Every year, there’s always a slew of “Indian” costumes, and plenty of thoughtless, ignorant people to use us and our cultures as a shallow dress up day. Social media on Halloween is especially bad for Indians, as you see one asshole after another, most often white, tweeting or facebooking their oh so cool gonna be an Indian for a day costumes, bristling with defensiveness over their right to appropriation, and how awful us damn Indians are for speaking out about it, that’s just bullying poor white people who aren’t doing anything wrong!
This year sees yet another celebrity who thinks Indian dress up is cool and fun:
UPDATE: Apologies proffered by Duff and Walsh. Walsh’s, um, apology, trotted out the standard “I meant no disrespect, I have nothing but admiration!” yada, yada, yada. No, you don’t have admiration, and that’s not wanted anyway. There are, of course, a number of people who are upset any apology was offered, tweets at the link. Some non-native people have also posted photos of themselves dressed up as “Indian” and have posted to #NoDAPL. As for Natives who play dress up, Dr. Keene addresses that at Native Appropriations.
This year, 2016, sees a new twist on the bigotry and appropriation. It seems some people think it’s really cool to depict those NoDAPL water protectors for what they are – lazy, shiftless, drunken injuns living on handouts from all those hard working white people:
These are Ndakotans, people we are surrounded by. I can’t say anything right now, this is one lousy way to start the day. You can read more here.