This is the logic of the Indian mascot. “It’s meant to honor you!”
Passive aggression at its finest.
To begin making my case here, I’m going to do something I used to do in my undergraduate papers. I’m going to give you two definitions from the dictionary and then play a little bit of a word-game figuring out how they interact.
Homage [hom-ij, om-]
noun
1. respect or reverence paid or rendered:
In his speech he paid homage to Washington and Jefferson.
2.the formal public acknowledgment by which a feudal tenant or vassal declared himself to be the man or vassal of his lord, owing him fealty and service.
3. the relation thus established of a vassal to his lord.
4.something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another:
a Festschrift presented as an homage to a great teacher.
Cultural Appropriation
noun kʌl.tʃər.əl əˌprəʊ.priˈeɪ.ʃən/ /ˌkʌl.tʃɚ.əl əˌproʊ.priˈeɪ.ʃən
the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture:
Some see his use of African music as cultural appropriation.
So there are the two words/phrases.
Homage is about honoring. I get that. It is easy to pay homage to those who deserve it. The thing about the word is, just as I said, it’s easy to pay homage. There’s no mysterious element that makes it difficult. Here’s an example of the wrestler CM Punk paying homage to Bret “the Hitman” Hart by wearing ring gear using Bret’s colors and motif:
Homage is easy. The only thing it really calls for that people miss, sometimes, is respect and understanding.
And that’s where my people come in.
Let me show you a supposed homage to my people:
This is supposed to be something that as Native people we can be proud of. Such an honor!
Do you know the origin of the word Redskin? Do you know how it was used?
This appeared in The Daily Republican newspaper in Winona, Minnesota from Sept. 24, 1863. Redskins is how we were referred to when being given the market update on the value of the scalps of those of us you’d “sent to purgatory.”
And I can hear the apologist now: “we didn’t mean it like that.”
Three things:
- It doesn’t matter if you did. That’s how it sounds.
- It’s your responsibility to know what you’re saying
- Also, fuck you. Learn to live in civilized society
As I blogged earlier this week, ignorance isn’t an excuse for bad behavior. It doesn’t work for school kids or for new employees at corporations and it certainly doesn’t apply to those operating in racist ways. It’s not that hard in this day and age to do research. Google will tell you all sorts of things. All you need is a few minutes to look and enough critical thinking to know when a source looks incredibly incorrect.
So if you claim ignorance as a defense, what you’re actually saying is that other cultures weren’t worth the five minutes away from Words with Friends or Instagram that it would take to Google around and see what things mean/how things are received.
I can give a second example of this that will hit a few people the wrong way but is spot-on what I mean. Not that long ago the Black Lives Matter movement started. Think what you will about the people behind it, and every movement ever has it’s good and bad people, but the whole idea is a pretty radically important one: we need to stop killing people of color for things that we don’t kill white people for, particularly the more police-like among us. Not long after the launch of Black Lives Matter numerous people insisted that it should be “all lives matter.”
And that’s where it becomes tone deaf. Sure… 99% of Black Lives Matter supporters would agree that all lives matter. But that’s not the political message. The message is “you need to stop killing young black people, Officer.” By trying to rebrand it to “all” lives matter what a person really does is erase the urgency. All lives do matter, but white kids aren’t getting shot by cops at an alarming clip.
Then it got worse, and people started with their Blue Lives Matter signs and chants. Listen, I’m the son of a cop may he rest in peace wherever he ended up. One of my best friends from high school is a cop. My uncle was a cop. I know police. I would never endorse killing a cop (though I did dig that Ice T song). But the whole point of Black Lives Matter is to protest police killing kids. Trying to co-opt that as police just indicates, once again, that you don’t get the concept AT ALL. It makes you look like heartless pricks, which is exactly what the Black Lives Matter movement is hoping isn’t the case.
We lean into words in America. Hard. And we debate constantly things like if a “ban” is a “ban” even if the President calls it a “ban” (it’s a ban, people). We have to be more careful about how we use certain words and phrases because they carry weight we don’t see.
Someone, a few weeks ago, called me an “Indian giver,” jokingly, when I gave them a box full of something we were working on then realized I forgot to take the one I needed. It was meant to be funny. The person didn’t know my origins.
But do you, reader, know where that phrase comes from? Native American tribes didn’t have the sense of ownership that white folks have. So when colonists encountered Native people and stopped using their tools, a Native person was likely to take it and try using it. Because there was no sense that people owned things. Colonists used that concept to take almost our entire homeland and turn it into the place where most of my readers live now.
So no, it’s not funny. And no, the person probably didn’t mean it “that way.”
But intent doesn’t matter. At some point as a society we have to start being honest about history and understanding the things we usually just sweep under the rug. And the beginning of that is to stop the thin veil of security gleaned from “it’s meant to honor you” or “I didn’t mean it like that.” If you don’t know any better, shut the fuck up. It’s easy. Just don’t say it. And if you want to know about issues that matter to an othered culture, there’s an easy, easy way to figure out what is acceptable and what isn’t.
Talk to one of us.
You already assume we speak for everyone that is the same color, race, gender, sexuality that we are. So utilize that. Let us be your living Google.
White people have some heavy lifting to do on this racism thing. All of us othered people will do our best, but you all might need to talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic: “what do we know about people who aren’t white?”