War bonnets are specifically worn by powerful, respected American Indian men with a history of valor who are leaders in their Tribal community. In other words, the only people who should be wearing war bonnets are chiefs or well-respected warriors, like Tatanka Iyotanka, Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota—not Chloe Kardashian, or the pop star Ke$ha.
Can you imagine the outrage if a celebrity was featured in scantily clad photos with a Medal of Valor or a Silver Star or the Congressional Medal of Honor that they didn’t earn? Such an inconsiderate display would be akin to the wearing of a war bonnet by someone who hasn’t earned it. This disgrace should be included in the Theft of Valor Act.
Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.
Riddick was never told what was happening. “Got to the hospital and they put me in a room and that’s all I remember, that’s all I remember,” she said. “When I woke up, I woke up with bandages on my stomach.”
Her records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. North Carolina was one of 31 states to have a government run eugenics program. By the 1960s, tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized as a result of these programs.
To read more about this story, click here. Dr. Nancy Snyderman’s full broadcast report, ‘State of Shame’, airs Monday, November 7, at 10pm/9c on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Beyond all the cultural reasons, the historical reasons, etc… how about not being dick? Is that not something we do anymore? Decide not to be dicks? You don’t have to understand why black people find blackface offensive (though I don’t get how you wouldn’t grasp that), just accept that your dumb Halloween costume shits on the evenings of a bunch of people and make a choice.
“Why can’t I wear whatever costume I want? I like them and don’t find them offensive!”
To me, this is the equivalent of:
“Why can’t I fart on anyone I want?! It’s really fun and they smell great to me!”
You can wear whatever you want. And some people are going to love your ‘hilarious’ donkey riding Mexican costume and some people will find your farts amusing. But to the rest of us, you’re an annoying shit who thinks its cool to not give a fuck about the people around you. To a Native American person just trying to hang out at a Halloween party, your Tonto costume has ruined the fun of their night.
You are that girl who talks too loudly in the theater. That guy who heckles a grade school basketball game. You are a jackass, and worse than that, your jackassery isn’t just annoying it can also be painful.
If someone tells you that what you are doing hurts them, then what you are doing hurts them. Period. It’s not about whether or not you’re ‘right’ about what’s too PC. You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t disruptive to other people. All you get to decide is whether or not you care. And in most cases, if you don’t care, congratulations, you’re a dick!
Listening to you bitch about the consequences of your lack of empathy for others gets old fast. You are free to be a jerk but don’t get pissed when someone identifies your behavior and calls you out on it.
The notion that an ”ally” is something one is rather than something one does often seems problematic to me. I understand that progressive folks want to make marginalized people feel safe around them, and that they see public self-definition as an ally as a shorthand means of doing do. But I wonder whether that identification as an ally takes something that is more of a process — the ongoing struggle to confront one’s privilege — and makes it static.
Being an ally then becomes something you are, not something you do. And when you fail, as we all inevitably do, it will be that much harder to admit your failing to yourself or others. If ”ally” is critical a part of who you are, then being called out can come to feel like an attack on your self, or like a personal accusation of dishonesty and misrepresentation.
So self-identification as an ally can set up expectations of infallibility that are unrealistic and damaging. Furthermore, we have to be aware of the possibility that our apparent desires to make others feel safe through this public self-identification are partially reflective of our own desires to be seen as good people, to distance ourselves from the “bad” members of our social groups. Thus, I think we need to examine and perhaps sometimes even resist the urge to advertise our support for others through the language of alliance.
White kids? I need y’all to listen.
We are not all Troy Davis.
This would not happen to us.
No, cork it and let that settle in for a second. This would not happen to us in this country and in this “justice” system and in this white supremacist culture that lets us think it’s the appropriate progressive response to stomp out feet about Not! Being! Racist! at this or any moment. Save your stories of unjustly accused white people, this is not the same at all. You mourn this man and you mourn the rotted soul of a nation that can allow this exact pattern of violence to carry through centuries, but do not for a second think it makes any sort of sense to co-opt this moment.
We are not all all Troy Davis.
This would not happen to us.
Hey, yeah, you there.
Listen, the thing about you saying “I don’t find it oppressive or classist” is that you are not everyone. You don’t get to decide what other people find problematic. Things don’t stop being hurtful to others just because you think they shouldn’t be hurt by it. You are the arbiter of what is and isn’t offensive.
People’s criticisms aren’t invalidated just because you — and it’s usually a person who has privilege in the area in question saying this — don’t think it’s problematic.
I’m just saying, maybe you could bring something more useful to the conversation than “well, I don’t find it offensive”.
I love it when people are like, “Oh my god, your nitpicks about race, gender, sexuality, etc. are so exhausting and stupid! Why does everyone have to have their little label? People are so demanding! They must have too much time on their hands to be worrying about this meaningless shit! Who cares if I’m not getting my cis-whateverisms right? Why should it be up to me to be sensitive? Why do I have to do all this work?”
You, as an individual, do not. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to move. You don’t have to care. You don’t have to change anything.
And when you’re dead, it won’t have mattered. The ten-thousand-year knot of human oppression will include your bones. You will have helped unravel nothing, and no fucks will be given about how still you sat in your comfortable chair.
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