"Seminole Spirit" = "savage swamp mermaid"

Victoria's Secret Photographer, Model Present 'Seminole Spirit' Imagery in NYCAn exhibit of photography that may elicit a variety of reactions in Indian country opens today at Stephan Weiss Studio in New York City. Called "Seminole Spirit," it consists of highly stylized photos taken in the wetlands and swamps of Florida by Australian shooter Russell James, who is most famous for his photography of Victoria's Secret models. A number of the photos feature Victoria's Secret Angel Behati Prinsloo, while others depict landscapes, alligators, and the Seminole people.

The project was undertaken in cooperation with the Seminole Nation of Florida, under the guidance of Chief James Billie and medicine man Bobby Henry.

"I didn't want [Prinsloo] to be representative of the Seminole, of course," James says, according to Gotham Magazine. "But I went to Seminole land and I shot things like the way they build, the way a man holds his hands—all these things [about] Seminole culture. Then I took Behati and created a fantasy character that I call Seminole Spirit. She represents this thing, this movement that I call relevant, modern, cultural, all of these things combined, and that's how Seminole Spirit came about."The 10 nude photographs of Prinsloo, which represent less than one-third of the material, are bound to grab the most attention. Of the experience, Prinsloo who is currently ranked 15th on the "Money Girls" list at models.com, said that "We painted my body gold as we tried to capture an idea we had of what ‘Seminole Spirit’ is […] I felt like a savage swamp mermaid on Seminole land, crazy."Comment:  A gold-painted savage swamp mermaid? Sounds stereotypical to me.

Talk about your exotic others. Indians as mermaids, fairies, swamp dwellers, savages...this "Seminole Spirit" is a one-woman Peter Pan menagerie. She could star in the next Pirates of the Caribbean as the movie's supernatural monster.

Does photographer Russell James, not to mention Chief Billie, realize that Seminoles are doctors, lawyers, and teachers? Why would you want to reinforce the idea that they're otherworldly creatures who live in a magical world of spirits and demons? That's already what people think, and now they've reinforced the idea.

FSU unveils new uniforms

FSU officially unveils new logo, uniforms

FSU's three new uniform options are garnet, white and black

By Brendan SonnoneFSU unveiled its new logo and football uniforms Friday.

The fan base's initial response to the school's logo change--an altered version of the Seminole head that has been used since 1971--was generally negative when the new emblem was leaked earlier in the month.

But the hostility was seemingly negated when fans got a look at the new uniforms during Friday's "Ignition…Tradition" event. FSU had several players model the three new uniforms, which come in white, garnet and black. Jerseys and pants were matching colors.And:FSU approached Nike two years ago with the intent of rebranding the athletic department. The school cited a desire to use a consistent shade of garnet for all of its athletic wear and to create a logo that is easier to replicate as primary factors for making the changes.

Wilcox said the Seminole Tribe approved the logo change, as well as the additions to the football uniforms, which has the Seminole Tribe's symbols for arrow, man on horse and fire integrated into the sleeves and neckline of the uniform.

The helmet still has a spear on each side, but the spears now cross at the back.More photos of the new uniforms:

PHOTOS: Florida State unveils new look for 2014

FSU unveils new uniforms and logo

#IgnitionTradition: FSU Unveils New Uniforms

Comment:  I'd say the new uniforms are average.

The Seminole or Native-style elements around the neck and shoulders are nice in theory, but they're too small to be seen at a distance. The logo in the center of the chest is also too small.

The Nike swish is almost comical. The team is honoring Indians and tradition by selling out to a corporate sponsor.

But the real head-scratcher is the spears on the helmets. They reinforce the message that to FSU, Indians are nothing but savage spearchuckers.

For more on the subject, see FSU Updates Seminole Logo.

FSU updates Seminole logo

Florida State altering Seminole logo

By Jared ShankerFlorida State and its Seminole logo will undergo minor alterations.

The design alterations are rooted in the university’s desire to create consistency in its school colors and brand, but Florida State will continue to use the Seminole head as its logo. The head will undergo some alterations, as well.

“The changes are very minor and the primary thing people will see is consistency in the garnet,” Florida State vice president for university relations Liz Maryanski said. “If you go into a sports store and look across the store, you’ll see as many shades of garnet as there are T-shirts, and we’re trying to get consistency in our colors.

“… We’ll still have what we call ‘the head’ with the Seminole [Tribe’s] blessing.”Florida State fans furious with leaked Seminole logo update

By Nick SchwartzAlthough the changes to Osceola’s face are slight, many fans seem to hate the new design.

Heather Hostetter @heaaaatherrrr
I don't know why they would ever change the FSU logo. It's everywhere and everyone knows it. The new one just looks stupid.

Max Orr @Max_Orr
I'm really upset with the logo. Don't change perfection #FSU

James W. Thompson @LifeAsJamesT
I'm so out on the new FSU logo. I will never wear that logo.

Not a good look: On FSU's recent changes to the Seminole head logo and Florida State's relationship to its fans

Not a good look: On FSU's recent changes to the Seminole head logo and Florida State's relationship to its fans

By Brendan BuresLet's ignore this comment from FSU’s Athletics Department: “The issue was that our Seminole Head, while as recognizable and iconic as any in all of sports, does not reproduce well in a number of mediums (sic). It is particularly difficult to embroider and impossible to accurately represent on some materials including at midfield at Doak Campbell Stadium” and how it belies this new logo will solve all these problems.

Let's, then, begin with how Florida State’s new logo resembles an Italian father suffering a mid-life crisis to become a KISS band member while simultaneously enduring chronic diarrhea rather than a Seminole Indian. And let us also start with its unveiling: how in the dark all of us were, and how a simple picture from a Walmart employee derailed a reveal to change history. Because this is what we’re contending.

The new Seminole head is plain bad. It looks whitewashed of tradition and history, qualities Florida State rhetorically marries itself to any chance given. It’s poorly designed by Nike, who continues to prominently include a feather in FSU apparel, like when they redesigned FSU’s basketball uniforms with a feather streaking along the sides. (A uniform trait, it should be noted, that looks particularly silly whenever a player’s shirt becomes untucked from his pants.)

Furthermore, it resembles a white guy impersonating his idea of a Native American rather than an actual Native American. Doesn’t exactly help our reputation of cultural appropriation. While the Seminole tribe reportedly approved these changes, it was Nike who was influential in the design. It is no wonder why this new Seminole head looks so white. Florida State and Nike might believe this façade, but fans are holding no such illusions.Daily Rant: Not much is native about new FSU logo

By John A. TorresSeminole fans are up in spears about the new logo.

But, seriously, I don’t see what the big deal is. Sure, the new logo looks less Native American and more Halloweenish but we need a logo we can identify with. How many of us have really interacted with a Seminole? (Is it OK to call them Indians?)

We want somebody that looks more like us. Most of us these days have teeth, so they’ve given the logo a nice set of choppers. Who cares if they look like grandpa’s dentures?

They’ve also done away with the wild, savage-like hair and given the logo a neat John Travolta-type of hairdo. Think “Saturday Night Fever.” They’ve added nice little streaks of white in the coif, making the warrior a little more approachable. Maybe this guy really would like to sit down with you and smoke a peace pipe.Comment:  A few Native commenters noted that the new logo does indeed look like a white man. Perversely, one could say that's appropriate. The logo and mascot have always been about a white man portraying a false and stereotypical version of an Indian: "Chief" Osceola. Why not make this misrepresentation explicit?

But on a purely aesthetic level, I'd say the new logo is infinitely better. I always thought what FSU officials are implying: that the old logo was ugly. It looked like a muddled child's drawing, and I'm not surprised it didn't reproduce well. The new logo "wins" because it's clear and sharp and uncluttered with lettering.

But it's still a screaming savage, so it still fails as a Native representation. Sorry, but any logo with a leering, snarling, or screaming Indian is racist and wrong.

For more on the subject, see FSU's Seminole Mascot Is "Stunting" and ESPN's Seminole Minstrel Show. For my seminal Seminole takedown, see Why FSU's Seminoles Aren't Okay.

FSU's Seminole mascot is "stunting"

Seminoles nickname not a problem at Florida State

By Eddie PellsA student sitting atop a speckled Appaloosa and wearing a headdress and war paint will ride to the 30-yard line before the BCS title game and plant a flaming spear into the turf.

Some might cringe at the 35-year-old tradition carried out by "Osceola" and "Renegade" — the Florida State mascots that will lead the cheering when the Seminoles play the Auburn Tigers for the national championship Monday night.

But in a football season shadowed by controversy over the Washington Redskins nickname, nary a complaint has been heard out of Tallahassee, Fla., where "Seminoles" is more or less synonymous with the university, its football team and, of course, winning.

The key reason: The Seminole Tribe of Florida counts itself among the very biggest fans of Florida State, its nickname and all it represents.

"The relationship is treated with reverence," said Liz Maryanski, Florida State's vice president for university relations. "We are very respectful of them and we honor them because they, frankly, allow us to use their name."

The university, in fact, refuses to call the horse and rider its mascots, choosing instead to call them symbols of the Seminole that represents the school's sports teams.

Neither tribal President Tony Sanchez Jr., nor Chairman James Billie responded to interview requests from The Associated Press. But in an interview last month on CNN, Billie made it clear that neither the Redskins controversy nor any other outside force would alter the position tribal leaders agreed upon decades ago.

"Anybody come here into Florida trying to tell us to change the name, they better go someplace else, because we're not changing the name," Billie said.Then there's the op/ed below. After several paragraphs of Seminole history, the writer gets to the actual mascot:

A Native American football team name done right: Column

Florida State does the Seminoles proud.

By Glenn BoggsSo, what does this brief review of Seminole history in Florida teach us? Surely the lesson is that the men and women of the Seminole Tribe of Florida showed incredible courage, tenacity and skill under pressure, and the will to never, ever surrender. Of course these are precisely the attributes to hold up before the eyes of our university's athletic teams. And Florida State does just that. During the almost three decades I spent on the faculty, my impression was that the administration was uniformly solicitous of and attentive to the Seminole Tribe's viewpoint regarding the use of Seminole images and symbols. For example, just look at the dauntless statue of a mounted Seminole warrior located just outside the football stadium–it's named 'Unconquered ', and it is stunting. Anyone should be able to see that FSU's use of Seminole imagery and symbols is undertaken with great respect for the Tribe and, speaking as one retired professor, I'm grateful to them for allowing the university to do so. The fact that Florida State University is able to honor some of our state's Native Americans should be something for Americans to celebrate, and understanding a little Seminole history should help accomplish that.Note that he wrote "stunting," not stunning. Correct. This phony statue of a mounted warrior--the Seminoles didn't ride horses--stunts our knowledge of Native history. It makes the Seminoles into stereotypical horse-riding savages and nothing else.



FSU = racist mascot champion

These defenses of the "stunting" Seminole mascot sound okay. They've got the tribe's approval and everything. So what's the problem?

Well, Dave Zirin of the Nation explains it to us. His column is worth posting in full:

The Florida State Seminoles: The Champions of Racist Mascots

By Dave ZirinIt’s easy to oppose the name of the Washington Redskins and call for owner Dan Snyder to change his beloved bigoted brand. After all, it’s a dictionary-defined slur bestowed on the NFL franchise by their arch-segregationist, minstrel-loving founder. When you have Native American organizations, leading sportswriters, Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress and even the president say the time has come to change the name, it is not exactly difficult to get on board.

But what about the Florida State Seminoles, whose football team on Monday night won the Vizio/Dow Chemical/Blackwater/Vivid Video BCS National Championship Game? The NCAA, since 2005, has had formal restrictions against naming teams after Native American tribes, and yet there were the Seminole faithful: thousands of overwhelmingly Caucasian fans with feathers in their hair, doing the Tomahawk chop and whooping war chants on national television. Their passions were stirred into a frenzy by a white person, face smeared with war paint, dressed as the legendary chief Osceola riding out on a horse. As Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated gushed, “Chief Osceola plants the flaming spear in the Rose Bowl. Awesome.” (Osceola was adopted after the school quietly retired their previous Native American mascot “Sammy Seminole.”)

I have been to dozens of Redskins game and have never seen anything close to this kind of mass interactive minstrelsy. Yet there are no protests against this spectacle, no angry editorials and no politicians jumping on the issue. Why is that? Because as any Florida State fanatic will shout at you, the university has “a formal agreement with Seminole Nation” and that makes everything all right. Fans treat this much-touted agreement like they have a “racism amnesty card” in their back pocket. The approval of the Seminole Nation, they will tell you makes it all A-okay. Actually it doesn’t. It doesn’t first and foremost because the existence of this “agreement with the Seminole Nation” is a myth.

The agreement is with the Florida Seminole Tribal Council and not the Seminole Nation. The majority of Seminoles don’t even live in Florida. They live in Oklahoma, one of the fruits of the Seminole Wars, the Indian Removal Act and The Trail of Tears. These Oklahoma Seminoles—who, remember, are the majority—oppose the name. On October 26, 2013, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma’s governing body passed a resolution that read in part, “The Seminole Nation condemns the use of all American Indian sports team mascots in the public school system, by college and university level and by professional teams.”

As for the Florida Seminole Tribal Council, it is the owner of a series of luxury casino hotels throughout the state where the Seminole “brand” is prominently on display. The Tribal Council also bought the Hard Rock Cafe for $965 million in cash in 2006, which thanks to the Seminoles’ “first-nation status” now also offers gambling in its Florida locales. Hard Rock corporate called this “the perfect marriage of two kindred spirits.” Seminole Nation Hard Rock Hotel and Casino T-shirts are available for purchase.

For the wealthy and powerful Florida Seminole tribal leaders, the cultural elevation of the football program is a part of their extremely lucrative gaming operation. Defending the school’s use of the name is about defending its brand. That is why the chairman of the Florida Seminole Tribe of Florida, James Billie, said, “Anybody come here into Florida trying to tell us to change the name, they better go someplace else, because we’re not changing the name.”

Some might say that this is fine with them. After all, given the incalculable wealth stolen from Native American tribes over the centuries, what is wrong with them getting some of it back? That would be fine, except for the stubborn fact that gambling wealth flows into very few hands. The majority of Native Americans languish in dire poverty, with reservation poverty listed at 50 percent in the last census.

Another argument for the Florida State Seminoles’ keeping their name is that it actually educates people and keeps the history from being eradicated. This is self-serving codswallop, like saying a Muhammad Ali mousepad teaches people about his resistance to the war in Vietnam. Branding and cultural appropriation is not history. It’s anti-history. Take school mascot Chief Osceola as an example. If people in the stands and at home actually knew who Osceola was, the ritual of his riding a horse and throwing a spear before games would be an outrage, and not just because the Seminoles, who lived and fought in swampy everglades, tended not to ride horses. Chief Osceola was a great resistance fighter and leader of the Second Seminole War in Florida.

As written in the terrific book 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals who Changes US History, “Osceola became an international symbol of the Seminole Nation’s refusal to surrender. He was a renowned public speaker and a fierce fighter who was also an opponent of the US slave system. One of his two wives was a woman of African descent and it was not uncommon for escaped slaves to become a part of Seminole Nation. Osceola’s army frustrated the entire US Government, five separate Army generals, at a cost to the US Treasury of more than 20 million dollars…. On October 21, 1837, Osceola met with US government officials to discuss a peace treaty. When he arrived, he was captured and imprisoned. Osceola’s respect was so widespread that this maneuver was widely condemned and viewed as a dishonorable way to bring down the great warrior.”

Osceola was nothing less than the American Mandela, but a Nelson Mandela who did not survive Robben Island. Imagine before a South African soccer game, a white person in black face, dressed like Mandela, running out to midfield to psyche up the crowd. Not even Rick Reilly would say that this was somehow educating people about African resistance to apartheid. No one is getting educated about Osceola or the Seminole Wars. Instead their heroic resistance has been translated for football purposes to being “tough.” This “respect” for their toughness not only reduces a rich and varied Seminole culture to a savage culture of war, it is also an unspoken way to to praise our own ability to engineer their conquest.

The last argument, which is perhaps the most common, is, “Changing the name of the Redskins the Seminoles… where does the politically correct madness end? Do we stop using ‘Giants’ because it offends tall people? Or ‘Cowboys’ because it offends cowboys?” This kind of witticism is actually profoundly insulting because there was this thing called “history” that happened, and in this “history” giants were not subject to mass displacement and genocide. Once 100 percent of this country, Native Americans are now 0.9 percent, and we play sports on their graves. Their rituals and dress are our own commercialized entertainment. We turn our eyes to the field and away from the way institutionalized racism continues to define the lives of the overwhelming majority to Native Americans who do not own a stake in the Hard Rock Cafe. That gets us to the final problem with Seminole nation and all Native American mascoting. It makes us more ignorant about our own collective history. I’m not sure we can afford it.This is the problem with all mascots in a nutshell:This “respect” for their toughness not only reduces a rich and varied Seminole culture to a savage culture of war, it is also an unspoken way to to praise our own ability to engineer their conquest.Below is one of the many problems that Indian mascots engender. Naturally, the mascot's defenders, including Florida's Seminole tribe, can't or won't explain these problems.



For more on the Seminoles, see EPSN's Seminole Minstrel Show and Why FSU's Seminoles Aren't Okay.

ESPN's Seminole minstrel show

Here's a perfect example of how Indian mascots are racist, offensive, and insulting:



ESPN Has ‘No Comment' on Its College GameDay 'Minstrel Show'This weekend, during the preview for the college football game between Florida State University and Clemson on ESPN’s College GameDay, actor-comedian Bill Murray delighted a crowd of students by selecting Clemson to win the game. Moments later, ESPN analyst Lee Corso entered the set dressed as FSU mascot Chief Osceola, and danced around for several seconds, holding a staff covered in yellow, red and white feathers. Murray, pretending to be a pro wrestler, then “body-slammed” Corso and hurled the staff into the crowd.

ESPN declined on Sunday to comment about the incident.

The FSU tradition, which some members of the Seminole tribe have called a “minstrel show.” dates back to 1978: A man dressed up like a tribal 'chief' named Osceola (né William Powell), rides out onto the field at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee on a horse before home games and throws a flaming spear into the ground at midfield while the crowd goes wild.And:"This is a perfect example of how Native Americans are ridiculed in the course of sports entertainment. Good-natured rivalries are one thing. Wearing the native equivalent of black face is quite another,” said an NCAI spokeswoman of this weekend’s FSU incident.A commenter on Deadspin summed it up nicely:That would be a lot more tolerable if somebody as notoriously out-of-touch as "Disco! Hey I like that" Lee Corso wasn't the guy making a "comedic" mockery of Native Americans. I'm all for Blazing Saddles, but having a 200 year old white male football commentator do a five-year-old's version of a native american ritual in the cartoonish guise of a revered leader of a tribe eradicated 150 years ago by old white men is pretty offensive.

ESPN: No Comment on Talent 'Wearing the Native Equivalent of Black Face'

This is not how you honor Native American heritage.

By Andrew CohenEach week, Lee Corso, a nationally known college football commentator, dons the garb of the team he is picking to win the feature game of the weekend. Sometimes, Corso wears a mascot head. Sometimes he dresses up. The college kids eat it up. It's great fun and great for the show's ratings. On Saturday, Corso, an alum of FSU, happened to pick his alma mater to beat Clemson (which FSU did, by a lot), which is why he was dressed up like Osceola. (Update: I don't mean to suggest this is the first time he has done this. Here is how he did it last year)

It's nothing personal against Native Americans, ESPN wants you to know. It's strictly business and entirely part of the show's routine. So a white man dresses up like an American Indian "chief," dances around the set like a clown, gets tackled by Bill Murray, the spear gets tossed into the crowd at Clemson, and everyone has a grand old time, including the on-air talent and ESPN's own online tribunes.

Evidently, no one at ESPN stopped to think: "Hey, maybe some folks might consider Corso's dance inappropriate" especially for a network that has covered the "Redskins" controversy and has a huge stake in the success and reputation of the National Football League (and college football, for that matter). And clearly no one afterward at the network seemed inclined to offer any sort of explanation or rationale for what had just aired.

But the fact is that many people did consider the episode highly offensive.More commentaries on Corso's minstrel show:

ESPN Makes a Mockery of Native Americans on National Television

ESPN’s “Red-face” Minstrel Show by Matt Remle

Native American group unhappy with Lee Corson for portraying Seminole on College GameDay

For more on the Seminole mascot, see Seminole Fans in Plains Headdresses and Why FSU's Seminoles Aren't Okay.

Seminole match between disabled fighters halted

State stops controversial MMA fightA controversial Mixed Martial Arts fight between two fighters living with disabilities is canceled just minutes before the match.

One of the fighters has down syndrome and the other cerebral palsy. The state stepped in and shut it down claiming it was unsanctioned. On of the fighter's fathers say it's discrimination.

That fight was set to take place at the Seminole Casino in Immokalee. It's something both of these men told me on Friday was a dream come true. Now they are fighting to find a way back into the ring.

It was a fight that was supposed to be a first of its kind. One both Garrett Holeve, 23, and David Steffin, 28, had been dreaming of, but five minutes before the first punch, the state presented the promoter with a cease and desist letter.Comment:  Just because tribes can do this kind of fight doesn't mean they should.

For more on Native martial arts, see Assiniboine Sioux in Fight Master and Walla Walla MMA Fighter.

The Big Cypress Shootout

Fight on the Florida frontier: Big Cypress Shootout brings Second Seminole War to life

By Lance ShearerBefore Mao Zedong, before the Viet Cong, long before Iraq and Afghanistan, the Seminole Tribe of Florida showed the United States how frustrating and costly asymmetrical warfare can be.

The tribe, still known as the “Unconquered Seminole Tribe” for good reason, will host a re-enactment of the skirmishes of the Second Seminole War on Saturday, March 2, and Sunday, March 3, at Billie Swamp Safari in an event called the Big Cypress Shootout.

As a Neapolitan, you could be forgiven for assuming something called the Big Cypress Shootout is a golf tournament, but this shootout will feature rougher roughs, “shootin’ irons” instead of nine irons, and musket balls rather than golf balls. Actually, the muskets carried by the re-enactors, will be fired repeatedly but won’t be shotted, and if all goes according to plan, the battles over the weekend will end with Army and Indian participants shaking hands and perhaps sharing a cold one.

But from 1835 to 1842, the fighting was deadly, in what was the longest, costliest and bloodiest of the wars fought by the Army against the native peoples. The re-enactments will feature colorful costumes and uniforms, mounted soldiers, musket fire and booms of cannon detonations.Comment:  For more on the Seminoles, see Seminole Tree Proposed as Historic Place and Indians, Terrorists = US Enemies.

Below:  "The Seminole Tribe will present a re-enactment of the Second Seminole War at the Big Cypress Shootout at Billie Swamp Safari from March 2-3, 2013. The Seminoles’ struggle to remain on their homeland will be re-enacted and will feature authentic weapons, attire and tactics typical of the war."

"War paint for today's business world"

Adrienne Keene writes about a stereotypical billboard in her Native Appropriations blog:

New Billboard for Florida State’s MBA ProgramFlorida State University (home of the “Seminoles”) has unveiled a new billboard for their MBA program. I always wonder how these types of things make it through so many layers of approval. Kirsten who sent it over said this has been their slogan for awhile, apparently.

Associating business school with Seminole Indians and warpaint is stereotypical, of course.

Interest Convergence, FSU, and the Seminole Tribe of FloridaLive and learn. I guess the “quick post” model failed–you should see my inbox. Guys, I know the Seminole Tribe of Florida has worked with FSU and offered their approval of the mascot and associated images. I know quite a bit about the relationship, actually, and I’ve been learning quite a bit more in the last day or so…thanks to the strongly worded responses from some passionate FSU fans.

Quick background:

Florida State has been the “Seminoles” since 1947, and have had a “relationship” with the Seminole Tribe of Florida for many years, but it was solidified more recently. In 2005, the NCAA passed a resolution, calling Native American Mascots “hostile and abusive,” and prohibiting schools with these mascots from hosting post-season events. The Seminole Tribe of Florida then officially gave their permission to use Osceola as the mascot, letting FSU get a waiver from the NCAA rule.

Disclaimer, and a big one–I am not Seminole, and I don’t want to speak for the tribe. I am offering my interpretation and perspective, but it’s just mine. I am going to be up front and say that I don’t agree with the choice to give the university permission to mock Native culture (see the billboard and video I posted earlier), and I don’t find a “stoic” dude in a wig and redface throwing a flaming spear “honoring” (see photo above), and I definitely don’t think that the “war chant” is respectful in any way. In fact I find it quite “hostile and abusive.”And:Coming back to the billboard that I posted last week, here is the (unsolicited) response I received from the university:Hi Adrienne,

I work in Florida State University’s Office of University Communications. We’ve become aware of your recent blog post about several of Florida State University’s recent promotions which include Seminole imagery and symbols—and appreciate your concern. However, we wanted to take this opportunity to make sure you were aware that the relationship between Florida State and the Seminole Tribe of Florida is one of mutual respect.

In 2005, the tribe passed a resolution supporting the university’s use of the Seminole name, logos and images, including Osceola and Renegade. This was recognition of Florida State’s continued collaboration with the tribe, including prominent participation by tribal members in many of the university’s most meaningful events, and our seeking advice and direction to ensure tribal imagery is authentic.

Simply put, Florida State University is humbled and honored by the privilege of representing a group of people whose courage and spirit we admire and respect. Through the years, our administrators have made it clear the university will not engage in any activity that does not have the approval of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

We hope this background is helpful. Please feel free to write me back if you have any questions.The word “authentic” in there gave me pause–are they actually arguing that painting a red and yellow stripe of “warpaint” on a non-Native lady is “authentic”? And the language of the letter just feels weird to me–”a group of people whose courage and spirit we admire and respect”? It just feels like a slippery slope and super gray area between “respect” and romanticization.A commenter added:I would only add that the whole metaphor of business as "war" is problematic to begin with. Besides actual armed conflict with drones, bombs, soldiers, etc., we have "wars" on drugs and crime in which people get killed also. So, you are going to go to "war" in your business life, to scalp and kill and shoot and bomb your competitors or even coworkers who get in your way? This metaphor speaks loads about capitalism and our culture that I don't even think FSU officials are conscious of. Thank you for these posts!Rob's reply

Did the Seminole Tribe really examine this particular image and declare it "authentic"? Based on what, exactly? Or did they give permission in general for FSU to do whatever it wants with the Seminole name, mascot, and imagery?

I posted the following comment to Adrienne's blog:I wrote about some of the same issues here:

Why FSU's Seminoles Aren't Okay

The warpaint, spear, horse, and name (Osceola wasn't a chief) are all phony.

The Seminole Tribe's approval conveys one of two things. Either these items aren't stereotypical, according to the tribe, or they are stereotypical but the tribe doesn't care. Those are two very different positions to take.

Until the tribe explains how these items aren't stereotypical, it's safe to assume they are. That means they're causing the same harm as every other one-dimensional "savage" stereotype. The tribe's approval doesn't change that.

The other Seminole tribes in Florida and Oklahoma haven't given FSU a pass. I don't think we need to either. If something is false or stereotypical, it's wrong, period.P.S. Adrienne gave my website a nice plug in turn:Rob Schmidt just shared this resource in the comments of my FSU post, and I had to share. This is awesome.For more on FSU's Seminoles, see Seminole Fan in Plains Headdress and Chief Osceola Is "Respectful"?

Seminole fans in Plains headdresses

Someone posted this pic on Facebook with the following note:Went to the Orange Bowl last night and saw several of these clueless people running around. I went to FSU, and back then, no one did this. On the front page of this morning's the Sun Sentinel newspaper, is this picture. The girl in front of me told me she bought a headdress online because she, "wanted to get on TV."

Comment:  Except for the phony "warpaint," this fan isn't even trying to emulate the Seminoles' fake Chief Osceola mascot:



He's going for a pure stereotype: All Indians look the same, and all look like a Plains chief. He doesn't know or doesn't care that a Plains chief has literally nothing to do with a Florida-based tribe a couple thousand miles away.

This is a fine example of how mascots promote false and stereotypical perceptions of Indians. No one's correcting fans like this one; no one's telling them they're wrong. Just the opposite, in fact. Allowing behavior like this, and showcasing it in a newspaper, makes it seem acceptable. The message is that this is what Indians are like.

For more on the subject, see Seminole Homecoming Queen in a Headdress and Chief Osceola Is "Respectful"?

Seminole tree proposed as historic place

Seminole Tribe oak tree proposed for historic listing

Huge tree serves as ceremonial meeting place

By David FleshlerThe ancient live oak towers over the cracked asphalt of a parking lot on State Road 7 in Hollywood, surrounded by the sources of the Seminole Tribe's prosperity.

To the south is one of the tribe's casinos, formerly the high-stakes bingo hall that opened the way to Indian gambling businesses in the United States. A nearby tax-free tobacco store does brisk drive-up business. And across Stirling Road looms the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino's neon guitar sign.

The tree, called the Council Oak Tree, has just been nominated by the tribe for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, a program run by the National Park Service to recognize places that played important roles in the nation's history. After starting out as a shady spot for tribal meetings when no buildings were available, the tree became the ceremonial location for the installation of new leaders and for the announcement of deals that confirmed the tribe as a player in international gambling and entertainment.

"The Council Oak Tree reflects the Seminole Tribe of Florida's growth over the years and stands as a symbol of strength and stability," states the tribe's application to the National Park Service. "…The tree has been the site of many of the Seminole Tribe of Florida's milestones in recent years as well, such as the 25th Anniversary celebration for the birthplace of Indian gaming in 2004, the Seminole Tribe of Florida's 50th Anniversary celebration in 2007, and the signing of the Seminole Gaming Compact with the state of Florida in 2010. The Council Oak tree contains great significance for the Seminole Tribe of Florida for both its physical presence and for the events that have occurred there."Comment:  For more on historic places, see Hualapai Gas Station Is Historic Place and Wigwam Motel as Historic Icon.

Origin of the tomahawk chop

‘Tomahawk chop’ pops up in Mass. Senate race after history in arenas, activists’ crosshairsBack in the mid-1980s, the Seminole football boosters asked a student spirit group, then called the Scalphunters, to create a cheer to compete with the University of Florida’s two-armed “Gator chomp,” said Florida State alum Tom Desjardin.

Desjardin, a Scalphunter, said that, for lack of a better idea, they debuted the chop at a 1984 pep rally he was leading. Florida State boosters say the famous chant was added later, on a suggestion from a student from Natick High School in Massachusetts, where the chant was used to support the school’s Redmen, a nickname since changed to the Red Hawks.

The chop really took off in a game at Auburn in 1985, when the Seminole band rolled out an intimidating drum beat and trumpet music to accompany it, said Desjardin, now a historian for the state of Maine.

Desjardin said the chop’s violent imagery wasn’t lost on the Scalphunters, but it wasn’t what drove its creation. A main consideration was the fact it was a shoulder-up motion that could be seen in a crowd, he said.

Desjardin added there’s a deep respect at Florida State for the Seminole tribe, which the school consults closely on all uses of tribal imagery and which in 2005 granted the school permission to use its name.

“If the tribe had ever said, ‘We don’t like that (the chop), you would have never seen it again,’” Desjardin said.Instead, the chop spread to Atlanta. That city’s Seminole Booster Club claims credit for starting it all when some members used it at a Braves game to catch the attention of outfielder Deion Sanders, an FSU alum who began playing for Atlanta in 1991.

When the Braves made the World Series that year against Minnesota, American Indian groups protested in Minneapolis and Atlanta, saying the cheer perpetuated racist stereotypes of Native Americans as war-obsessed savages. Some called out Braves owner Ted Turner and his wife at the time, Jane Fonda, for doing the chop.

But former President Jimmy Carter defended it, saying it was a way to note that the team was emulating the courage of American Indians.Comment:  Turner, Fonda, and Carter are as wrong as everyone else about the "honoring" argument.

If the Seminole Tribe protested the tomahawk chop, it probably would face the usual firestorm of protest. The school would try to negotiate a compromise rather than simply ban the practice. See the whole "Fighting Sioux" conflict for a good example of how it would play out.

For more on the subject, see More Racism from the Brown Campaign and Brown Staffers Whoop and Chop.

Below:  The Seminoles' spearchucking mascot Chief Osceola.

Seminole homecoming queen in a headdress

History and a homecoming queen

By Kerry DexterIn the center of a walk which crosses a university campus in the deep south, there is a statue of an African American woman holding a bouquet of roses and wearing a feathered head dress such as Indians of the western plains once wore. It will stop you in your tracks. What is she doing there?

The campus in that of Florida State University, in Tallahassee, Florida. The woman in the statue is Doby Lee Flowers. She’s wearing that dramatic and, it might seem, unusual head dress because that is the head dress she wore when she was chosen as homecoming queen for the university in 1970. Flowers was the first African American to be so chosen.

Was being named homecoming queen really that important? For a black woman to be so recognized on any campus in the United States in 1970, yes. It was a mark of both social and political shift.

In 1970, the long road toward integration of the races in education and elsewhere in life which had begun a decade and half earlier was moving forward, but slowly. FSU had admitted its first black undergraduate student, Maxwell Courtney, in 1962. In 1965, Flowers’s older brother, Fred, became the first African American to be part of an official sports team representing the university. With her election as homecoming queen in 1970, Doby Lee Flowers added another chapter to the integration story, not only in Tallahassee, but across the country.Comment:  Even with the explanation, I don't quite buy it. A statue for a homecoming queen? Does that mean every other black pioneer already has a statue?

And what's the excuse for showing her in an Indian headdress? What does that have to do with her civil rights achievement? Wouldn't she be just as honored without the headdress? Why risk offending Indians for the sake of making the statue more "colorful"?

I can just imagine what the statue committee thought. "This girl is a civil rights pioneer? She looks totally ordinary.

"How can we make the statue more exciting? Can we give her a crown or something?

"I know, let's put her in an Indian headdress! Who cares whether it's stereotypical or not? She's no different from our Chief Osceola mascot, who also looks stereotypical. Besides, she wore the headdress, so it's 'accurate' in that sense.

"The important thing is, people will come and gawk at the girl's statue now. Even if they don't know or care who she is, they'll be impressed. 'Look, a funny Indian girl!' they'll say. 'She must be a princess or something!'"

For more on the Seminoles and their mascot, see Chief Osceola Is "Respectful"? and Seminole Spearchucker Is "Top Tradition."

Chief Osceola is "respectful"?

In Keep American Indian Sports Mascots, J.A. Ingle writes:Regarding David Narcomey's comments in Berry Tramel's “Tribal dispute” (Sports commentary, Sept. 16) that all American Indian sports mascots should be banned, he really needs to cool his heels and look at this situation from a different angle. Being a historian and 1/64th Cherokee, I don't see anything wrong with Indian mascots as long as they're done respectfully. Those such as the Florida State University mascot Chief Osceola are portrayed in a respectful manner and with great detail. It shows the strength and honor of the tribal people. It puts them in an almost mystical light, and keeps their historical memory alive.Comment:  Chief Osceola portrayed in a respectful manner...except he wasn't a chief, didn't wear warpaint, didn't ride a horse, didn't chuck a spear, and didn't act savage for no reason. Other than that, the cartoon-like mascot totally respects the real Osceola.

I'm sure the creators of minstrel shows said they were being respectful too. "But we love our darkies!" they probably told critics.

And putting Indians in a "mystical light"--as semi-fictional characters in America's Wild West mythology--yeah, that's helpful. People are really going to pay attention to modern-day Native issues when they equate Indians with fairies and will o' the wisps.

For more on the subject, see Seminole Spearchucker Is "Top Tradition" and Seminoles Compared to al Qaeda.

Chappelle explains silent routine

Comedian Dave Chapelle recently "performed" at a Native venue by standing silently on stage and texting on his cellphone. He apologized for this behavior in the following days. I didn't think the incident had a racial angle, but it turns out it did.

Dave Chappelle Tanked Florida Concert Because He Didn't Want a 'Reverse Kramer' Situation

By John SellersDave Chappelle appeared on a San Francisco area radio program Friday morning to promote a weekend concert but spent much of the interview explaining his sometimes contentious stage presence, especially his demeanor during a July 22 charity performance at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida.

The reclusive "Chappelle's Show" star said that he didn't even get a chance to begin his routine that night because attendees in the front row began heckling immediately and that he was worried that it would become a "reverse Kramer" situation--a reference to the bigoted tirade "Seinfeld" alum Michael Richards launched into at a comedy club in 2006. Instead, he stayed on stage for 46 mostly silent moments.Comment:  We still don't know exactly what happened. If the audience was reacting to Chappelle's race, that's bad. If Chappelle was reacting to perceived "savagery" from the Indians, that's also bad.

Let's note that Chappelle often does racial bits, including this bit about Indians:



I'd say some of these comments are in questionable taste. Indeed, like many other comedians, Chappelle has employed hipster racism. "It's okay if I make fun of ethnic groups," he might say, "because I'm doing it satirically or ironically."

In general, audiences shouldn't interrupt or intimidate invited guests. Or disrupt the experience of other paying customers. But if people thought Chappelle was launching a semi-racist tirade, I could understand their reaction. When comedians harangue an audience, as Michael Kramer did, they have a right to respond.

For more on the subject, see Kathy Griffin in a Headdress and The Magical Power of Intent.

Seminole spearchucker is "top tradition"

Chief Osceola, Renegade named college football's top tradition

By Corey ClarkIt's a scene that has been synonymous with Florida State football for decades. Moments before the opening kickoff, Chief Osceola rides his trusty horse Renegade to the middle of the field inside Doak Campbell Stadium. He raises the flaming spear toward the sky—as the players and fans scream with anticipation—and then slams it down at midfield.Comment:  That's all there is to this article--at least without subscribing and paying. But it's enough.

As I wrote in Why FSU's Seminoles Aren't Okay, this whole spearchucking routine is false and stereotypical. The real Osceola wasn't a chief and didn't ride a horse, for starters.

The routine is still with us because the largest Seminole tribe in Florida gave its blessing. Presumably so it could keep its casinos open with the state's blessing. But that doesn't make the routine any less false or stereotypical.

"Chief Osceola" the terrorist

The Seminoles have been in the news and Newspaper Rock recently. For instance:

Indians had no way to worship God?!
Indians, terrorists = US enemies
Whites "play Indian" in Swamplandia!

Why do Americans think the Seminoles were murderous savages? Who were so primitive they had no religion? Who died out a century ago because they couldn't adapt to modern ways?

Gee, I can't imagine. It couldn't have anything to do with millions of football fans seeing a "Seminole" act like a murderous savage every week, could it? Like the kind of barbarian who's too primitive to have any religion? The kind who died out a century ago because it couldn't adapt to modern ways?

No, there can't possibly be connection between the savage Seminole that Americans see and the savage Seminoles that they believe in. It's just an incredible coincidence, right? Yeah, right.

So "Chief Osceola" terrorizes opposing football teams. And the Seminoles terrorized opposing US armies, according to many Americans. Any questions about why people see the Seminoles as terrorists?

For more on the Seminoles, see FSU Seminoles Blast High-School Seminoles and Andrew Jackson Institute Fights Seminoles.

Below:  "Like Osama bin Laden the original Osceola, I will strike you through the hearts, Americans football opponents."

Indians had no way to worship God?!

Florida Seminole pastor says God’s book is for ‘all the races’

Wonder Johns first Native American moderator of Big Lakes association

By Joni B. HanniganWonder Johns remembers his mother cooking over an open fire in the swamp near Okeechobee, before the Seminoles were given land, in the 1930’s and 40’s.

“We had no houses, we lived in the Chickees,” Johns said softly, describing a palmetto thatch roof over a cypress log frame—with open sides. “The mosquitos ate us up.”

Sleeping on a table-like platform with primitive nets to keep out all manner of bugs, Johns remembers a “wild” childhood, hunting, fishing and playing—and taking baths in ponds or canals—but rarely going to school.

And then the pesky missionaries would visit camp.

“Us little kids, we would run away,” Johns, 77, smiled slightly. “‘Here comes the preacher,’” he recalls children telling each other. “We would take off in the woods and stay there until he leaves and then come back out.”Now that Johns is a Baptist pastor, people are running from him:Johns said the Green Corn Ceremony is still practiced today within the Seminole Tribe along with the use of herbal medicine—“they think it’s power”—and he believes it is what makes it difficult for the church to grow.

“They start coming to church and they’ve been baptized and they still go out to the Green Corn Ceremony and dances,” Johns said. “They think they can come back and still worship the Lord and nothing’s wrong.

“In my service I tell them God gave us something when we didn’t have anything, but now we know better,” Johns said. “Like the Bible says in Acts 17:30, God winked at what went on, but now we know better [and] God expects us to repent and worship Him because God has given us something because [before] we didn’t have any way of worshipping God.”

Last year Johns retired as pastor of First Indian Baptist Church of Brighton, just north of the Brighton Seminole Reservation in Okeechobee. Recently he finished a term as moderator of the Big Lake Baptist Association, and served previously as the associate moderator. According to Florida Baptist Convention records, he is the first Native American to have served in that capacity in Florida.

Comment:  Really? Indians are famous to the point of stereotyping for their religious ceremonies: dances (e.g., rain dance, Snake Dance, Sun Dance), vision quests, sweat lodges, purification rites, etc.

But they didn't have any way of worshiping the Creator? What were they doing until Christians came along and hit them over the heads with their Bibles? Playacting? Doing fake dances for the tourist trade? While worshiping trees and rocks, not God?

Because the only way to contact God is sitting on hard benches in a squarish building while a man in a robe drones on? Yeah, because the Bible is so specific about how one should worship. If you don't kneel and genuflect in exactly the right way, you'd damned to hell.

Coming from an elder in the Seminole tribe, this sure sounds like an ignorant comment to me. I suspect your average 5-year-old has a better understanding of how worship works.

Indians know God

In reality, many Indians are Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons while also holding to their traditional religious beliefs. It's not hard to do. You just pick and choose from the Bible--as Christians have always done.

Jesus was one holy being...but there are others all around us. You can reach them by praying, singing, meditating, dancing, or helping others--anything that shows you have good intentions and a good heart. If God exists at all, you can bet he doesn't care about the petty details of your religion.

There's your theological lesson for today, Pastor Johns. Learn it so I don't have to repeat it, okay?

For examples of what many Christians think about Indians, see Catholic Church Abuse on Frontline, Fischer Worships "God" of Racism, and God Good, Father Sky Bad?

For more on the subject, see The Gospel of the Redman, Christians Reject Christ's Message, and 10% of Indians = Christians.

Below:  Worshiping God at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.

Indians, terrorists = US enemies

Legal Scholar Matthew Fletcher on Government Slurs of Indians and U.S. Law

By Gale Courey ToensingComing on the heels of the Geronimo/bin Laden Incident, what do you make of the government’s expropriation of indigenous history—using Geronimo as the code name for Osama bin Laden, and then citing the Jackson’s murderous actions against the Seminoles and Brits as a precedent for the prosecution of Al Qaeda suspects?

Generations of West Point officers learn about war from studying the “Indian wars,” and so it would make perfect sense for them to draw an analogy between Indians and al Qaeda. The military tradition is that the Indians were the bad guys, they were savage and engaged in non-traditional, even scary warfare, and that they had no rights under the U.S. Constitution. As such, they were fair game for anything—anything at all—the U.S. military wanted to do to them. Preemptive attacks on unarmed women and children like Wounded Knee, indefinite detention in concentration camps like Fort Sill, mass executions for trumped up war crimes like at Fort Snelling all of it legally justifiable from the point of the view of the military. Same is true in the Department of Justice, where in the days following 9/11, Bush Administration attorneys like John Yoo (now a Berkeley law professor) and Jay Bybee (now a Ninth Circuit judge) argued that the President needed no authorization from Congress to engage in torture, establish military jails and commissions to house and try al Qaeda suspects, etc., through extensive reliance on Indian war-related “precedents” involving self-serving legal opinions about the Modocs, the Seminoles, the Dakota at Fort Snelling, and others. It was Yoo and Bybee who authored so many of the so-called “torture papers” who first explicitly compared the Seminoles and other tribes to al Qaeda. The military prosecutors are just cribbing from them.Comment:  This analysis nicely summarizes how the US military really feels about Indians. It's a good reason for discounting the talk about "honoring" Indians because they're brave and noble. Yeah, they're brave and noble...terrorists.

We killed them for terrorizing, scalping, and murdering us. Now that they're dead and (mostly) gone, we salute them for their terrorist-like abilities. If you want to frighten al-Qaeda, what better way than with an Indian missile or helicopter or codename? It takes a terrorist to scare a terrorist.

It's like honoring a grizzly bear or another deadly predator. When it's about to eat you, you don't "honor" it for its bravery and nobility. You shoot it and kill it. Once you skin it and turn it into a rug, then you honor it. It's brave and noble because it took you, someone even braver and nobler, to conquer it.

For more on the subject, see How People Get Labeled "Terrorists," Obama:  Bin Laden Was "Geronimo," and Seminoles Compared to Al Qaeda.

Hard Rock promotes Native musicians

Micki Free, the Hard Rock Café, and the Future of Native American Music

By J. PoetBuffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson, R. Carlos Nakai, Grammy-winner Rita Coolidge, spoken-word artist John Trudell, and jazzman Jim Pepper have all broken through, but despite the initiation of a Native American Grammy category in 2000, most Native American artists—rockers, rappers, reggae singers—receive little attention from the music industry.

That situation will change in the next few years if Micki Free and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have anything to say about it. Free won a Grammy for “Don’t Get Stopped in Beverly Hills,” a song he co-wrote for the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack in 1985. He recently signed on as the Director of Promotions and Special Events for the Seminole tribe of Florida, owners of Hard Rock International, the company that runs the Hard Rock Café chain. With the power of the Seminole tribe behind him, Free is initiating several measures that will give Native American musicians a shot at national exposure.

“The Seminoles acquired the Hard Rock brand [except for the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas] in 2005,” Free explained from his home in Hollywood, Florida. “I’ve been working with them for six years. When the tribe took over, the Hard Rock brand was dying. They worked with Hard Rock CEO James Allen and rescued it. Today, Hard Rock Cafés are hotter than ever. Hard Rock Calling, put on by the Tribe and Live Nation, has been the biggest festival in London for the last five years with artists including Aerosmith, Clapton, McCartney, and other superstars. The tribe has also initiated new programs that will help bring more Indian musicians into the public eye.”

Those programs, put together with Free’s help, include packaging Native American artists together for the Native Music Rocks tours that play Hard Rock venues around the world, the Star Search talent contest, the Star Search Talent Camps, and the Native Music Rocks record label, distributed internationally by Fontana/Uni music.
Comment:  For more on the subject, see 13th Annual Big Cypress Celebration and Native Music Rocks! Tour.

Whites "play Indian" in Swamplandia!

Educator Debbie Reese writes about another Native-themed book with problems. Here's the book's description:

Swamplandia!From Booklist

*Starred Review*

Russell’s lavishly imagined and spectacularly crafted first novel sprang from a story in her highly praised collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006). Swamplandia! is a shabby tourist attraction deep in the Everglades, owned by the Bigtree clan of alligator wrestlers. When Hilola, their star performer, dies, her husband and children lose their moorings, and Swamplandia! itself is endangered as audiences dwindle. The Chief leaves. Brother Kiwi, 17, sneaks off to work at the World of Darkness, a new mainland amusement park featuring the “rings of hell.” Otherworldly sister Osceola, 16, vanishes after falling in love with the ghost of a young man who died while working for the ill-fated Dredge and Fill Campaign in the 1930s. It’s up to Ava, 13, to find her sister, and her odyssey to the Underworld is mythic, spellbinding, and terrifying. Russell’s powers reside in her profound knowledge of the great imperiled swamp, from its alligators and insects, floating orchids and invasive “strangler” melaleuca trees to the tragic history of its massacred indigenous people and wildlife. Ravishing, elegiac, funny, and brilliantly inquisitive, Russell’s archetypal swamp saga tells a mystical yet rooted tale of three innocents who come of age through trials of water, fire, and air. --Donna SeamanAnd Reese's take on it:

Unexpected intersections:  Thanksgiving and Karen Russell's SWAMPLANDIA!Earlier this week a reader wrote to ask me about Karen Russell's Swamplandia! Not familiar with it, I read reviews and learned that it is the story of a not-Native family who uses Native names to pass as Native people who run an alligator-wrestling theme park.Reese notes a key passage in the text:We are wearing Indian costumes on loan from our Bigtree Gift Shop: buckskin vests, cloth headbands, great blue heron feathers, great white heron feathers, chubby beads hanging off our foreheads and our hair in braids, gator "fang" necklaces.

Although there was not a drop of Seminole or Miccosukee blood in us, the Chief always costumed us in tribal apparel for the photographs he took. He said we were "our own Indians." Our mother had a toast-brown complexion that a tourist could maybe squint and call Indian--and Kiwi, Grandpa Sawtooth, and I could hold our sun.She continues:I wonder if there are any Seminole characters in the book? I'll let you know when I get the book. It got rave reviews. RAVE reviews. At the Amazon page, there are blurbs from everyone from Stephen King to the reviewer for Oprah's magazine. I don't see any comments at all about the fact that the family is playing Indian. If they were playing Black, would that be noted?(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 4/6/11.)

Comment:  I searched the text the same way Reese did. As far as I can tell, there were no references to live Seminole or Miccosukee Indians. Just one mention of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation and one of a Seminole "gambling hall."

Indeed, the word "Indian" appears only 15 times, "Seminole" 11 times, and "Miccosukee" four times. This in a book whose central premise is white people pretending to be Indians.

I also didn't find any instances of the words "cheat," "fraud," or "deception." So a white family with conveniently dark skin dresses up as Indians. They defraud countless tourists with a con game. They present a distorted, stereotypical version of Seminole and Miccosukee culture. And apparently get away with it for most or all of the book.

If the problem isn't glaringly obvious yet, let's use my favorite teaching technique: a black/Indian comparison. Imagine a white family donning black shoe polish; pretending to be slaves, sharecroppers, or residents of a segregated town; and charging admission for it. See the quaint, colorful folks of Ghettopia, a "genuine" black community--only $10 a head.

Unthinkable? Yes. But this book's scenario is the same freakin' thing.

Indians MIA in Swamplandia!

Swamplandia! does tell the "tragic history of its massacred indigenous people." But it has little or nothing to say about today's Indians. Despite a couple of references, Swamplandia! treats them as invisible or nonexistent. It's as if they vanished long ago and the Bigtree family took over their lives. The Bigtrees maintain the Seminole and Miccosukee traditions because the Indians aren't around to do it.

Worse, not a single living Indian appears to chastise them or correct their mistakes. Not a single character in the book comments on this fraudulent "redface" scheme. And not a single reader or reviewer has commented on it either.

The Bigtrees are "our own Indians," says one character. So they can adopt Indian identities, "become" Indians, because it's their white right. They don't care what the local Indians, or 5 million other American Indians, might think about this pretense. The Indians' beliefs and desires are immaterial compared to theirs.

Thanks for another clearcut example of why Indians win the Oppression Olympics. Would a book about whites in blackface deceiving people go over well with fans and critics? Has anyone written such a book in the last half century?

I don't think so. But "playing Indian" is perfectly acceptable in our culture. So is portraying Indians as relics of the past. It's so normal and unremarkable that no one thinks twice about it.

For some of the modern Indian life that should be in Swamplandia! but isn't, see:

Seminoles compared to al Qaeda
13th Annual Big Cypress celebration
Andrew Jackson Institute fights Seminoles
Swamp Men on National Geographic Wild
Seminoles want pro alligator wrestling

Seminoles demand Obama apology

Seminole leader writes Obama demanding apology for ‘racist, revisionist history’

Two leading Seminoles wrote Washington to protest a Guantánamo war court document that said the 19th century tribe fought like al Qaeda today

By Carol RosenbergThe chairman and the chief lawyer of the Seminole Tribe of Florida sent a pair of angry letters Friday to President Barack Obama and his Defense Secretary protesting an analogy by Guantánamo war court prosecutors that likened the 19th Century Seminoles to al Qaeda.

Seminoles Chairman Mitchell Cypress accused the military lawyers of a “backward dive into racist, revisionist history.”

He demanded that Obama apologize, personally.

In his letter, the tribe’s general counsel, Jim Shore, demanded that the U.S. remove portions of a legal brief defending the military commissions conviction of Osama bin Laden’s media secretary, a video maker.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Seminoles Compared to al Qaeda.