Iktome Returns: What Do Native Americans Want from Whites?

I had several cultural activist groups send me the worst examples of minstrelsy they could find and I made of collage of examples from the present placed next to examples from the past. I'm trying to illustrate the racism (conscious or unconscious) behind playing Indian on a visual and emotional level. This was designed to be a teaching tool.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Native American
• Cultural appropriation
• Cultural theft
• cultural imperialism
• culture vultures

[phansen57]

I'm curious about your thoughts around the issue of reappropriation of culture once it has been appropriated and distorted by another culture. How do you get it back and "cleanse" it or re-infuse it with its original meaning?

[iktomereturns]

The term reappropriation is meaningless to me. FN ppl have preserved our spiritual ways through the observation of protocols ever since we were first occupied by foreign powers. We dont have any need to re-infuse anything with meaning. OUR ways have meaning to US. Our enemy is the outsiders who insist on stripping our ways of meaning in their relentless attempts to globalize what we have created and to turn our living cultures into dead objects that can be owned.

[phansen57]

Your passionate concern is a common one. I understand that meaning can never be fully taken from those who hold it. My question has to do with the "relentless attempts to globalize" you mention. When faced with that, what are your thoughts on reversing or repairing the damage caused?

[iktomereturns]

The point is that once you pervert and twist something, you can't "repair" it. We think of our culture as a living thing we are meant to be caretakers of. You are speaking of it as if it were a broken clock. Our point is, you can't un-do or make amends for sacriledge, so you should do everything to avoid commiting an act of sacriledge - even if it spoils your fun.

[ambienttechno]

@FancyShawl99 Exactly. And don't tell us, it's to honor us, we can decide that for ourselves.

[Cylixx3]

Baaaaaahhhh, frankly forgive the white folk. They're existence is a 25000 year long theme of chaos, death and meaninglessness, that helps clearly see what is truth and justice is. A freakish carnival that our sideshows and cultures can use as a courier. All that is holy is circular, all things in nature are circular, you only find straight lines and grid patterns where white man gets involved, but life is circular, and when it returns to it's center, straight lines cannot be displayed. Love x

[FancyShawl99]

what we want is to be respected,not steriotyped. as simple as that.

[phansen57]

Politeness and rhetoric are curious bedfellows. To borrow your terminology, genocide is a process of annihilation. My question was not about bringing back the dead; rather, I am interested in reaffirming those or that which remains.