September 14, 2010

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.

    12 comments:

    Burt said...

    Rob, I am curious if you have ever heard of the racist icon used for a small, but popular college and sports bar in Stillwater, Oklahoma called, "Eskimo Joes"!

    The business uses a smiling, menacing grinned caricature of what is supposed to be an "eskimo" as its business symbol.

    http://www.eskimojoes.com/

    There were a few small protest going on when I went to school back in the 90's, but I don't think anything ever came of it and the business owner won out.

    Rob said...

    No, I haven't heard of that.

    It's not too late for another protest. Let's see how Eskimo Joe fares in the Internet/Facebook/Twitter era.

    Burt said...

    What disturbs me about this symbol and its representation is if you look into the "eskimos" eyes, they are whitened out and blank, as if there is nothing there, but the smile says it all for me.

    I had a friend in Oklahoma whom was Inuit from Alaska and she said this would not be acceptable in Alaska. Recent racial slurs done on the radio angered both natives and non-natives alike.

    Did you also know that the University of Oklahoma offers native languages (Creek/Seminole; Choctaw; Cherokee; Kiowa and Cheyenne), but accredits them as "foreign" language electives?

    Only in Oklahoma, the same state that banned Jim Thorpe, but NOW wants him back and buried there, the state that has an ongoing tradition of ignoring and even demonizing native dignitaries, veterans included.

    dmarks said...

    Burt said:

    "Did you also know that the University of Oklahoma offers native languages (Creek/Seminole; Choctaw; Cherokee; Kiowa and Cheyenne), but accredits them as "foreign" language electives?"

    That's better than not recognizing at all. I mentioned elsewhere about the fluent Odawa speaker who had a problem that the University of Michigan said she did not meet a foreign-language speaking requirement. Rather than mislabel Native languages as "foreign", they did not recognize them at all!

    Burt said...

    Thats like saying, "at least they gave the Jews numbers in concentration camps so they could keep track of them."

    I appreciate your "optimism" in seeing the good side of racism Dmarks, but,

    QUESTION: "At what point in American history do the descendants of foreigners and state governments call the original peoples for what they are, original Americans?

    ANSWER: Possibly never, or by anglo-philosophy, Natives and tribal nations have to BUY their way into American history books and culture?

    How do you pay for something you already own and by that logic, white America has yet to pay tribes for theft and destruction of resources, muchless real estate.

    Again, you seem to only use the "right" side of your brain Dmarks and that being said, your comments are always half empty and half full.

    dmarks said...

    They did not kill my Odawa-speaking friend, so your concentration camp analogy is apples and oranges.

    I'm sure that the people of the strongly liberal University of Michigan would appreciate you equating them with Nazis... NOT.

    "Again, you seem to only use the "right" side of your brain Dmarks and that being said, your comments are always half empty and half full."

    I doubt you will find anyone that will agree with you on this issue.

    "How do you pay for something you already own and by that logic, white America has yet to pay tribes for theft and destruction of resources, muchless real estate."

    I agree with you on general principes, which is why it is curious why you had a hissy-fit here. Perhaps it is a grudge carried over from elsewhere, like when I called you out on your very racist statement about the Navajo.

    Take a deep breath. Don't let emotions rule.

    Burt said...

    You are the first person I have ever heard openly state that Natives were not corraled together like cattle which is equal to Nazi "concentration camps" and refer to native sufferage and Jewish sufferage as "apples and oranges". Remember Dmarks, some Jews survived those camps also, even I know that.

    Rob needs not look far to find his "steroetype" of the month with Dmarks here.
    He (Dmarks) always plays down native history and our plight with comments like, "it was better than this or better than that," or calls the US federal policies and practices of genocide against its first peoples "fairy tales".

    When I made this remark:

    "How do you pay for something you already own and by that logic, white America has yet to pay tribes for theft and destruction of resources, muchless real estate."

    Dmarks calls this a "hissy fit"!

    This guy is not native, defines native issues through his conservative right-wing lament against liberals, something he could do on Michael Moore's website or someone else and he is not the publisher of this blog and yet he "trolls" this site hating on natives and our plight!

    Why does Rob allow this?

    dmarks said...

    Burt said: "You are the first person I have ever heard openly state that Natives were not corraled together like cattle which is equal to Nazi "concentration camps""

    Time to call your bluff: Where did I openly, or covertly say this? You should be able to readily provide a quotation. You won't. I know it already.

    "and refer to native sufferage and Jewish sufferage as "apples and oranges"

    You know as well as I do that we were talking about foreign/native language distinctions in modern universities. As deplorable as the modern situation is, it IS without a doubt "apples and oranges" when compared to Natives being killed in concentration camps.

    "Rob needs not look far to find his "steroetype" of the month with Dmarks here."

    During your frequent "shut off brain and rant away without regards to anything said rants", you have lost sight of the fact that I have agreed with you on actual Native issues.

    I just happen to disagree strongly with your stereotype description of Navajo, your buying into a JFK hoax, and your claim that because all Jews are rich, it makes the Holocaust OK. None of which has anything to do with Native issues. The only actual Native issue we've locked horns on is Ward Churchill.

    The rest of from your flawed logic, one example being your assertion that rejecting the JFK hoax means that one disrespects Native rights.

    "or calls the US federal policies and practices of genocide against its first peoples "fairy tales"."

    You actually use the term "Fairy Tale" far more than I do. But I reserved it only for referring to the JFK and 9/11 "inside job" hoaxes. I defy you to come up with one instance of me calling any situation with Natives a "Fairy tale". Again, you won't.

    "Dmarks calls this a "hissy fit"!"

    It was. Your statement had nothing do with what I said.

    "This guy is not native, defines native issues through his conservative right-wing lament against liberals,"

    I defy you to come up with one example of this. Again... you won't. I part company with conservatives on most Bative issues, along with other things.

    "...hating on natives and our plight! Why does Rob allow this?"

    Yes, Rob, why do you allow my frequent Native bashing? Why oh why?

    Anonymous said...

    @ Burt, please oh please don't try to explain to dmarks the meaning of the word steal!!! Bwhahahaha!!! ROFLMAO with tears streaming down my face.


    Anonymouse

    dmarks said...

    mouse: explaining it? No you redefined it on the fly. Have you since looked up the word? Last time you had no idea what it meant.

    Burt said...

    Dmarks, I have never said anything close to or even used the words rich and Jew in the same regard, thats someone else you are arguing with,

    I also never talked about Navajos, and my talk of "holocaust" was shortlived and only compared with the genocide of natives.

    Where are you getting this stuff?

    Rob said...

    I discussed the term "First Americans" in "First Americans" Isn't an Honorific.

    I'd say DMarks rarely if ever "hates" on Natives and their plight. And he's been the most consistent commenter over the blog's four years, so I wouldn't call him a troll.