November-December 2008 Stereotype of the Month loser

Since 2008 I've been too busy to concentrate on my Stereotype of the Month contest. I haven't named the "winners" since October 2008. Well, I'm gonna try to catch up, starting with this guest entry by Felicia Wetzig, who's working for Blue Corn Comics as an editorial assistant.

First, the nominees:

Whopper commercial mocks Natives
Campbell Brown slams Indians
"Grey Eagle" teaches stereotypes
Aborigines wallow in garbage on "arses"
Massasoit statue in Utah
Indian princesses on Facebook
Horsing around with Horsey
"Chief Chicken Hawk" t-shirt
Fuzzy Indians in (Lil) Green Patch
Palin rap features "Eskimos"

Felicia's choices:Loser--Campbell Brown slams Indians

She was obviously jumping to conclusions on the particular case and making it seem like Native Americans aren’t even fit to care for their own, and to make matters worse she put these misconceptions on the air for the entire country to see.

It was on CNN, a network that thousands of people tend to rely on and trust for news coverage.

Furthers the misconception that Native Americans are unable to take care of themselves even though they are supposed to be “sovereign”

It implies that only white Americans are qualified to pick up the pieces when a Native American child is in danger

Are Native American families the only ones who ever lose their children? In 2009, there were more than 423,000 American children in foster care. So maybe American communities should focus on strengthening their own families before trying to tell other groups how to take care of theirs.

I also looked up the article on CNN.com. Brown said, “The law allows them to broadly declare who is Native American.”

Who else should really be able to define who is Native American? Shouldn’t it be up to them to define themselves as they see fit?

Brown also neglects to mention the particular circumstances around the case--specifically that the boy was not taken from his birth mother; she gave him up for adoption without being completely honest with the adoption agency.

Dishonorable mention--Chief Chicken Hawk t-shirt

Although it may not have reached as large of an audience as many of the others, 1072 of the shirts were sold in a single day, and the posts in the discussion board are equally offensive.

Pawnee is a real tribe--If it is just meant to be a harmless joke, a work of fictional humor that is not really meant to poke fun at Indians, why discolor the name of a real Indian tribe?

Even if the creators didn’t intend the Indian=chicken implication, they are still mocking a sacred symbol.

Also in the product description:

Wear this shirt: when you’re butchering chickens, to let them know you honor them as worthy adversaries. Then maybe they won’t haunt you.

This shirt tells the world: “The Indians are coming home to roost.”

Seriously? And people in the comments claimed not to understand how this t-shirt could promote unhealthy interpretations of Indians.

Comment:  Good job, Felicia!

I like Felicia's choices. In some other month I might've gone for the Chief Chicken Hawk t-shirt as the dishonorable mention. But instead I'm going with the Massasoit statue for these reasons:

1) I think more people will see a statue in front of the Utah state capitol than a t-shirt sold online. In other words, it'll have more of an impact.

2) Although the online comments are valid supporting evidence of a stereotype's harm, we can't use them as the primary justification for a choice. Otherwise we'd have thousands of entries from thousands of ignorant individuals every month.

3) Placing a statue of a half-naked Massachusetts chief in Utah just strikes me as terribly wrong. I want to keep the pressure on these people till they get the message.

For more on the subject, see Anti-Indian Bias in 2008.

Below:  The Massasoit statue in Utah.