wendy Red Star and you know, Josue Rivas and Tomás Karmelo and Thosh Collins.
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And there's these incredible Native photographers all over Indian Country who are doing really beautiful, profound work and they deserve to have a show at the Met on their own or at the Brooklyn Art Museum or at the Smithsonian or, um, down the street from your neighborhood coffee shop, that deserves to be shown and talked about as the concepts that they're choosing to present because it is powerful just as it is.
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And, um, and so I wonder, you know, if Native peoples' work and native imagery doesn't have space in blue chip galleries, or if, if it's not valued in that way, then how do we respond as Native artists.
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Because oftentimes we're not paid to be a photographer.
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We're paid to talk about being a photographer.
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And so if the conversation is continuously, um, the same conversation I was asked to have 15 years ago, which was in contrast to Curtis, then how are we really moving the dialogue forward?
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Where is space for innovation?
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How is photographic works going to go to the whole next level of creativity if we're constantly being brought back to this, to this basic space of trying to just undo some negative shit that was done to us.
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You know what I mean?
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S
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You shouldn't be put in a position that you have to turn down these opportunities either.
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But the fact that rather than just turning it down, you can say, no, this is, this is wrong on a lot of levels.
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And it's just a s strange to me that we hold, as a society, hold so tightly to these outdated stereotypical images and it just reflects that that is what the majority of non-Natives think of us.
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And so that's what they want to see in a gallery.
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They want those stereotypes reinforced.
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They want to feel good about the fact that Indians were something that existed in the historic past and are not being actively disenfranchised by v oter laws in North Dakota or, u h, potentially having the rights to, u h, keep our children a nd our communities taken away through IC WA or whatever it is.
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They don't w ant t o think about that.
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They don't want to think about their complacency i n genocide
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and how they play a role and in the active settler colonialism of our society.
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Right?
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I mean, t hey're still on indigenous land.
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Right.
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For the last 15 years I've been photographing a nd sharing stories from Indigenous communities in the United States since 2012, P roject 562 has allowed me to do this work with folks from all over Indian Country.
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And so far I've been to about 400 tribes.
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In the next couple of years I hope to complete my mission.
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Because of my dedication to photographing Native Americans, some people call me the modern day Curtis.
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Each time I hear that I want to throw up.
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Curtis was funded by J.P.
00:21:53.779 --> 00:21:55.400
Morgan to photograph“the vanishing race”.
00:21:55.640 --> 00:22:06.079
This photographic“hired gun” was the original Indian mis-appropriator, notorious throughout Indian Country for artificially representing his subjects with objects and apparel belonging to different tribal regions.
00:22:05.421 --> 00:22:13.279
He’d instruct his subjects to stand away from modern infrastructure, aiming to capture their“savage” qualities and lifestyles.
00:22:13.490 --> 00:22:26.720
In fact, his most famous image, an image of people traveling through the Southwest, underneath great big Mesas, was actually not a photo of Native people at all, but a photo of non-Natives dressed up as Natives.
00:22:27.259 --> 00:22:31.619
He titled his images as“Indian#3”,“Chumash woman”, and“Headhunter”.
00:22:31.849 --> 00:22:38.119
He described his images as though the people in the photos didn’t have names, as if they weren’t worthy of distinction.
00:22:38.569 --> 00:22:42.200
To his credit, I can appreciate that Curtis was bold and committed.
00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:47.329
He gave up everything— his home, his wife, his family, all to photograph Native people.
00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:51.619
In some cases his work has been meaningful to people I know in various Native communities.
00:22:52.039 --> 00:23:01.910
A friend told me that elders of her tribe were able to source Curtis’ images of a ceremony, and repatriate that element of the ceremony back into their community.
00:23:01.911 --> 00:23:07.880
Weavers have told me that they look at basket images in his photos and are able to draw inspiration from them.
00:23:07.550 --> 00:23:07.880
Carvers have used his images in their approach to carving canoes.
00:23:07.550 --> 00:23:07.880
In these ways, Curtis’ work has played an important role in the reclamation of Native American culture.
00:23:07.550 --> 00:23:07.880
Let’s acknowledge that this is only necessary because our culture was purposely attacked and in some cases eradicated.
00:23:07.940 --> 00:23:31.759
The danger in“Curtis’ Legacy”, despite its incidental and unintended cultural preserve, lies in his lasting effects on our collective consciousness.
00:23:31.760 --> 00:23:42.079
If you Google“Native American” right now you will find a historical Curtis image, a stark contrast to Googling“African American” or“Asian American”, in which you will find a contemporary image.
00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:48.500
His images have imprinted our minds; we think that the“Curtis Indian” is what“Real Indians” are supposed to look like.
00:23:49.309 --> 00:23:52.910
This is damaging in so many ways; and Native American scholars such as Dr.
00:23:52.911 --> 00:23:54.230
Stephanie Fryberg and Dr.
00:23:54.230 --> 00:24:02.299
Adrienne Keene have written extensively about the ongoing harm from the leathered and feathered stereotype caused by these dated and in many ways inauthentic images.
00:24:02.300 --> 00:24:04.730
In everyday life, what happens when Native kids can’t relate to or meet others’ expectations of“real Indian-ness”?
00:24:04.221 --> 00:24:04.730
How can we be seen as modern successful people when we are still viewed as a one dimensional stereotypes?
00:24:04.221 --> 00:24:04.730
How do we strengthen our nations and lobby for sovereignty when most of people don’t understand basic indigenous identities, concepts, and life experiences?
00:24:04.789 --> 00:24:35.690
It’s perplexing: we know on the whole that, offered as real, Curtis’ work is damaging to modern indigenous people and to the understanding and connectedness we all deserve, and yet we continue to perpetuate the harm.
00:24:35.691 --> 00:24:36.950
In the service of art?
00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:46.789
My fine-arts career was launched years ago at The Seattle Art Museum where I exhibited a series called“We Are One People”, a photo narrative of members from Coast Salish Tribes in Washington State.
00:24:46.790 --> 00:24:53.450
These portraits are put in the same gallery with Curtis images and considered a fitting contrast to the Curtis narrative.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:25:03.470
After the Seattle Art Museum, the exhibit traveled to several other high profile museums and since then dozens of museums have asked me to do the same variation of that show.These portraits were put in the same gallery with Curtis images and considered a fitting contrast to the Curtis narrative.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
After the Seattle Art Museum, the exhibit traveled to several other high profile museums.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
Since then, dozens of museums have asked me to do some variation of that same show.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
I have been given no choice but to do my best to decline graciously and explain that the bodies of work I’ve created deserve to stand alone while trying not to come off as an egotist; or to put it plainly, I explain that my work has value without needing to be contrasted to a dead white man’s perspective and creativity.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
I’ve been to museum board rooms, armed with statistics and facts that explain Curtis’ harmful impact.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
I connect them to other Native photographers’ work.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
Inevitably, the institution’s leaders will murmur that their patrons want to see his work on the walls, and that their hands are tied.
00:25:02.990 --> 00:25:03.470
In fact, I decided to publish this piece because the entire city of Seattle is celebrating the The Curtis Sesquicentennial Celebration, as if it isn't enough to celebrate him every one hundred years, it needs to be done every fifty.
00:25:04.019 --> 00:26:03.710
Curtis’ photography continues to sell at high end auction houses for astronomical amounts and those sales profit his foundation, and to my knowledge, none of that money makes its way back to Indian County in an impactful way.
00:26:03.320 --> 00:26:03.710
Meanwhile, Indigenous photographers such as Thosh Collins, Nadya Kwandibins, Ryan Redcorn, and others, are yet to have stand alone exhibitions at The MET or be represented by blue chip galleries in Chelsea, or become staff photographers at The New York Times, or to be able to present our peoples photographically in National Geographic, because non-Indian photographers such as Aaron Huuey get that job.
00:26:03.710 --> 00:26:03.710
Recently, Josue Rivas participated as a Magnum Fellow and realized the inadequate representation of indigenous photographers in these elite photo spaces, and launched Natives Photograph, the New York Times wrote an article about it.
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:05.150
Books about Curtis, some of which have been NYT bestsellers, aren’t concerned about the ways in which the Curtis legacy impacts Native people.
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:58.470
The lack of representation and consumption can raise a question if work that I offer is seen as good or worthy or if the continuing preference for his vision is just the manifestation of the racist construct we live under.
00:26:58.710 --> 00:27:12.930
Without having the answer to that question, I do know that the Indigenous image, the profit and aggrandizement of from the Indigenous image and the consumption of the Indigenous narrative have remained in the control and bank account of non-Indigenous people.
00:27:14.069 --> 00:27:21.089
Until we start seeking and appreciating different images of Indigenous people is wonderful, creative, transformative, contemporary human beings.
00:27:21.569 --> 00:27:22.950
The narrative will stay the same.
00:27:23.519 --> 00:27:25.980
The dehumanization of Indian people will continue.
00:27:26.430 --> 00:27:29.339
We saw this in mass media's depiction of the people at Standing Rock.
00:27:29.970 --> 00:27:33.690
We see it in our intolerable achievement gaps with our students.
00:27:34.529 --> 00:27:37.500
We see it in the brutal life expectancy of native populations.
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:43.440
And earlier today, as I wrote this post, a curator called me and asked,“have you ever heard of Edward S.
00:27:43.441 --> 00:27:44.369
Curtis…?”[Laughter] End post.
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:54.299
You know, a lot of times people say to me,"well, I didn't mean it.
00:27:54.300 --> 00:27:56.250
I don't mean it that way.
00:27:56.250 --> 00:27:58.049
I, I, you know, like I love everybody.
00:27:58.050 --> 00:28:03.930
I don't even see color, you know, uh, you know, like, I don't mean any disrespect, you know, that about me.
00:28:03.931 --> 00:28:14.220
I'm not racist, I grew up on Indian land, you know, like I grew up on the Rez, you know, I love Indians." Um, I, which point, you know, how do you respond?
00:28:14.250 --> 00:28:15.059
How do you respond to that?
00:28:15.060 --> 00:28:15.359
Adrienne?
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:31.700
I mean, so when people, there's a couple of things, like people often say like, well don't you find these artists who were trying to represent natives or this whatever representation isn't it honoring to you?
00:28:31.819 --> 00:28:33.890
And of course it's not.
00:28:34.009 --> 00:28:40.630
I would much rather I would much more be honored by folks respecting our sovereignty.
00:28:41.059 --> 00:28:49.430
Uh, letting a Native artists do that, letting a Native designer represent themselves, um, by showing true and real portrayals of who we are.
00:28:49.431 --> 00:28:50.720
Like that to me is honoring.
00:28:50.721 --> 00:28:52.579
That to me is respect.
00:28:52.779 --> 00:28:56.539
Um, uh, fake misrepresentation is not honoring.
00:28:56.540 --> 00:29:00.740
And so then when people are like,"oh, well, but I, but it's not me.
00:29:00.740 --> 00:29:19.130
Like I'm not the one." Even if you think that you are not participating in settler colonialism, by the nature of living in the society, you are benefiting from colonization and you can't escape that.
00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:22.970
And it's a process of needing to own that and understand that.
00:29:23.150 --> 00:29:25.700
And then work actively to dismantle it.
00:29:25.819 --> 00:29:27.740
So you can't just say I'm a good person.
00:29:28.009 --> 00:29:35.900
You need to recognize that there's a power structure at play, which goes back to these definitions of cultural preparation, that it's about power.
00:29:36.470 --> 00:29:51.880
And by their position in society as, uh, as white folks as settlers, t hey are benefiting from settler colonialism and need to understand that it's not this equal exchange.
00:29:51.881 --> 00:29:55.630
Like it's not just everybody happy sharing that they are in that position of power.
00:29:55.631 --> 00:30:00.940
And that's really hard for a lot of, of white folks to understand.
00:30:02.380 --> 00:30:02.500
and for anybody to understand.
00:30:02.380 --> 00:30:08.500
I mean, it's hard in any circumstance to say out loud, this is my part.
00:30:09.250 --> 00:30:20.500
I mean it's, for me personally, being a person that attempts to live, u m, with p rincipals, it's never easy for me to say, um, yeah, this was my part.
00:30:20.171 --> 00:30:20.500
What...
00:30:20.800 --> 00:30:21.650
Where was I self-seeking?
00:30:21.941 --> 00:30:23.140
Where was I dishonest?
00:30:23.141 --> 00:30:24.849
Where could I have done better?
00:30:25.329 --> 00:30:34.660
Uh, you know, all of us are in this human experience together aiming to do better than those that came before us and make a better world for our children.
00:30:34.661 --> 00:30:38.759
And so you know, my thought about that is, all right.
00:30:39.829 --> 00:30:46.180
Um, if it's hard for me and it's hard for you, we both have a role to play and I can be 50% wrong.
00:30:46.930 --> 00:30:51.730
You know, like I c ould take ownership for my part, but I can't take ownership for yours, you know?
00:30:51.730 --> 00:30:54.910
And so nobody can do for you w hat you c an do for yourself.
00:30:55.240 --> 00:31:01.150
And so please stop expecting the Brown folks in the room to do for you what you can do for yourself.
00:31:01.151 --> 00:31:24.160
And if you benefited from an education system where you were not required to take Indigenous studies or African American studies or Asian American studies or Latin American studies because you had the privilege of reading in English and reading great European literature and you were not actively in pursuit of an Indigenous education, then you have a responsibility later on in your life.
00:31:24.161 --> 00:31:43.930
If you want to call yourself"woke" and call yourself an ally or an advocate or if you would like to in fact be an accomplice, then you have a responsibility to go learn some of these things about the Indigenous land that you are occupying and actually become an a dvocate or an ally or a coconspirator coconspirator.
00:32:00.329 --> 00:32:05.450
Adrienne I know you have your blog pulled up there and, and I'm wondering what is it?
00:32:07.230 --> 00:32:14.009
It reminded me of a blog post that I wrote I think in 2012 or 2011, like early days of the blog.
00:32:14.339 --> 00:32:20.069
It was in this growth learning process for me, I was writing a ton about Tonto.
00:32:20.400 --> 00:32:25.500
I wrote like seven different posts about the Disney>one Ranger movie that was coming out.
00:32:25.500 --> 00:32:41.089
So the I guess it was 2014 and it was, we're in this moment now, four years later where people kind of understand that representations matter a little bit more, but at the time Native folks and non-Native folks coming after me being like,"why does this matter?
00:32:41.090 --> 00:32:59.059
This is so silly that you're talking about this." And I finally had to write this blog post and I called it very simply" Why Tonto Matters," but there's a part at the end of it that I still return to like as just a kind of succinct way to think about why this matters.
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:06.349
And it starts with a quote from Ryan McMahon who is a podcaster writer in Canada.
00:33:06.829 --> 00:33:18.710
He's Anishinabe and he quotes his grandma and he says,"everything you do, grandson is going to be political because you're Ananishinaabe." The way that we represent ourselves is therefore inherently political.
00:33:18.829 --> 00:33:24.500
These trivial issues are representative of deeper, darker, larger issues within Indian country.
00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:48.619
For those who live in predominantly Native communities, fighting against cultural appropriation and misrepresentation may seem like the cause of a privileged few who can sit in their ivory towers and point fingers all day ignoring the"real" issues in Indian country I've said it many times before and I'll say it as many times as I can until it sticks: Yes, unequivocally, we have big things to tackle in Indian country.
00:33:48.980 --> 00:33:57.950
We have pressing and dire issues that are taking the lives of our men and women every day and I am in absolutely no way minimizing this reality.
00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:01.069
But we also live in a state of active colonialism.
00:34:01.339 --> 00:34:09.019
In order to justify the genocide against Native peoples in this country, we must be painted as inferior--That's the colonial game.
00:34:09.500 --> 00:34:11.630
These images continue that process.
00:34:11.869 --> 00:34:17.389
The dominant culture therefore continues to marginalize our peoples to ignore and erase our existence.
00:34:17.690 --> 00:34:35.690
We're taught everyday, explicitly in classrooms and implicitly through messages from the media that our cultures are something of the past, something that exists in negative contrast to"western values" and something that can be commodified and enjoyed by anyone with$20 to buy a cheap plastic headdress.
00:34:36.590 --> 00:34:51.260
These stereotypical images like Johnny Depp's Tonto feed into this ongoing cycle and until we demand more our contemporary existence and therefore the"real problems" in Indian country, it's simply don't exist in the minds of the dominant culture.
00:34:52.039 --> 00:35:10.099
How can we expect mainstream support for sovereignty, self determination, Nation Building, tribally controlled education, healthcare and jobs when 90% of Americans only view native peoples as one dimensional stereotypes situated in the historic past or even worse situated in their own imaginations?
00:35:10.101 --> 00:35:16.039
I argue that we can't-- and that to me is why Tonto matters.
00:35:17.449 --> 00:35:17.449
Mike drop.
00:35:21.650 --> 00:35:24.829
I love that piece Adrienne and I remember when it came out and we weren't friends yet.
00:35:25.159 --> 00:35:31.309
And t hen I read it and I was like, we weren't friends, b ut I was like, we gonna be friends.
00:35:32.139 --> 00:35:32.599
S he's smart.
00:35:32.601 --> 00:35:33.679
I like that lady.
00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:41.309
But I think it was very powerful for me to finally like put it together and be like, yeah, this is why it matters.
00:35:41.311 --> 00:35:50.579
And it's not a trivial thing to care about how we're represented and it's not something that's disconnected from our everyday realities of these real issues that we have in our communities.
00:35:50.739 --> 00:35:55.500
They're all connected and it's important to think about all of them together, right?
00:35:55.530 --> 00:36:05.760
Because all my relations, because everything is interconnected because we are all related and because there is no compartmentalize part of our life that isn't related to another part of our life.
00:36:06.570 --> 00:36:09.960
And that to me is why representations matter.
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:17.550
Because the way that we see ourselves and the way that others see us affects the ways that we treat one another.
00:36:17.550 --> 00:36:29.309
And what is more important than our relationships, you know, and our, our opportunity to feel a sense of belonging, to feel seen and heard.
00:36:29.969 --> 00:36:33.150
You know, we want to see ourselves.
00:36:33.179 --> 00:36:38.070
We're of that generation and everybody deserves that opportunity.
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:51.150
Halloween what what?
00:36:52.099 --> 00:36:54.039
Oh God can keep it.
00:36:54.041 --> 00:36:57.809
Just please stop dressing up like an Indian.
00:37:00.139 --> 00:37:02.389
That's just all I really want to say about this subject.
00:37:02.391 --> 00:37:03.570
But I know there's more to be said.
00:37:04.260 --> 00:37:05.280
It's not okay.
00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:10.440
You know, not to be inappropriate, you have to be more woke than this.
00:37:10.739 --> 00:37:15.659
You have a responsibility to know better and do better.
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:17.539
But there's reasons why we're going to explain it.
00:37:17.780 --> 00:37:19.199
Dr.Keene, we'll tell you why.
00:37:19.230 --> 00:37:39.489
So historically, um, but seriously though, the formation of what is currently known as the United States of America, um, these ideas of Plain Indian have been like imbued into the new American culture and identity.
00:37:39.490 --> 00:37:47.769
And uh, there's an amazing scholar named Phil Deloria who literally wrote the book on Plain Indian, it's called Plain Indian.
00:37:48.489 --> 00:38:02.289
Uh, he is a professor at Harvard now and he talks about how the early colonists, the early settlers desperately needed to formulate an identity that was not British, that was something new.
00:38:02.650 --> 00:38:21.670
And so the way that they did that was by taking on this kind of Indigenous identity to be like,"we are of this land, we are something new, we are not British." And I mean it goes back earliest days and thinking of like the Boston tea party, the colonists dressed up like Indians to like throw the tea in the harbor.
00:38:22.059 --> 00:38:32.530
This appropriation of Native identity through actually playing Indian is something that is deeply part of American quote unquote identity.
00:38:32.860 --> 00:38:44.949
And so Halloween is just one space where that gets played out and the conversations every year pop up of why it's not okay to dress like an Indian.
00:38:45.670 --> 00:38:49.510
Uh, and I say Indian very specifically there because it's always an Indian.
00:38:49.510 --> 00:38:53.530
It's not people saying I'm dressing like a Iative American or an indigenous person is,
00:38:54.280 --> 00:38:55.000
they don't even say it.
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:58.929
Like if it was even slightly woke, they were like, I'm going to dress up like a Navajo.
00:39:03.170 --> 00:39:04.840
Meaning they meaning they're wearing velvet,[Laughter]
00:39:11.150 --> 00:39:20.829
it's hard to even for me to keep talking about it because I feel like I talk about it all the time and it's so obvious to me that you don't want to dress like a Native person for Halloween.
00:39:21.159 --> 00:39:26.369
But recently the company Yandy, have you been following that.
00:39:26.619 --> 00:39:27.099
[] stuff?
00:39:27.489 --> 00:39:28.420
No, that's a whole other thing.
00:39:28.420 --> 00:39:40.150
Yandy is a costume company and they got in trouble this Halloween season because they made a sexy Handmaid's Tale outfit.
00:39:40.780 --> 00:39:46.809
Um, so it was like the Red Cape cloak thing and like the white bonnet and lingerie underneath.
00:39:47.380 --> 00:39:57.909
And to anyone who has read the Handmaid's tale or watch the TV show, obviously it is a show that is not about those ideas.
00:39:57.911 --> 00:39:59.769
It's a, it's about sexual assault.
00:39:59.771 --> 00:40:02.289
It's about women not having autonomy over their bodies.
00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:03.460
Of course, people got mad.
00:40:03.739 --> 00:40:05.710
YNndy immediately took it down and apologized.
00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:13.030
And so then all these native folks were like, Hey, so you're going to listen to people saying things are offensive.
00:40:13.150 --> 00:40:18.070
What about those 18 pages ofative costumes that you have on your website?
00:40:17.530 --> 00:40:25.780
And Yandy said, uh,"well, we'll only change it if there's like a big outcry.
00:40:26.050 --> 00:40:30.610
If there is a big protest." And it folks were like, well, here's all the receipts.
00:40:30.610 --> 00:40:33.699
Here's how we've been protesting you for like a bazillion years.
00:40:33.880 --> 00:40:36.010
Here's the petition we did last year.
00:40:36.010 --> 00:40:39.280
Here's the petition from this year that has 22,000 signatures.
00:40:39.550 --> 00:40:45.519
And Native activists have actually been going to the headquarters to protest and the police get called.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:52.300
And so there's this striking difference between when predominantly white women, uh, protested the Handmaid's Tale.
00:40:52.300 --> 00:41:01.840
And when Native women are protesting Native Halloween costumes, the response is one side gets a costume taken down and an apology.
00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:09.519
The other gets the cops called on them and they told, um, Amanda Blackhorse who we're going to, uh, talk to on this podcast.
00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:15.579
They told her that they make$150,000 a year on Native costumes alone.
00:41:16.030 --> 00:41:19.929
Um, and so this is a huge moneymaker for them.
00:41:20.550 --> 00:41:34.969
Because it falls right in line with the historical belief systems about this country, which is that goes all the way back to Manifest destiny that you're entitled to that land and the wild savage creatures that live there.
00:41:35.449 --> 00:41:50.539
If money is to be made off of Indian things, Indian land, Indian imagery, u m, then seemingly the general sentiment is y eah, make that money.
00:41:51.380 --> 00:42:04.280
Um, so I do want to read a couple of the descriptions of Native Halloween costumes from the Spirit Halloween store and these are from a couple of years ago and they have changed them, which is some progress.
00:42:04.449 --> 00:42:14.960
T here's still some problematic things on there, but I just want to say like, I just want to show that this is how these companies are marketing these costumes to the folks who say it's not a problem.
00:42:15.289 --> 00:42:32.030
So, um, this one is called"tribal, Tribal Trouble Indian." It says,"Put the wow back in pow-wow when you go native in this very sexy Tribal Trouble Indian adult women’s costume.
00:42:32.030 --> 00:42:53.239
They may need to break out the peace pipe because the other[word I dont even like to say] will want to torch your teepee when their menfolk see you in this foxy costume! And then on a m ale costume, it a says go Native American in this classic adult men's Indian Brave costume.
00:42:53.269 --> 00:42:55.159
Your job– to hunt.
00:42:55.161 --> 00:42:59.630
Hunt for prey like food and beer or pretty women in this comfortable costume.
00:42:59.630 --> 00:43:17.360
Get what you want then lay back and enjoy– pass the peace pipe!" Uh, this last one just ends with,"is that an ear of corn in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" So we know that the sexualization of native women is a huge problem.
00:43:17.389 --> 00:43:27.920
That missing and murdered Indigenous women is a enormous, enormous conversation that is not being had in the US.
00:43:28.280 --> 00:43:41.269
Um, and that these costumes continue that process of overly sexualizing Native women, of treating them as sexual objects as something that can be exploited, something that can be obtained, something that can be bought.
00:43:41.960 --> 00:43:51.710
I think the bottom line with these Halloween costumes is that it's about an issue of respect and about these issues of invisibility.
00:43:51.769 --> 00:44:02.809
And if the only images that we have our Halloween costumes and mascots, then it doesn't translate to respect of our actual identities and our actual communities.
00:44:03.110 --> 00:44:23.539
And when you put a Native costume next to completely make believe wizard or fairy or whatever it is that is not respecting the living, breathing, diverse, beautiful, contemporary Indigenous communities that surround all of us.
00:44:24.789 --> 00:44:27.349
I actually wrote a little poem about this and I read it for you.
00:44:27.351 --> 00:44:40.539
It's short, it's a, it's um, a response and it's, it's not very polished so I apologize, but it's a response to this, um, this idea that says we are dressing up like Indians because we want to honor Indians.
00:44:41.079 --> 00:44:45.039
We are dressing up like Indians because we want to honor Indians.
00:44:45.429 --> 00:44:51.039
If you wanted to honor Indians, you would actually honor them and there are real ways to do that.
00:44:51.579 --> 00:45:00.969
You would change the legislation so that every time our public spaces honor our country, they all acknowledge also that they are on indigenous land.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:18.039
If you wanted to honor Indians, you would show up to protect the Indigenous land that your presence is destroying by protesting, contributing, donating, signing petitions, canvassing and becoming an accomplice to the thousands of atives that have dedicated their lives to protecting Indigenous land.
00:45:18.610 --> 00:45:21.670
If you want it to honor Indians, you would change the name.
00:45:21.730 --> 00:45:31.150
If you wanted to honor Indians, you would participate in closing the Indigenous achievement gap in education and ensure that more than 50% of Indians didn't drop out of your school district.
00:45:31.929 --> 00:45:39.730
If you wanted to honor Indians, you would buy Indigenous from Indigenous people, from inspired Natives, not Native inspired.
00:45:40.570 --> 00:45:47.170
If you wanted to honor Indians, you would consider doing something major and give the land back, to an Indian.
00:45:46.541 --> 00:45:48.550
Deed your property.
00:45:49.179 --> 00:45:59.500
You'd contribute to the missing and murdered indigenous women movement and volunteer search, contribute and protect the thousands of Indigenous women that are going missing.
00:46:00.429 --> 00:46:13.630
You would teach your children the Indigenous history of the land you are occupying because everywhere in North America has an Indigenous history and the woke mine knows that that history is brutal and that many Indigenous lives were taken.
00:46:13.869 --> 00:46:15.579
So you could settle that place.
00:46:16.389 --> 00:46:17.800
You would stop assimilating us.
00:46:18.219 --> 00:46:20.349
You would stopped asking us to believe in your God.
00:46:19.900 --> 00:46:22.929
You would stop destroying the ecosystem.
00:46:23.500 --> 00:46:26.469
You'd help restore the habitats and animals that lived here.
00:46:26.679 --> 00:46:30.760
The Salmon, the Buffalo, the sea turtles, the whales, the wolves.
00:46:31.269 --> 00:46:33.039
They also deserve to live.
00:46:33.670 --> 00:46:38.650
If you wanted to honor Indians, you'd stop dressing up like us on Halloween.
00:46:39.099 --> 00:46:40.750
That's how you can honor Indians.
00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:41.440
Boom.
00:46:53.619 --> 00:46:59.860
We now turn to the portion of the podcast where we throw it to our audience and get some questions.
00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:05.139
And you and I have, uh, put these questions out on our Facebook and Twitter.
00:47:05.141 --> 00:47:11.530
And Instagram and are going to answer some questions on the topic of cultural appropriation.
00:47:11.650 --> 00:47:12.789
Exactly.
00:47:11.650 --> 00:47:13.610
We love you.
00:47:13.610 --> 00:47:15.860
Thanks for sending in your questions.
00:47:15.860 --> 00:47:20.000
Go ahead Adrienne, who's your first participant?
00:47:20.349 --> 00:47:30.280
The first question I want to talk about, I think is a really good one and it kind of crosses a lot of folks brought up similar topics but basically can other tribes from each other.
00:47:30.369 --> 00:47:31.869
And that comes from Brad Jones.
00:47:31.929 --> 00:47:33.130
Shout out to Brad.
00:47:33.650 --> 00:47:35.409
Uh, he's a a teacher in Oklahoma.
00:47:35.469 --> 00:47:35.829
I know him.
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:40.809
Um, so can tribes appropriate from one another?
00:47:42.250 --> 00:48:05.269
Well, yeah, I, you know, I actually, I've been talking about this recently with my niece because she's a student at Northwest Indian College and one of her professors told her that she should only learn from her own grandparents, from her own tribe, and that if she was to learn from other elders from other tribes, that would be cultural misappropriation.
00:48:05.570 --> 00:48:13.699
And she was super upset and she said,"but you know, like I did my woman's coming of age ceremony at another tribe.
00:48:13.701 --> 00:48:19.489
I, I love to learn from your mom." And she had all of these, um, emotional responses.
00:48:20.179 --> 00:48:29.150
And then she asked me did I think that was appropriate.And of course, I'm a person who's traveled all over Indian country learning from all kinds of grandmas.
00:48:29.659 --> 00:48:46.969
And, uh, there is a difference, a very distinct difference though, am and learning and appreciating and participating and following other people's cultural protocol and then taking that cultural protocol and calling it my own without crediting.
00:48:47.389 --> 00:48:51.079
And so that is what we discussed in that way.
00:48:51.081 --> 00:49:09.139
And so I don't know that there's, if I get invited to a Sundance or a Ghost dance or a powwow, uh, another person's tribal doing, I'll go and I'll go respectfully and I'll do my best to be as respectful and well behaved in that scenario.
00:49:10.980 --> 00:49:18.320
Uh, that doesn't mean that I get to then, you know, like go to a Pueblo dance and then come home and be like, yeah,"Yo, Yo, I learned this Pueblo dance.
00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:21.500
Let's dance." You know?
00:49:21.501 --> 00:49:24.230
So, um, yeah, there, that's my thought on it.
00:49:24.260 --> 00:49:25.489
That's what comes to mind for me.
00:49:25.519 --> 00:49:26.030
How about you?
00:49:26.239 --> 00:49:41.360
Yeah, I mean I think if we're talking about cultural appropriation and these, these power dynamics, of course it's a little bit different if it's like Native to Native, the power differential is slightly different than if it's like a non-Native person, um, to a Native person.
00:49:41.570 --> 00:49:55.969
But I definitely think that there are boundaries that are crossed when folks take from other tribes and then profit from it, um, or commodify in a way that then they are taking it out of its context.
00:49:56.269 --> 00:50:03.769
Um, I think it gets very complicated in terms of when folks want to do it right as well.
00:50:03.771 --> 00:50:13.670
If they do it through collaboration with another community, does it mean that no Navajo person ever is allowed to make any art that is not Navajo?
00:50:14.119 --> 00:50:21.769
Does it mean that if they do it in collaboration and coordination with someone from another community, then it's okay.
00:50:22.130 --> 00:50:30.179
Um, so I think there's a lot of questions that we need to ask when we're drawing upon source material from communities that are not our own.
00:50:30.539 --> 00:50:35.699
And it goes back to those ideas that you were talking about, about respect and protocol and all of those pieces.
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:42.090
And I would never think that learning in a good way from other Native folks is any sort of appropriation.
00:50:42.090 --> 00:50:44.250
To me that is not what we're talking about here.
00:50:44.280 --> 00:51:00.360
Like I'm more thinking about people who are non-Lakota that decide to sell sweat ceremonies or like, uh, people who are Coast Salish but are creating art from other communities that they're then selling.
00:51:00.510 --> 00:51:04.170
Um, or like commodities at the same time.
00:51:04.170 --> 00:51:10.860
Like people go out and pick a[inaudible], you know, like Lakota sage and make medicine bundles and then sell them on Etsy.
00:51:10.860 --> 00:51:11.610
Yes.
00:51:11.730 --> 00:51:22.139
Part of it is because l ike, I'm thinking also of like dream catchers are an Anishinabe thing and you can find them in every tribal casino made by that tribe, you know?
00:51:22.500 --> 00:51:28.380
And so there are ways that culture gets disseminated and moves and is appreciated among communities.
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:33.030
But then there are also things that I think it blurs the line a little bit.
00:51:33.570 --> 00:51:38.130
And so t here's, with many of these cultural appropriation conversations, there's no easy answer.
00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:53.789
And I think it just goes back to knowing those protocols, knowing how you interact with other communities, knowing the good way to go about it and the positive way to do it that isn't harmful to that community that you want to learn from and share with.
00:51:54.389 --> 00:52:02.820
And if you don't know what she means by the good way, go ask your grandma, talk to your grandma to or talk to your grandpa or talk to an elder in your community.
00:52:02.820 --> 00:52:05.940
Because all of this knowledge is not new knowledge.
00:52:05.940 --> 00:52:13.130
This is knowledge that is passed down to us and we can't take responsibility for any of the teachings that we have because they come from everybody that came before us.
00:52:13.130 --> 00:52:18.710
So if you haven't had the opportunity to have good elders in your life, then you need to find yourself an Auntie.
00:52:18.710 --> 00:52:18.710
[ Laughter]
00:52:22.690 --> 00:52:28.449
There are a few questions on Twitter that I think we can kind of combine of folks asking.
00:52:29.239 --> 00:52:40.690
Uh, what are the ways to broach these conversations around cultural appropriation with friends and family who may not agree with you, especially if they're are other Native folks.
00:52:42.139 --> 00:52:56.199
Uh, this makes me think of last year when we were getting ready to go to Thanksgiving dinner and there was, there was some television show on that morning that was saying how to talk about Donald Trump at your thanksgiving dinner.
00:52:57.610 --> 00:52:59.349
And this kind of reminds me of that.
00:53:00.219 --> 00:53:02.679
Like, ooh, we're going to bring that up at dinner.
00:53:04.150 --> 00:53:06.010
How do we breach this subject?
00:53:06.070 --> 00:53:24.460
I think, uh, for me the best way to breach any subject is to come in a good way with a good mind and a good heart and, and to feel, and to humble myself and to acknowledge that I'm still learning and these are the ways that I'm thinking about this.
00:53:24.489 --> 00:53:25.949
How do you think about this?
00:53:25.951 --> 00:53:29.099
And, and I think it's a good conversation to have.
00:53:29.309 --> 00:53:30.329
These are my opinions.
00:53:30.420 --> 00:53:31.949
What are your opinions?
00:53:31.951 --> 00:53:39.989
And respecting each other's answers and understanding that the answers that we had today might be different than the answers we're going to have 10 years from now.
00:53:40.230 --> 00:53:54.239
And so it's okay for us to under, to be very gentle and loving with one another as we're having these conversations and to remember that each person is in their own stage of the healing journey that they're on.
00:53:54.630 --> 00:53:59.280
And, um, when I'm in judgment of another person, I'm not in a spiritual place.
00:53:59.550 --> 00:54:06.900
And so in a good, if I'm in a good place, if I'm doing things in a good way, I'm, I come without judgment and, and be very loving in the process.
00:54:06.900 --> 00:54:11.190
And, and when I am that way, then it's easier for me to have these kinds of conversations.
00:54:12.269 --> 00:54:15.420
I'm someone who grew up in completely white suburbia.
00:54:15.980 --> 00:54:21.960
Um, I have a lot of, my family doesn't really strongly identify as Native.
00:54:22.670 --> 00:54:30.150
I'm definitely, most of my classmates in high school were white and did not understand these issues.
00:54:30.150 --> 00:54:45.750
So I'm definitely, I've been in a lot of spaces where this has been the case where I have to try and explain to folks who have never encountered these issues or have very strong strange opinions about the Washington, R-words or whatever it is that these are actually things that matter.
00:54:46.139 --> 00:54:58.949
And these conversations are hard and I want to acknowledge that to all the people who are reading my, our writing online and thinking that we are very well versed and can have these conversations easily.
00:54:59.369 --> 00:55:03.929
They're hard and I've been writing about this for a long time and they haven't gotten easier for me.
00:55:03.931 --> 00:55:21.630
That in person confrontation is really, really hard and so the way that I think about it is that I know that when you have these conversations, people are never going to stop, I mean they might, they might stop and thank you and say,"wow, I never thought about it that way.
00:55:21.630 --> 00:55:25.949
I'm going to go take off my Halloween costume now" or whatever, but most times they're not.
00:55:25.980 --> 00:55:27.239
They're going to get really defensive.
00:55:27.240 --> 00:55:28.920
They're going to dig into their own opinion.
00:55:29.190 --> 00:55:37.949
They're going to hold on tight to what they think they know, but what I think about is trying to create what I call"moments of pause" after our conversation.
00:55:37.951 --> 00:55:50.519
Maybe the next time they turn on the TV and they see that logo of the Washington football team, they're going to have that just even if it's just a split second where they remember our conversation and are like,"Hey, Adrienne doesn't like that.
00:55:51.030 --> 00:55:55.440
Native people don't like that." They might go on and continue to watch the game.
00:55:55.469 --> 00:55:58.619
But over time those moments of pause are going to add up.
00:55:58.949 --> 00:56:02.760
And I have personal experiences with like a camp director.
00:56:02.760 --> 00:56:15.239
I used to work at um, uh, camp during the summer and he and I, over the entire time of camp would have these intense conversations about Indian mascots and he never would change his opinion.
00:56:15.480 --> 00:56:21.690
And years later he sent me an email and was like,"hey, remember all those conversations we had at camp?
00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:26.369
I totally get it now." 10 years after we had been at camp together.
00:56:26.400 --> 00:56:36.989
It's hard because you want people to immediately embrace your point of view and to know these conversations are still important even if they don't have the immediate outcome that you want.
00:56:37.079 --> 00:56:37.440
Yeah.
00:56:37.440 --> 00:56:43.679
And, um, on that note, we just want to thank you so much for having a listen to this conversation.
00:56:44.820 --> 00:56:49.380
We realize that some of it could have been very uncomfortable for you to listen to.
00:56:49.380 --> 00:56:51.480
And so thank you for sticking with us.
00:56:51.809 --> 00:56:57.300
And if you need to have some more resources of how to have these conversations in real life.
00:56:57.659 --> 00:57:03.900
Uh, may I recommend my blog, my Vlog, Native Appropriations, nativeappropriations.com.
00:57:05.190 --> 00:57:24.119
I uh, it has like over 300 close to 400 different blog posts on their detailing, all sorts of examples of appropriation language to talk about it and also stories of the responses from companies and celebrities and all sorts of folks about what they did when confronted with cultural appropriation.
00:57:24.329 --> 00:57:25.469
It's a great resource.
00:57:25.471 --> 00:57:27.210
I've, I love reading your blog Adrienne.
00:57:27.460 --> 00:57:31.800
Especially the ones where you talk about wild things.
00:57:33.900 --> 00:57:35.309
She gets wild on there.
00:57:35.311 --> 00:57:37.170
So I you, you have to go look,
00:57:40.469 --> 00:57:46.860
we just want to take a moment to thank Miss Laura Ortman for the beautiful music on this episode.
00:57:47.369 --> 00:57:52.889
She's incredible and is the first Native person playing at the Whitney biennial in NYC.
00:57:53.731 --> 00:57:59.429
So if you are in the area, totally check her out but you can also find her work on Bandcamp.
00:57:59.730 --> 00:58:00.320
and onboard.
00:58:00.449 --> 00:58:03.510
For the next episode we're talking with two of our favorite native fashionistas.
00:58:03.510 --> 00:58:13.880
Designer J ania Kumon and fashion entrepreneur and scholar J essica Metcalf w ho is the creator of the Beyond Buckskin botique t here.
00:58:13.889 --> 00:58:23.340
Seriously the coolest and we t alked to them about their journeys through the fashion world and the incredible work they're doing, pushing boundaries and creating spaces for other Mative folks in fashion.
00:58:23.940 --> 00:58:26.849
We Love them so much and J essica i s the funniest.
00:58:26.851 --> 00:58:27.659
You're going to love her.
00:58:27.690 --> 00:58:28.519
I Love Jessica.
00:58:28.670 --> 00:58:34.710
She just like giggles and giggles and giggles and makes me giggle and Google and Google and so I hope you're in for the giggle ride.
00:58:37.199 --> 00:58:38.159
Even more than usual.
00:58:40.329 --> 00:58:59.099
Before we close this episode, we just would like to ask all of you if you would please take a moment in your very busy lives to record a voicemail on the contact page of our website, allmyrelationspodcast.com for our upcoming episode.
00:58:59.101 --> 00:59:08.429
We are discussing Native languages and we would love to hear how you say all my relations or the associated concept in your language.
00:59:08.500 --> 00:59:14.369
So hop on over there to our website and record a message for us if you're able, we would totally love it.
00:59:14.460 --> 00:59:17.579
We'd like to get at least a hundred different nations involved.
00:59:17.639 --> 00:59:19.170
A hundred?
00:59:19.170 --> 00:59:19.170
A hundred.
00:59:19.170 --> 00:59:23.079
Damn cause I thinking like four.
00:59:23.079 --> 00:59:25.829
A hundred.
00:59:26.099 --> 00:59:27.110
all my relations.