s w a ggin'

Okay, it’s time for another round of “Hey! You Can’t Wear That!”

nockknock:

Picture this, one day you’re walking through some store.  Lets call it Appropriation Outfitters and you, consumer come across two items that catch your fancy:

• one is a pre-made chicken feather “100% authentic, blessed by a shaman, made in China Native American, Red Indian” headdress.  
• the other is a make your own headdress kit with primary coloured chicken feathers that are like totally 100% cruelty free and this appeals to your PETA sensibility. 

Now you, consumer decided to purchase the pre-made headdress because well, making your own is time consuming and your purchasing needs, need to be as easy on you as possible, really, it’s not like you need to earn it or anything.

You walk your headdress home and your first instinct is, “OMG I MUST TAKE PICTURES!” so you take pictures in your backyard and you’re like, man these are hot I should put them on Tumblr and tag them with Native American because that’s totally what I am right now. 

So, you walk you, your headdress and your Canon Rebel into your house in suburbia, Canadiamericanland and upload your photos first into photoshop to adjust the contrast, etc. then onto Tumblr. 

Your friends from highschool LOVE THEM, they’re like “ZOMG Mary ur so hawt in these!” and you’re like “ZOMG Kathy, I know, I’m like a real Red Indian!”

Then you get a message that’s like, “bro, this is some serious White bullshit cut it out, and let me tell you as a Native person why this is bullshit.”  When this happens there are two roads you can take, plus a hidden third option. 

• Road #1: Apologize.  Listen, and learn something.  Maybe realize those photos are offensive and maybe you don’t get it 100% but someone is saying it’s hurting them and maybe you are compassionate and you take down the photos and do some research.  Maybe become an ally, maybe you don’t.  But you realize you’ve done some wrong somewhere and you’re like “wow, guys, sorry lemme take those down.”
• Road #2: Defend yourself.  How is this wrong!  It can’t be wrong!  You are a FREE Canadamrican and under the Charter of Freedom Amendments you have your God granted right to wear whatever the fuck you want!  You don’t care if some PoCs are angry!  It’s a free country!  You’re not racist, you’re not hurting anyone.  Fuck the haters, take more photos go back to Appropriation Outfitters and buy more so all your friends can become ‘Indians’ over night. 
• Hidden third option: In this option, you create a Tumblr devoted to defending your right to wear a headdress and everyone hates you and your hamster spontaneously dies.  I asked my spirit animal and he said that the punishment for taking hidden option #3 is spontaneous hamster death of the perpetrator’s hamster.

Lets say, you, consumer decide to take option #2.  And you’re getting a lot of hate for it and you’re getting angry because all these people are harshing your mellow or some shit and you don’t get why.  What do the mean by “white privilege? I don’t have that I had to wait three years to goto Disneyland because I had to get braces!” and what is this “moniyaw bullshit? surely calling me a stupid whatever that is is reverse racism and my uncle John Smith says that reverse racism is a real thing perpetuated against White people because soon enough we are going to be the minority in our own country!”

Here is where I have to stop you consumer and tell you to take a seat, open your Apple MacBook and take a look at these links.  And when Safari crashes and you get annoyed, download Chrome and reread them:

• Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, now when you look at this one I want you to take a good look at all those women’s faces.  All of them.  I want you to sit there and realize that every single one of those women are either a mother, daughter, sister, auntie, friend, etc. and sometimes they are all of these things.  I want you to sit there and think about your mother, sister, auntie, cousin, even grandmother and I want you think about what it would feel like if they went missing and no one cared.  Now I want you to stop, and think about what it feels like when these women look like your family and what it feels like when they go missing, because people don’t care.  And everytime you put on that headdress and take photos in your backyard for fun, it causes people to care even less because you are contributing to the erasure of Native people as real human beings and making them a character in a colonial play that demeans and dehumanizes them.  Now you don’t have to understand this 100% but you have to understand enough to get that what you are doing is helping those women and future Aboriginal women disappear. 
• Here is Ardienne K of Native Appropriations explaining why wearing a hipster headdress is wrong.  I want you to read this, stop, scroll to the top then read it again.  Then I want you to goto facebook and like her page so every other day you get a reminder why it’s wrong. 
• Lastly, here is Dr. Pamela Palmater explaining the Canadian genocide.  I want you to re read this, print it out, give it your family and your friends then I want you to take off your headdress, set it aside and take down your photos.  Because, hopefully, you have just realized you have helped with furthering the genocide against Indigenous peoples in the Americas.