Native students react to disrespect
By Stephanie Mc Feeters, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, September 20, 2012
Frustrated by society’s tendency to degrade and appropriate Native American symbols, a group of Native American students at Dartmouth uploaded a video to Youtube on Sept. 10 titled “A Letter to Urban Outfitters,” in light of the company’s recent release of a “Navajo”-inspired clothing line. In the video, which had over 5,300 views as of press time, students recite a poem written by Autumn White Eyes ’14 that asks viewers to respect Native American heritage.
The Navajo Nation is currently pursuing a lawsuit against Urban Outfitters for intellectual property violations, according to Anthony Peterman, Navajo Nation Office of the Speaker policy advisor. The clothing store recently marketed underwear and other items under the description “Navajo,” which is a name trademarked by the Navajo Nation, he said.
Legally, Urban Outfitters may be at fault under intellectual property law, but White Eyes and others said they view the larger issue to be the company’s disrespect for Native American culture.
“I’m not your f*cking fashion statement,” the video’s speakers said as they recited the poem. “So take those lies off your body and respect me. And me. And me. And what’s never been yours to have. I am a human being.”
That a clothing store is selling underwear identified as “Navajo” becomes more offensive when placed in the context of Native American history, according to Native American studies professor Angela Parker.
“You have a centuries-long context of outright theft and cultural assimilation, and people may see that as in the past, but her video is making the point that people also feel its effects in the present,” she said.
Native American symbols are often extracted and used by people with no knowledge of their history and meaning, Native American studies professor Vera Palmer said.
“For Native people it’s yet one more chapter of stealing the land, stealing our children, stealing our culture, stealing our religion and now stealing our symbols,” Palmer said.
Christina Goodson ’14, who appeared in the video, said she is offended when she sees students dress up as Pocahontas or wear headdresses as part of a Halloween costume. Such traditions and symbols represent culture, not “something you can pretend to be,” she said. Headdresses are sacred in Lakota culture and can only be worn by tribe leaders, and eagle feathers have historically been symbols of honor, earned through achievements such as graduating from high school, White Eyes said in an email to The Dartmouth.
“I have three nieces, I don’t want to them to think that their heritage is a Halloween costume,” White Eyes said. White Eyes, Preston Wells ’15 and Taylor Payer ’15 founded the video production group Savage Media during Spring term as a way to spread awareness about Native American cultures. The group chose the word “savage” intentionally in order to reclaim it for their own purposes, Wells said. “We’re taking a savage approach to the way Native peoples have been portrayed and appropriated by the media,” he said. The group’s first video questions the College’s historical use of an Indian as a mascot, Wells said. In the video, a Native American student confronts a man wearing a Dartmouth Indian T-shirt by painting a red “X” through the offensive image.
Wells said that while not all Native American students at the College find the Indian mascot to be offensive, the vast majority see it as a derogatory caricature.
Stereotypical images of Native Americans exist across the country, from the Cleveland Indians to Dartmouth’s Indian, and attempt to project a romanticized ferocity onto indigenous people, Palmer said.
“To be a Native person at a school that depicts you as something you don’t even recognize and does so in a mocking way, that’s something that nobody should have to put up with,” she said.
Modern use of stereotypical Indian mascots parallels past exploitation and fits into a historical legacy of negative engagement, Palmer said.
“It’s about power — we can do anything we want with these people and now with these images,” she said.
The Dartmouth Review is one student organization that continues to endorse the Indian symbol, Wells said. Although Native American students have contacted The Dartmouth Review and expressed their disapproval of the paper’s use of the symbol, the publication has not been responsive to their requests, he said. Representatives from Urban Outfitters and members of The Dartmouth Review staff did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
“To be a Native person at a school that depicts you as something you don’t even recognize and does so in a mocking way, that’s something that nobody should have to put up with,” she said.
Dartmouth doesn’t depict you in a mocking way. The Indian mascot hasn’t been used in 38 years. Stop being bitter about this and move on.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 9:13 am
Better sue Benjamin Moore too; the “navajo white” off white paint color that’s pervasive throughout campus could also be seen as offensive.
Then we can stick to things like china white and bone white, then china and the dead can sue.
By Steve Shea on Sep 20 | 11:40 am
Or perhaps we don’t tell them what they can and cannot feel, hmm, Anonymous? Perhaps Dartmouth doesn’t officially depict them that way, but The Dartmouth Review DOES, along with a ton of alumni, and both are a huge part of the Dartmouth experience.
By ‘84 on Sep 20 | 12:19 pm
“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.” It can be ignorant, but in art/fashion, inspiration can come from any source. Branding products as Navajo, I agree, is infringement on the Navajo Nation copyright. Using the designs for inspiration should not be an issue.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 1:22 pm
The Indian mascot hasn’t been used OFFICIALLY in 38 years, but the T-shirts continue to pop up every Fall term. Get your facts straight before calling people “bitter”.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 1:27 pm
typical martyr routine
By anon on Sep 20 | 1:44 pm
I’m tired of the complaining. Go fight another battle.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 2:06 pm
Permanent victimhood where there is none is for fools. Do something for yourself and then do something for whoever you care about, if it’s your race, or tribe, or family or whatever. Go ahead and do something productive. Whine, whine, whine. It’s not going to get you anywhere. Anyone need a hanky?
By Anon on Sep 20 | 3:30 pm
The trustees should get rid of the students and the faculty (but keep the administration) and turn the college into a casino.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 3:51 pm
There are times when anonymous commenting is appropriate, but is attacking named students, who are making a case that they’ve experienced discrimination, one of them? If you’re “tired of the complaining” or view this as a “typical martyr routine,” why don’t you have the courage to put your name to your views, as Autumn White Eyes, Christina Goodson, Preston Wells, Taylor Payer, and others have? They’ve opened themselves up to your condemnation by standing by their views. But you’re afraid to put your name by that condemnation? THAT, not making a case against the still widely-used “Indian mascot,” is a “martyr routine.”
By Jeff Sharlet on Sep 20 | 4:00 pm
I would like to point out a minor detail: That mascot is still used by people, for example, who work for the dartmovth review, who pass out the shirts to incoming freshmen, sell canes on their website, and advertise a blatant lie about my identity. Yeah, I have come to learn that there’s no need to get angry at every person who doesn’t know something, but the dartmovth review has shown time and time again that they sure don’t care for brown folks.
To say that the mascot is no longer used just because it isn’t an official sport mascot anymore is only looking at the surface. And even then, the mascot brought up in the article touches upon the deeper issue that the video addressed: People have become so used to the notion that we’re invisible that it’s a struggle to even get any respect, let alone educate people about who we are. I’ve heard some pretty rough stories from people dealing with hard times in 2006. Does that mean we give up? No.
While not everything is a story of tears and tissues, we have certainly endured and survived through some pretty rough times, especially in dealing with local, state, and federal policies designed to wipe us off the face of the map. The legacy of this and other policies is that we are forgotten in text books, remembered as being war-mongering (we were defending our homes and families, you see), or idolized by romanticists as being a long forgotten embodiment of the freedom that the industrialized world robbed of them (don’t forget “modern” stereotypes!). And let’s face it, when I was in high school, the most I learned from school about “Indians” was that Peter Puget and other explorers encountered us one time, and that’s it; school taught me nothing about the legacy of those who fought for us (see Ramona Bennett, Bernie Whitebear, Billy Frank, Jr., Winona LaDuke, Leonard Peltier, John Trudell, etc.), or how Isaac Stevens declared martial law back when Washington state was a territory shortly after “negotiating” treaties so settlers could barge in and grab their share of 160 acres.
Now let’s fast-forward to where we have come within the past 40 years. John Kemeny (mathematician, woot!) brought back the college’s commitment in its charter to educate Native students; while that meant something different in the late 1700s, I can say that as of now, it’s been a success. We have graduates helping their communities and making differences in federal policy in Washington, D.C., in addition to a number of budding scientists and linguists. Most importantly, we have students and alumni willing to educate people about who we are, and what all of this jumbled mess of forgotten history and misappropriated cultural means.
Move on? Certainly, and the way in which we do is by educating those who wish to learn more, and encourage anyone who wishes to broaden their own understanding to do so. If you don’t want to watch the video, fine. That choice is yours. All that I ask is that people show me the respect I deserve as a human being and quit treating my identity as a joke.
By ‘11 on Sep 20 | 4:56 pm
And I’m sure it would go over well if I went out and trademarked “JewBank,” where the “Jew” stands for “greed.” Better yet, I could make the logo depict an Orthodox practitioner, as a visual analog of synecdoche. There is no difference between the hateful practice described here and what has been done to the image of Native Americans as “savages” wearing Lakota headdresses.
By Aaron Koenig on Sep 20 | 5:31 pm
They are “complaining” so that people stop ignorantly caricaturing their culture and making it into something that their children can’t be proud of. They are doing this to try to change things. No one would ever dress up as a caricature of a Chinese person because it is OFFENSIVE.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 5:56 pm
This is the most disappointing comment board. Where are the people who can understand that its AWESOME that a group from Dartmouth is working to make a difference for something they care about.
By Anonymous on Sep 20 | 5:58 pm
Wonder if the same people complaining here are also fighting all of the comedians who relentlessly mock Southern and Christian culture… if they were fighting when Dan Savage google bombed Rick Santorum’s last name into a foul term,.
By Lizard on Sep 20 | 11:28 pm